When J. Jonah Jameson first hired Peter Parker, he was amazed at how he managed to obtain pictures of Spider-Man. He hired private investigatorMac Gargan to look into this. When J. Jonah Jameson saw an article about inducing animal mutations into humans, he visited the scientist that established this experiment: Dr. Farley Stillwell. Jameson first thought Stillwell was a crackpot, but later saw him as an opportunity to take down Spider-Man. When he first went to see Dr. Stillwell in his lab, Jameson had him experiment on Gargan. Stillwell gave Gargan a high-tech scorpion-suit, and the Scorpion was born. Shortly after the experiment, Stillwell ran some tests and found that his experiment wasn't a true success. He discovered that Scorpion would lose his sanity as he got stronger. Creating an antidote, Stillwell headed to where Spider-Man was fighting the Scorpion. Upon learning the side effects of the formula from Stillwell, Scorpion didn't want to lose his powers and climbed up a building. Stillwell went up after him and lost his grip. As he fell, Dr. Stillwell threw the serum at Gargan in a vain attempt to cure him. He missed and fell to his death.
Legacy
It was later revealed that he had a brother named Harlan Stillwell who used the experiment to create the Human Fly after being held at gunpoint by Richard Deacon. After Richard became the Human Fly, he shot Harlan. The Stillwell brothers' technology would also later be used to give superpowers to the Answer, and the fourth Vulture.
Dr. Farley Stillwell appears in the 1960s Spider-Man episode "Never Step on a Scorpion", voiced by Tom Harvey.
An episode of The Amazing Spider-Man titled "Wolfpack" features a cameo from Dr. Stillwell. This is confirmed to be the character by his name tag.
Dr. Farley Stillwell appears in the 1990sSpider-Man episode "Sting of the Scorpion", voiced by Michael Rye. J. Jonah Jameson hired him to turn Mac Gargan into the Scorpion. When Gargan later wanted Stillwell to restore him to his former self, Stillwell ended up knocked out and hospitalized. In a flashback in "Make a Wish", Stillwell was the scientist that led the experiment involving neogenic research, an accident during this enabled Peter Parker to become Spider-Man. In "The Final Nightmare," Stillwell was abducted from the hospital by the Scorpion who took him to the laboratory where Spider-Man, Dr. Curt Connors, and Vulture were. While a fight ensued between Spider-Man, Vulture, and Scorpion, Stillwell planned to destroy the Neogenic Recombinator. His motivations were to make sure that monsters like the Scorpion were never created again. Connors tried to intervene saying that it would help cure him. When Stillwell asks him what it would cure him of, Connors turned into the Lizard and attacked. Spider-Man took down Lizard as Stillwell overloaded the Recombinator's transfomer causing it to explode. Stillwell later explains to Connors that neogenic research is too dangerous and states that its secrets will stay with him forever. He then vows to disappear, never to be seen again.
Video games
An evil female version of Dr. Farley Stillwell appears in the Spider-Man 3 movie game. In the game, she is head of MechaBioCon and is revealed to have captured Scorpion, and has been using him as a subject for military cybernetics and mind control. She first uses him to break the Rhino out of a prison truck. After Spider-Man defeats the Scorpion at a bridge and frees him from Stillwell's control, he vows revenge and asks Spidey for help. After Spider-Man and Scorpion defeat the Rhino at MechaBioCon, Scorpion goes after Stillwell who tries to shoot him. Scorpion smacks the gun away and attempts to kills her when he learns that she can't reverse what she did to him, but Spider-Man and Dr. Jessica Andrews plead with him not to. Scorpion listens and escapes out the window, and Stillwell is webbed up by Spider-Man and later arrested.
Stillwell is mentioned, though not by name, in Marvel's Spider-Man. In an episode of "Just the Facts with J. Jonah Jameson", Jameson blames Stillwell for creating the Scorpion even though he paid for the experiment, arguing that he couldn't have known the scientist's intentions and accusing him of lacking ethics.
