Chameleon (comics) - Fictional Character Biography

Fictional Character Biography

The Chameleon was born a Soviet citizen named Dmitri Smerdyakov. In his youth, he was a servant and half-brother to Kraven the Hunter, Sergei Kravinoff, and eventually became a minor associate to one Gustav Fiers. Although Dmitri and Sergei were friends, Sergei was often abusive to Smerdyakov, leading to a combination of admiration and resentment towards Kravinoff. Eventually, Smerdyakov emigrated to the United States of America. As he had made a talent for himself during his youth, impressing his brother by impersonating friends and neighbors, he assumed an even more impressive disguise: the identity of the Chameleon. During his first known criminal outing, he impersonated Spider-Man, though he was exposed and arrested. Shortly afterward, Kravinoff, now Kraven the Hunter, himself came to America, and the Chameleon set his old associate's sights on Spider-Man. Both men became long-time enemies of Spider-Man, part of his primary rogues' gallery.

The Chameleon inspired Kraven the Hunter to begin hunting Spider-Man, inviting Kraven to dispose of the hero. With Kraven, the Chameleon battled Iron Man and then confronted the Hulk. At one point, the Chameleon disguised himself as Henry Pym, and robbed Pym's laboratory for documents to combat Virus Nine. While delivering the documents and a shrunken Hulk to HYDRA, he was encountered and defeated by the real Pym as Ant-Man. The Chameleon disguised himself as the Torpedo and battled Daredevil.

When Kraven the Hunter committed suicide, the Chameleon became obsessed with making Spider-Man suffer for his failure to prevent Kraven from killing himself. He ingested a serum which made his face permanently featureless and malleable. He attempted to kidnap America's leading expert on superconductors, but was thwarted by Spider-Man. He then kidnapped J. Jonah Jameson. He approached the Maggia for support to become New York's new crime lord, and formed an alliance with Hammerhead. Disguised as a scientist, the Chameleon temporarily removed Spider-Man's powers. He allied himself with the Femme Fatales, Scorpion, and Tarantula to eliminate Spider-Man and the Black Cat, but escaped when his plan failed.

The Chameleon's most ambitious play against Spider-Man happened when he formed an alliance with Harry Osborn, the second Green Goblin. Before Harry's death, he told Chameleon Spider-Man's secret identity could be found through Peter Parker, to construct androids of Peter Parker's (Spider-Man) parents (Chameleon later admitted that he went through with the plot to confirm once and for all that Peter was Spider-Man). The plan led to a psychotic breakdown for both Spider-Man and Chameleon, Spider-Man briefly renouncing his civilian identity while Chameleon is sent to Ravencroft Asylum. However, when Doctor Ashley Kafka sneaks him into a basement to try to continue treating him in the belief that he was close to a breakthrough when the court were preparing to put him on trial, Chameleon escaped and attempted to convince Spider-Man that he was actually a hallucinating writer who had suffered a mental breakdown after his daughter's death in a car accident, but Peter managed to break through this deception due to his strength of will. Chameleon's confirmation of Spider-Man's secret identity led him to try to attack Spider-Man through his family and friends, but this effort met with rather dismal results when Mary Jane Watson subdued him with a baseball bat. Somewhere in between this and subsequent appearances, he appeared to have been destroyed by his nephew, Alyosha Kravinoff (Alyosha later threw a Chameleon mask at Spider-Man's feet, referring to it as 'That weakling, Dmitri'), but apparently recovered, waking in a hospital.

After tricking Spider-Man to the bridge where his first love Gwen Stacy died, on the pretext of having kidnapped his wife, he declared his own loneliness and love for Peter. When Peter laughed out of surprise, he threw himself off the bridge. He reappeared some time later in a mental institution, completely incapacitated, believing himself to be Sergei Kravinoff rather than Dmitri Smerdyakov. He later reappeared in his Chameleon identity as part of the Sinister Twelve villain team organized by the Green Goblin.