10 Times Spider-Man Has Been Outwitted

Spider-Man's secret identity - and how his villains have tried to deduce said identity - have been key aspects of several Spider-Man storylines over the years.

But in Spider-Man's debut, written in 1963 by Stan Lee and pencilled by Steve Ditko and Sol Brodsky, a villain outwitted Spider-Man in a truly unique way - by using his anonymity against him. Testing our your hero's commitment to masked heroism, Amazing Spider-Man #1 marked the appearance of his first villain - The Chameleon.

Dmitri Smerdyakov, half-brother of Sergei Kravinoff (AKA Kraven the hunter!), emigrated to the US from Russia around the time Spider-Man was first starting out. By this point, Dmitri had already invented his Chameleon persona, and uses it for the first time to steal missile defense plans from the Lark Building.

Seizing his chance to incriminate the young hero, Chameleon returns to the Lark Building disguised as Spider-Man, then lures the web-slinger to the same spot with the promise of a job offer. Then, when Spider-Man arrives, Chameleon takes off - leaving Spider-Man the only culprit. While Spider-Man does defeat Chameleon, the police then mistake Spider-Man for the imposter, firing on him and forcing him to flee.