Electro appeared in Marvel Comics called Amazing Spider-Man.
Maxwell Dillon was born in Endicott, New York, the son of Jonathan and Anita Dillon. As a child, Max often moved from one town to the next due to his father Jonathan's difficulty in holding down steady employment. One day Jonathan Dillon announced he was running off with another woman and left Anita and Maxwell to fend for themselves. This resulted in Anita becoming overprotective of her son. After Maxwell graduated high school, he announced his plans to go to the university to pursue a degree in electrical engineering. Anita, not wanting her son to become a failure like his father, lied that he was rejected from college. Instead, she suggested he find work at the local electric company, which Maxwell pursued instead, getting a job as a lineman.
When Maxwell was 24 years old, his mother had a heart attack and died soon thereafter. Maxwell found a steady job with the electric company, but his income was limited. He soon started dating a woman named Norma Lynn, who was a billing clerk at the electric company, and they eventually married. While Maxwell did not want a woman like his mother, he found the opposite problem in Norma. She complained that she wanted a stable household with a good earner and felt that Maxwell's inability to abandon his lineman's job for greener pastures was a liability. Soon she ran off with an engineer who could provide a life for her that Maxwell could not. The repeat of his parents' failed relationship in his own life caused Maxwell to resolve to find a new woman. However, this would set events in motion that would soon culminate in a criminal career. Dillon resolved to find himself a trophy wife whom he could control with money and would probably not stray as did Norma, lest she be cut off. This mixture of pride and lust added a third deadly sin to Dillon's attitude, greed, and he sought to find any way to stop "treading water" in life.
One day another lineman got in trouble and Dillon agreed to save him, but only after the coworker would expressly remark to the electric company about Dillon's heroism, which would auger well for his chances of getting promoted. However, a freak lightning storm hit and caused the lineman in distress to lose his balance and fall to his death. In the process Max Dillon gained superpowers when he was struck by lightning while in contact with power lines still connected to their spool. The unusually configured magnetic field generated by the wound spool of cable and live, high-tension wires induced a body-wide mutagenic change to his nervous system. Dillon found himself transformed into a living electrical capacitor, powered by the micro-fine rhythmic muscle contractions that normally regulate body temperature.
Generally, Dillon's criminal actions were governed by his selfish love of money. Adopting the gaudy garb of a so-called super-villain, the deranged Dillon sought to use his newfound power for personal gain. Electro's first and most frequent nemesis was the wisecracking, web-slinging super hero known as Spider-Man. The Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson was convinced that Spider-Man and Electro were the same man, until Spidey defeated Electro by wearing rubber gloves and shoes. He next battled Daredevil when he attempted to break in the Baxter Building, headquarters of the Fantastic Four.
Unable to best the wall-crawler on his own, Electro often sought strength in numbers. Early in his career, he and five other members of Spider-Man's rogues gallery united under the leadership of Doctor Octopus - brilliant, respected scientist turned tentacled terror. The inaugural incarnation of the Sinister Six also included the shifty Sandman; the illusion-casting Mysterio; the high-flying, lowdown Vulture; and Kraven the Hunter. The villains' master plan: Pummel the wall-crawler one by one until one of them would manage to defeat him. The outcome: Spidey 6, bad guys 0.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Electrostatic Energy Generation: Electro possessed the ability to bodily generate electrostatic energy which he could release or harness for a number of effects. He was powered by the micro-fine rhythmic muscle contractions that normally regulate body temperature. His body could generate electricity at a rate of about 10,000 volts per minute, up to his maximum storage capacity of 10,000,000 volts. At that point, his body automatically stopped producing electricity. As he expended his electrostatic energy, his body automatically began to recharge the stores. Electro could mentally control the amount of electricity he discharges, anywhere from a single volt to his full 10,000,000-volt charge at once. At ten to thirty feet, his maximum charge was more than enough to kill a man. Electro could also use his body as a transformer, touching an outside power source (such as a generator) and channeling it through his body for use. The amount of electricity he could transform above his body's maximum storage capacity is unknown. Electro can employ his electrostatic energy in a number of ways:
- Lightning Bolt Projection: The simplest manifestation was the emission of a lightning-like electric arc from his fingertips, which could propagate through air or other conducting mediums. This discharge, whose total voltage can be regulated within certain limits, travelled at the speed of lightning, about 150,000 feet per second. The course of the electrostatic bolt, like lightning, did not always follow a straight line since it could be influenced by conducting substances like metal or other electrical fields. If his target was not grounded, his electrostatic bolt would have had little effect. The maximum effective range of his bolts was about 100 feet.
