Marvel Reveals Official Sinister Six Replacement With Brand New Supervillain Team

Warning! The following contains SPOILERS for the Amazing Spider-Man #1000 special guest anniversary story “The Gesture.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find a Marvel superhero who has a better rogues’ gallery of villains than Spider-Man. Take a look at Joe Kelly’s Amazing Spider-Man run alone; Rhino, Itsy Bitsy, Hobgoblin, Hellgate, Black Dwarf, Torment, Spore, Vulture, Electro, and Ravage, for instance, run the whole gamut.

Spider-Man has so many enemies, in fact, that they routinely group together in an effort to finally best him. This usually results in teams of six that are referred to as Marvel Comics’ Sinister Six, which has taken many forms and featured a ton of different supervillains. One of the wall-crawler’s best new stories, however, has pared the Sinister Six down to only a few antagonists and given them a name that’s befitting of how Spider-Man perceives them.

Marvel Officially Unveils The Executioners

The “Executioners,” as they call themselves, appear in Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen, Marte Gracia, and Joe Caramagna’s “The Gesture,” a special guest anniversary story in The Amazing Spider-Man #1000. Spider-Man, however, says that they’re the Not-So-Sinister Six, dubbing them the “Terribly Terrible Three.”

This supervillain team consists of White Rabbit (whom Spider-Man prefers to call “Murder Bunny”), Firebrand (whom Spider-Man mocks for being one of countless fire-based superpowered characters), and Basilisk (whom Spider-Man says is the only memorable individual of the bunch). Even if it’s not an iteration of the Sinister Six that’s meant to be regarded with any sincerity, the Executioners are a neat and quirky team that would be fun to see more of.

The Executioners are proof that literally any villain could ally with another to create a compelling team, and it’s perhaps how different they each are that makes their composition so interesting. They’re also far more endearing than a group of iconic Spider-Man villains joining forces because they’re all C-list or B-list, at best.

Furthermore, The Superior Foes of Spider-Man demonstrated the monumental value of such a team, and how there’s arguably a lot more delicious ore to excavate from characters who aren’t so demanding of high stakes or an epic universe-wide Marvel crossover event.

Will We Ever See Spider-Man’s Terrible Three Again?

They’d seem like they’re no match for Spider-Man, considering how swiftly he defeats the trio and ensnares them in web cocoons, if not for how tattered his costume is when the dust settles. If the Executioners came back for a rematch and were more coordinated, or had more villains accompany them to fully flesh out a brand-new Sinister Six team, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they’d get a good lick in.

Anyway, this story doesn’t necessarily take place in any particular Marvel era or continuity, and the Executioners appearing here doesn’t automatically guarantee that they’ll appear anywhere else as a crew who has bonded over their mutual hatred for Spider-Man, either. If they don’t ever make an appearance beyond The Amazing Spider-Man #1000, the Executioners being in such a remarkable milestone issue’s special guest anniversary story for Marvel is not a bad way to carve out their legacy.

The Amazing Spider-Man #1000 is out now.