Origin

The Rhino was initially Aleksei Sytsevich, a poor immigrant from Russia who was desperate to pay for the rest of his family to come to the United States. With little education and no real skills, the only paying jobs he could get were using his impressive strength and musculature as an enforcer for various criminal organizations. One day he was contacted by some Eastern Bloc agents, who offered him a vast sum of money for participating in an incredible experiment. Sytsevich agreed, and was subjected to intensive chemical and radioactive treatment, which bonded a super-strong polymer to his skin and greatly augmented his strength and speed. He was given the code name "Rhino," and was sent to work as a super-assassin.

Rhino's first job was to capture Colonel John Jameson for his military secrets. Spider-Man defeated the Rhino, leading to the supervillain's arrest. After escaping from prison, Rhino has taken on many other jobs over the years, and although he still hates Spider-Man and would love to crush him, he is professional enough not to let personal feelings distract him from a paying job.

Cover to The Amazing Spider-Man #41. The first appearance of Rhino. Art by John Romita, Sr.

Cover to The Amazing Spider-Man #41. The first appearance of Rhino. Art by John Romita, Sr.

Physically, he is one of Spider-Man's strongest foes with his favored attack being ramming into a target with a sustained charge. He is also not very bright, and thus not too difficult for the wall-crawler to beat.

The Rhino has often tangled with The Incredible Hulk as well. He was significantly outmatched by the Hulk in terms of brute force, but the level of superhuman strength he does have, coupled with his invulnerability, has always made him a good adversary.

Recently, as portrayed in the story Flowers for Rhino, he decided to seek help to improve his mind the same way his body had been improved: through science. He sought out a scientist who had an experimental treatment to increase his intelligence. To his surprise the treatment actually worked and he was able to defeat Spider-Man, who had always outsmarted him in the past. Next, he took over the majority of the criminal operations in the city and started a law suit against Spider-Man that prevented the hero coming within 500 yards of him. However, his intelligence continued to increase exponentially and, with no intellectual competition, he began to find life boring; he even rewrote "Hamlet" because he found the writing style sloppy, and in his depression pointed out to Spider-Man that he was able to deduce Spider-Man was Peter Parker through a simple equation that could give him the identities of any costumed hero. When he began to approach omniscience he worried that such high intelligence would drive him insane so, although he briefly contemplated suicide, he elected to have the process reversed, actually making himself "a little MORE stupid than [he] used to be... Just to be on the safe side." Whether this meant that he no longer remembers Spider-Man's identity was unknown, but is now a moot point due to Spider-Man unmasking during the Civil War crossover.

As of now he has been attacked by the Punisher and was left in less than good condition. He, later, showed up for the wake of the dead supervillain Stilt-Man, tussling with Armadillo, causing a brawl to break out that was stopped by Spider-Man. The wake was later bombed by the Punisher, who also posed as the bartender and poisoned the villains. Most of the attendees, the Rhino included, survived, and were treated for third-degree burns, in addition to having their stomachs pumped.

Rhino has apparently survived the explosion, though, as he's seen humiliating Deadpool by shrinking him via Pym Particles, gluing his head to a keychain (the same thing Deadpool had done to him during a previous encounter), then made him ride a urinal cake. The Rhino was satisfied by what he had done and the two parted ways... only to have Deadpool turn around and defeat the villain while still small.

Recently, Rhino has been robbing banks with two accomplices, which caught the attention of the Punisher. In their hideout, the punisher kills the accomplice and fired a rocket launcher to Rhino, but Spider-Man saved him. They are both incapacitated with a tranquillizer dart fired by Alyosha Kravinoff and then put them into zoo of animal-themed superhumans along with Vulture and Tiger Shark. The Punisher then defeated Kraven and after recalling the time that he killed some innocent people, he let Rhino go. Afterwards, Rhino gave a donation to the widow of his accomplice who were killed by the Punisher because he felt sorry about it.

Powers and Abilities

As a result of being bonded to a powerful polymer suit, as well as being innately powerful, the Rhino possesses tremendous physical strength. He also has heightened levels of speed, stamina, and a high degree of resistance to physical injury. The Rhino's costume renders him highly resistant to conventional injury, withstanding high caliber bullets, temperature extremes, and great impacts without injury.

Originally the source of the Rhino's powers was his costume which resembles a rhinoceros, which was once permanently attached. Eventually, the abilities of the costume merged with the body of the wearer. He has been physically improved over the years by several other villains.

However, despite his physical prowess, Rhino is not very intelligent, and can easily be outsmarted by less powerful beings, such as notably Spider-Man

Alternate Versions

Ultimate Universe (Earth-1610)

Ultimate Rhino (R.H.I.N.O.), has increased power from the suit that the old Rhino stole from the U.S. Military.

Using the R.H.I.N.O. suit’s incredible strength, the Rhino robbed a Manhattan bank, charging the vault head-first, destroying it. He then rampaged through a busy street to make his escape, destroying anything in his path, including police cars, with ease. While Spider-Man raced to the scene, Iron Man arrived, stopped the Rhino’s assault and captured him.

Sometime later, the Rhino rampaged through the Brooklyn Naval Yard, battling the police and Spider-Man, who seemed to be more of an annoyance than a threat, constantly evading the Rhino’s clumsy blows. After knocking Spider-Man clear into an office building, the Rhino was confronted by the U.S. Army, who were hoping to retrieve his experimental armor.

Spider-Man used the distraction to sneak up on the Rhino and rip his armor open, sabotaging its internal circuitry and knocking him out. The Rhino was taken into military custody.

Marvel Zombies (Earth-2149)

Rhino is one of the super-beings that attempted to devour Galactus. After the other zombies have finished eating Galactus, the zombie Hulk said that he tore off Rhino's head and ate it. He commented that it "tasted terrible".

House of M (Earth-58163)

When Spider-Man has become a popular mutant in the mutant community, Rhino was hired to be his bodyguard, although Peter thinks he really isn't needed. It was him that unmasked the Green Goblin, revealing to the public a delusional Peter.

Earth-9939

In this reality, Rhino is a member of the Avengers who traveled in time to stop Charnel. He was later killed in action.

Cartoons

The Rhino's current appearance is in an episode of

"The Spectacular Spider-Man" series The episode rein acts Alex O'Hirns transformation into the Rhino giving him almost herculean strength and because of this factor he gave Spider-Man quite a hard time but because his suit is permanently fashioned over his skin except for his face all the sweat from his body has to exit through the face. since Spider-Man discovered this weakness Spider-Man lured him into

a sewer and tricked him into punching through walls

releasing steam everywhere overwhelmed by the perspiration he passed out thus the invincible RHINO is defeated.