MacDonald "Mac" Gargan is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko,[2] the character first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #19 (December 1964).[3] Mac Gargan is a recurring antagonist of the superhero Peter Parker / Spider-Man.[4] He debuted as a private investigator hired by J. Jonah Jameson to learn how Peter Parker took pictures of Spider-Man.[5] In the following issue, Jameson decided to turn Gargan into a deadly adversary for Spider-Man through a barely-tested procedure, which left Gargan with an irremovable scorpion-themed armor and the predatory instincts of the arachnid. Driven insane by his mutation, Gargan instead turned to a life of crime as the Scorpion, and went on to menace both Spider-Man and Jameson, whom he held responsible for his transformation. Since then, having finally removed the armor, Gargan has also served as the third host of the Venom symbiote,[6] and a member of the Dark Avengers as Spider-Man,[7] but eventually returned to his Scorpion alias as it kept him alive due to the strain both the neural-armors and symbiote put on his body. Since his original introduction during the Silver Age of Comic Books, the character has been featured in various other Marvel-licensed products, including feature films, television series, video games, and merchandise. The character made his live-action debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), portrayed by Michael Mando.