Trapster

Origin

Paste Pot Pete is one of the first supervillains who became active during the "Silver Age" of Marvel Comics.

Peter Petruski was born in  Gary, Indiana. Originally calling himself  Paste-Pot-Pete, the villain and professional criminal clashed with the Human Torch  during his efforts to sell secrets to the Soviets.

Following failed solo efforts against the Torch, Pete teamed with the  Wizard  in efforts to trump his youthful foe.  Pete later provided theAvengers  with a solvent to dissolve  Baron Zemo's Adhesive-X, and was paroled from prison.  He adopted a new costume and weaponry, and battled the Human Torch and the  Thing . The Wizard and Pete would eventually team with the criminal  Sandman  and the  Inhuman Medusa  as the  Frightful Four  to battle the  Fantastic Four . It was shortly after the formation of the Frightful Four that Pete abandoned his old alias and assumed the more intimidating Trapster (the "Spider-Man/Human Torch" miniseries depicts the catalyst of the name change to be Spider-Man being unable to stop laughing when Paste Pot Pete introduced himself). The Frightful Four would clash time and again with the Fantastic Four, often enjoying some measure of success in their efforts. Over the years, the membership of the Frightful Four would vary, but the man once known as Paste-Pot-Pete would serve in virtually every incarnation in which Wizard served as well, loyal to his longtime boss.

He changed his nom de crime to  The Trapster  and appeared with new weaponry in  Fantastic Four  #38, with the second appearance of the Frightful Four, in an attempt to make himself sound more formidable. In this encounter, the Frightful Four was able to defeat the Fantastic Four.  Over the years, a running gag in Marvel comics involved heroes and villains alike reminding Trapster of his earlier name of "Paste-Pot-Pete" — which would inevitably send him flying into a rage,A chance encounter with  Balder  once prevented the Frightful Four's takeover of Fantastic Four headquarters.  With the Frightful Four, he soon battled the Fantastic Four again,  and then battled  Daredevil  He was hired by the  Red Skull  to acquire information from  Sharon Carter., and battled  Captain America . Alongside the Wizard and Sandman, he later battled Medusa.  Together with the Wizard, Sandman, and Medusa as the Frightful Four again, they once again battled the Fantastic Four.

Trapster has often sought independent recognition, battling virtually every "street-level" hero in the Marvel Universe either by design or by opposition to some criminal scheme. Trapster once even defeated  Daredevil  in single combat. The victory proved short-lived, as  Doctor Doom  interrupted his fight in a campaign of his own against Daredevil, and shortly thereafter the hero would avenge his defeat.  Trapster also attempted to raid the  Baxter Building  (just before it was destroyed by  Doctor Doom II), but embarrassingly fell victim to the security systems and the robot receptionist, thus becoming the first villain to be defeated by an empty building. However, he had a moment appreciated by the heroes when he was convinced to free Captain America, who was snared by  Baron Heinrich Zemo's powerful Adhesive X, by inventing the first ever means to neutralize the previously uncounterable chemical.

Saddened by constant defeats, Trapster would seek out the  Tinkerer's aid in redesigning his arsenal. Adding wrist-pumps for his glue weaponry and a bandolier of various explosives and gimmicks, Trapster joined forces with the mutant villain  Whirlwind  in a bid to defeat  Captain America. Despite his improved arsenal, both villains were defeated

The Trapster found his moment of victory over  Spider-Man  when he teamed up with the  Shocker  but before the duo could finish Spider-Man off, their employees said their payment would be doubled if they left Spider-Man alone and they complied. He would later defeat Spider-Man in one-on-one combat after being enlisted to battle the wall-crawler as part of the  Acts of Vengeance  conspiracy; it was only through merest quirk of fate that Spider-Man even survived the battle. However, when the Trapster learned of Spider-Man's survival and returned to finish the job, he would find the web-slinger now in possession of cosmic powers (eventually revealed to be a manifestation Uni-Power) with which Pete was easily defeated. Later on, during the Spider-Man: Identity Crisis  story, the Trapster would be hired by  Norman Osborn  to kill a man and make it seem like Spider-Man did it, and in order to cover this up Osborn put a price on Trapster's head, attracting assassins like the  Hand  and his previous ally Shocker. Trapster unknowingly teamed up with Spider-Man, who was using the alias of  Dusk, in an attempt to get back at Osborn, and would eventually confess his murder to the police in order to remove Osborn's reason for wanting him dead.

