Hello again and welcome to another edition of the WORST CHARACTERS IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE. They make my job so easy. Let’s see what MARVEL-OUS (haha!) treat we have today.

GYPSY MOTH –

Real Name: Sybil Dvorak
Occupation: Socialite, cult leader
Identity: Secret
Legal Status: Naturalized citizen of the United States with no criminal record
Other Aliases: None
Place of Birth: Foscani, Rumania
Marital Status: Widow
Known Relatives: Jason Reed (husband, deceased)
Group Affiliation: None
Base of Operations: Los Angeles, California
First Appearance: SPIDER-WOMAN #10

Gypsy Moth is a Spider-Woman villain, which I suppose explains why she sucks so hard. Under “Occupation” she’s listed as “Socialite, Cult Leader”. So basically she’s L. Ron Hubbard if he was a she with super powers. I can’t wait to find out more.

History: Sybil Dvorak is a mutant whose powers manifested themselves while she was a child. Raised by gypsies, she had spent much time alone nurturing and focusing her mental abilities. In her late teens, she met a handsome middle-aged American actor named Jason Reed who was starring in a foreign-financed remake of the movie Dracula. Seduced by him, she agreed to accompany him to his Hollywood home as his mistress. The glamour and excitement of being in America in love with a wealthy actor soon faded when Reed spent increasingly more time away from home. Her citizenship papers not yet processed, and still not speaking English fluently, Dvorak felt like a prisoner in the actor’s home. She soon began to suspect that Reed was having affairs with other Hollywood starlets. One night she used her powers to weave herself wings and a disguise, and she began to scour the haunts of the rich and famous in search of her errant lover. The sight of social gatherings she could never be part of provoked her to use her powers to prey upon the socialites, an activity which brought her into conflict with the original Spider-Woman. Eventually, Dvorak managed to get her American citizenship and an inclusion in Reed’s will. Soon afterward, Jason Reed died of an obstructed blood vessel in his heart, and Dvorak inherited his home and wealth. She used it all to start a hedonistic cult of drugs and decadence that worshiped her as their queen.

There are so many things wrong with that paragraph that I don’t know where to begin. First of all, her name is Sybil, and I think we can all agree that Sybil is an idiots name. And that’s just the start. She was raised by gypsies? Who the fuck is raised by gypsies? I mean, it explains the name, at least. Oh, and that must be why she calls herself Gypsy Moth! Haha, nice.

Note that it’s in her “late” teens that she started getting knocked off by an American actor. I guess that’s important, because otherwise it’s pedophilia. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. So she moves to L.A., and then goes insane when her jackass husband starts screwing around. Not that I can blame the guy. Everyone knows foreigners have poor hygiene. Especially gypsy foreigners.

The coup de grace is clearly when her husband dies, and she starts a “hedonistic cult of drugs and decadence that worshiped her as their queen”. That is just fantastic. I mean, what the hell else do you do in that situation? Go back to gypsyland? Screw that.

Let’s see the details of her super powers. I’m sure they’re gonna be amazing.

Known Superhuman Powers: Gypsy Moth possesses the mental ability of psychokinesis, the power to manipulate materials and objects with her mind. Because all matter has a powerful and specific “texture” to her mind, she prefers to only manipulate “soft” substances like fibers and other malleable, yielding substances. (This preference extends to the point of her having a strong aversion to mentally touching anything hard or solid.) Thus she confines her manipulation to such substances as fabrics (both organic and synthetic) and organic tissue such as that of plants or animals.

The maximum amount of material she can manipulate at once is equivalent to the amount of weight she can lift physically, about 120 pounds. She is able to make such gross movements as yanking 120 pounds of cloth across a room all at once or such fine movements as threading a needle from across the room. She is able to totally reweave clothing from one body to another hundreds of times faster than any sewing machine. She is able to constrict her foes by their own clothing and hair, or even control their gross movements (providing their clothes are durable enough). Furthermore, she can even control living organic tissue, causing muscles to cramp, skin to break, or blood vessels to burst or contract. She can even interweave substances in very subtle, but cohesive ways. She often interweaves silken wings with the skin tissue of her own back. The range of her influence is about fifty feet.

Gypsy Moth is able to use her psychokinetic powers for levitation. Since she is able to lift her own weight, she is able to lift into the air her own body and clothing. By concentration, she is able to move through the air as if she were swimming. Gypsy Moth is able to fly at a top speed of about 20 miles per hour for periods of time up to a half hour before tiring from the mental exertion. Her wings are strictly ornamental, not functional. Because of her weight limit, she is unable to carry anyone else aloft. She can, however, levitate another person, provided he or she weighs less than 120 pounds.

Psychokinesis sounds amazingly like telekinesis, but crazier. So basically, she can manipulate objects with her mind, but conveniently prefers to deal with flexible textures like hair. So she has magic hair powers. Why would something like that be limited to how much she can physically lift? Does that make even the remotest amount of sense?

This is easily one of the most pathetic villains I’ve ever heard of. The wings she wears aren’t actually used for anything, other than an excuse to add “Moth” to her name. He powers aren’t moth like in any way. Though I’m not sure what moth powers would be like, so maybe I’m wrong there. It’s not likely, but there’s a first time for everything. But you would expect moth powers to follow more along the lines of being irresistibly attracted to bright lights. I guess that’s a hard concept to base a villain around.

Of course, like all Marvel characters this one wouldn’t be allowed to simply fade away. She was revamped during the first volume of “Thunderbolts”, with the same abilities but a skimpy new outfit and, amazingly, an even more ridiculous name.

Meet Skein

Tits! You can tell she’s hardcore cuz she’s not wearing a fucking shirt. Anyway, Gypsy Moth A.K.A. Skein is still hanging round the Marvel U. These days she’s a part of the initiative, much like every other Z level character that Marvel doesn’t have the balls to outright get rid of. Skein is part of the “Woman Warriors”, the Delaware branch of the Initiative.

wait, aren't they all supposed to be women?

And that wraps it up for me, and another edition of THE WORST CHARACTERS IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE. We’ll be back with yet another installment next Thursday.