Massacre

Massacre is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He primarily appears in Spider-Man related publications. The character is responsible for the murder of Ashley Kafka, a supporting character in various Spider-Man comic books and adapted media. Publication history The character's first appearance was in The Amazing Spider-Man #655 (published April 2011), during the Big Time storyline and was created by Dan Slott and Marcos Martin. The character also appeared in the following issue. Massacre would go on to make his return in the fourth issue of the Superior Spider-Man series.<ref>The Superior Spider-Man #4 April 2013</ref> He was killed by the eponymous character in the next issue of that series, before being "reanimated" by Ben Reilly in a cloned body (with his soul intact) during Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy, being one of the few reanimated to survive the event. Fictional character biography Marcus Lyman was an ordinary man until a failed assassination attempt nearly claimed his life. He and his wife Judy Lyman were successful traders for a local Wall Street firm in New York City until an unhappy client planted a car bomb on their vehicle. The bomb killed Judy Lyman but Marcus survived with a piece of shrapnel from the explosion stuck in his forehead, penetrating his brain. The shrapnel was successfully removed but not without consequence: the damage had caused certain connections in Lyman's brain to no longer function. As a result, he lost his ability to feel emotion. He was sent to the Ravencroft Institute For The Criminally Insane, where he was treated by Dr. Ashley Kafka. Dr. Kafka was disturbed by Lyman and she found that there was nothing she could do to help his mental state, advising that he be held under observation indefinitely. Now calling himself "Massacre", Marcus Lyman escaped the Ravencroft Institute and began kidnapping hostages. He held the hostages in a building, killing one of them to prove that he was willing to do so. The police began attempting negotiations with Massacre. Having temporarily lost his Spider-sense, Spider-Man arrived on the crime scene in an attempt to free the hostages, but was barely able to do so due to Massacre's heavy artillery. Massacre managed to escaped the scene, though not before Spider-Man secretly placed a Spider Tracer on him.