During his tenure with a later Frightful Four incarnation (including  Hydro-Man  and the mysterious Salamandra), the Wizard, tired of Trapster's failures and his general sniveling, callously sealed the villain in a repeating time-loop, a trap from which he can "never escape." However, Petruski did indeed escape.

Secret War

The Trapster was enlisted by  Lucia von Bardas, the former prime minister of  Latveria  and placed in her secret army of technology-based villains. She sent the army against  Wolverine, Spider-Man,  Luke Cage,  Daredevil, and  Captain America, the five heroes  Nick Fury  had sent to Latveria to stop Lucia’s secret criminal funding. When the battle started to turn in favor of the heroes, Lucia turned all the armor of her technology army into a bomb. Nick’s unknown agent Daisy defeated her and the armor army’s lives were saved. Pete escaped the heroes in the resulting battle between Nick Fury and Wolverine.

Civil War/Initiative

He was among an army of supervillains organized by  Hammerhead  that was captured by  Iron Man  during Marvel's  Civil War  storyline.  After the Civil War, Trapster appeared as a member of a new 'Frightful Five' along with Wizard,  Hydro-Man,  Titania, and Klaw.

Brand New Day

He appeared in  Brand New Day  as one of the villains in the bar, and later fighting Spider-Man in the  Brand New Day  Extra one-shot.

Powers and abilities

The Trapster does not possess any superhuman powers, but relies on a variety of technological devices. He designed a costume of synthetic stretch fabric equipped with storage canisters for paste and lubricant, and adhesive-rigged boots and gloves to enable walking up walls. His primary weapon has always been projectile  glue, initially delivered by a gun, then wrist paste-shooter cannons, and eventually shot straight from the tips of his gloves. He can shoot out a stream of liquid glue that immediately gels into a springy rope, allowing him to duplicate Spider-Man's web-shooters.

Pete also has designed boots that allow him to walk up walls by sequentially releasing a powerful glue and then a solvent. Petruski has also created lubricants that can render a surface frictionless, and discovered a way to dissolve the extremely powerful "Adhesive X" created by  Baron Heinrich Zemo.

Pete has also created a dust capable of rendering  Mister Fantastic's unstable molecules inert.

Trapster is an expert chemist, a skilled marksman, and a talented disguise artist. He has used other devices such as anti-gravity discs, explosive caps, ultrasound transmitters, an anti-gravity platform, and various mechanical traps used to restrain or entangle opponents.

Other Versions

The Trapster was featured in the excellent short story "Traps" by Ken Grobe in ''The Ultimate Super-Villains''. In it, Petrusky is on probation and in Witness Protection, living under a false name and depressed that he is unable to find work. After establishing an internet friendship with an advertising guru, he relents and reformulates his super-paste into a household adhesive and his paste-gun into an all-purpose applicator. A late-night infomercial featuring his products make him a success, and he is eventually talked into doing a demonstration himself, showing off his paste-shooting skills.

When the Wizard sees him shooting paste on TV, he calls and threatens to blow his cover so he can blackmain Trapster into working for him again; the Trapster snaps, gets his old costume and weapons, and sabotages a live broadcast of his infomercial by taking the host and audience as hostages. After delivering a long, rambling rant/confession, a woman he has a crush on gets into the studio and talks him down. In the aftermath, the Wizard is outraged that these events have made Trapster a bigger celebrity than himself.

A variation on the Trapster appears in 1602: Fantastic Four as one of the members of the 1602 Frightful Four: "The Four who are Frightful". He is an expert huntsman, hence his name.

A different Trapster appeared in Iron Man Annual #12. Lawrence "Larry" Curtiss was known as "Trapster". He was a Roxxon employee and stole the costume and weapons of Petruski. He used them to steal the inventions programs from Tony Stark and desired to replace his boss as the head of security at Roxxon. However, he was discovered by his boss and defeated by Iron Man.

He also appears as a sheep called Paste Pot Peep in  Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham  #16

Other Media