Splice was such a do-nothing villain, and a sign of the kind of trouble Wonder Man's solo series was in when THIS was the kind of original villain for his book. And like I said here, Simon has a lot of potential as a character and could easily work as a solo hero, though he plays better off of other heroes.Jabroniville wrote: ↑Sat May 30, 2020 2:52 am
SPLICE (Real Name Unknown)
Created By: Gerard Jones & Jeff Johnson
First Appearance: Wonder Man #4 (Dec. 1991)
Role: Jobber Villain
PL 9 (118), PL 10 (118) to Wonder Man & Other Ionic Types
But Splice was just a kind of cheeky way to have a Hollywood villain, whose only real chance against Simon was due to Ionic Dampening grenades. Beyond that he's the kind of generic ninja type I would expect Shang Chi or Iron Fist to just walk all over.
The rest of the villains weren't much better. Enchantress was solid, tying back to a Marvel Comics Presents storyline where she tried to use Simon to kill several Avengers and to turn Simon into a god, only for Simon to reject her. She could have made for an interesting foil long term, but she only showed up for one story.
Beyond that, Simon got saddled with losers like Splice and RAMPAGE of all people, a third rate Power Armor guy who really shouldn't have been a challenge to Simon at all. I appreciate them breaking out older villains to re-use them, but Rampage? A mostly forgotten Champions villain? Maybe it could have worked if it had been handled better.
His big villain was an asian crime boss named Lotus who had some mind control powers and apparently served Mephisto,and was part of a long, stupid storyline involving Simon's powers destabilizing, empowering his quirky neighbors into The Crazy 8, Mephisto and Blackheart trying to claim Simon's soul, etc. It was a hot mess that Busiek promptly retconned in a Wonder Man/Beast mini-series.
Ideally, Simon should have tried to be a bit more fun, go with the redemption angle, maybe have the Enchantress try to make his life miserable for rejecting her, include some of his older enemies like Goliath or Arkon, etc. A fun plot line would have been the idea of someone trying to use the Ionic Energizer process to create new superhumans, but since it was designed for Simon in mind, the results wind up being all over the place. It would have been a fun way to create some new villains tied to Simon's past.
Bringing back Count Nefaria (he was dead at the time) as an opponent Simon and Iron Man could work against could have been fun as well, possibly even the Count being the guy behind the Ionic Power Outbreak as he tries to correct some imbalance in his system.
Have Simon go up against some mercenary villains as unscrupulous people in Hollywood try to tank Simon's career, hiring the Juggernaut to kill him or something similar.
In short, ANYTHING but create a loser like Splice here.