- Electromagnetic Propulsion via Electrical Lines and Bridges: Electro could propel himself along the accompanying magnetic lines of force in objects that have great electrical potential, such as high-tension electrical lines. He generated light, eddying electrical fields around his legs, which developed an intense, opposing magnetic field that could support him above the electric cable's magnetic field. By creating imbalances in his field, he could ride along on magnetic ripples at speeds of up to 140 miles per hour, the maximum speed at which he could still breathe unaided. He could sometimes create electrostatic bridges to traverse upon, although the expenditure of energy is enormous. To a limited degree, he could also mimic Spider-Man's wall-crawling ability, using his electromagnetic field to become attracted to the fields of iron bars in buildings.
- Electrical Detection: Electro's electrical powers also granted him certain sensory and manipulative abilities. By "feeling" the course of electricity through the circuitry of any electrically powered device, Electro could override the system and make the device obey his mental commands. Electro could disconnect alarm systems, control computers in a limited way, or overload any electrically controlled system that was insufficiently shielded.
- Electrocution: The electric flux of Electro's skin was such that when his electric charge was at a maximum, a person touching him was in danger of being electrocuted.
- Recharging: By using an external electrical power source to recharge his body's energy reserves, he could expend electrical energy indefinitely without diminishing his personal reserves.
- Electrical Conversion into Enhanced Physical Attributions: The electricity coursing through his altered body augmented his strength, speed, and recuperative powers. When fully charged, Electro was able to lift (press) about 500 pounds.
- Metal Ionization: Electro was taught by Doctor Octopus during a stint in prison that he could ionize metals.
- Disruption of Wall-Crawling Abilities: Electro's powers also can disrupt Spider-Man's electrostatic ability to cling to walls.
- Localized Electromagnetic Storms: Electro once defeated the Invisible Woman when he created a localized electromagnetic storm. This allowed him to carbonize the air around her and it imprisoned her in a sheath of rock-hard electro carbon atoms. Effectively making a statue out of her.
- Electromagnetic Manipulation: An experimental procedure temporarily heightened his powers, allowing Electro to store and absorb a seemingly limitless amount of electricity. He could fly by generating a massive field of electricity which could propel him through the air. He also seemed to gain the power of magnetokinesis to a certain degree, allowing him to manipulate magnetic fields and move objects in a manner similar to that of Magneto, and could overcome his old weakness to water by using the electromagnetic fields around him to vaporize water before it could touch him. He was able to defeat Nate Grey by manipulating the bio-electric currents in the human brain to turn Nate's own psionic powers against him and do the same to make Spider-Man beg. Presumably, had he further explored the implications of this power, he would have been able to control people's entire bodies this way as well, and might have been able to control machines in a similar way. He was also able to painfully paralyze anyone by overcharging their synapses' bio-electrical transmissions. However, Electro somehow seems to have lost these new abilities after he threw himself into the Hudson River, resulting in an explosion.
- Immunity to Electricity: Electro's body was immune to the effects of its electricity and that of other sources as well. Hence, Electro could not be electrocuted no matter how great the voltage.
- Charging: Electro could charge himself up to reach high maximum voltage. Here he could grow in height to an enormous humanoid looking creature made up of nothing but electricity.