—Hammerhead[source]Thing is, I'm a gentleman. You'dah knocked? You couldah come right in...But you had to go and sneak around. That's the problem with you new cops: No respect.
History
Early Life[]
Joseph Martello, also known as Hammerhead, is one of the most influential leaders of the Maggia, one of the oldest mafia organizations in New York City. Little is known of his upbringing save for the fact that he was originally from Russia and immigrated to the United States at some point. During his life as crimelord, he came up against all sorts of opponents, such as the Police, the masked superhero Spider-Man, and even against the media, with John Jonah Jameson during the 1980s. During his youth, he was nearly beaten to death, but a surgeon named Jonas Harrow saved his life by inserting a steel plate in his skull, more precisely on his forehead. This gave him his trademark square-shaped skull, attaining the moniker Hammerhead. The incident also left mental sequelae in Joseph, who became a homicidal maniac afterwards.
The City That Never Sleeps[]

After the decline of Maggia in the city, Hammerhead decided to become the sole leader of the mafia, formulating a plan to steal all the wealth and assets of other leaders of the organization. For this, he hired Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat to steal data drives containing vital information about the other Mafia families involved with Maggia, which he would use to eliminate them completely. However, Felicia took advantage of this to try to steal all the wealth of Maggia for herself, and Hammerhead ordered her to be eliminated by bombing her apartment. Unbeknownst to him, Felicia managed to survive the attack, but disappeared soon after.
With the data drives being apparently destroyed when Felicia "died", Hammerhead changed the focus of the plan, now looking to to capture the other five Dons of Maggia to kill them while transmitting this to the whole city. This caused a massive gang war on the city, with all the other gangs fighting against Hammerhead and his goons, and also the police. Hammerhead also managed to steal equipment left by Silver Sable International in the city after the crisis caused by Mister Negative months before, using it to face the other gangs and authorities. The police eventually discovered that one of Hammerhead's gang operations was being held on the abandoned Harlem Sanatorium. Spider-Man along Captain Yuri Watanabe went there to disrupt the operation, but things went awry, with Yuri's police team being completely slaughtered by Hammerhead himself, and Yuri coming out as the sole survivor, thank's to Spider-Man's intervention. Hammerhead, knowing that he would eventually have to face Spider-Man himself, started to try to locate something called "Project Olympus", an advanced armor that was being made by Sable International. After discovering that the armor was being held at one of the city's police precincts, Hammerhead sent a group of his henchmen to distract Spider-Man while another group stole the armor, killing many other police officers on the process. This made Yuri vow revenge on Hammerhead, going alone to the Bar with No Name to try to find information on his wereabouts.
It wasn't too long until Hammerhead managed to finally capture all of the other four leaders, planning to cement them to the ground on a construction site. Fortunately, Spider-Man showed up, and managed to save all of the leaders. Enraged, Hammerhead, now using the Project Olympus armor, clashed against Spider-Man, who managed to defeat him. As he was being arrested by the police, Yuri showed up, shooting Hammerhead, apparently killing him. His body was later removed, being carried away by an expertise van. Unbeknownst to the officers on the van, Hammerhead was actually still alive, being reanimated by one of his henchmen, who was disguised inside the van.
After being ressurected, Hammerhead went into hiding, planning to enhance even more the exoskeleton from Project Olympus, even going to the point of transfering his own head to a full enhanced cyborg body.

Hammerhead enhanced by the Project Olympus

Clashing against Silver Sable and Spider-Man
Personality
Attributes
Powers
Weaknesses
Paraphernalia
Equipment
Weapons
Transportation
Notes
- Keith Silverstein voices Hammerhead in Marvel's Spider-Man.
- Miraj Grbic provides his facial likeness for Hammerhead in Marvel's Spider-Man.
Trivia
- His surname "Martello" is the Italian word for "Hammer".
- Hammerhead's head being separated from his body and given a new robotic body takes inspiration from Silvermane.
See Also
- 3 appearance(s) of Joseph Martello (Earth-1048)
- 2 minor appearance(s) of Joseph Martello (Earth-1048)
- 3 mention(s) of Joseph Martello (Earth-1048)
- 10 image(s) of Joseph Martello (Earth-1048)
- 1 quotation(s) by or about Joseph Martello (Earth-1048)
Links and References
References
- ↑ Dihn, Christine (November 21, 2018) Marvel’s Spider-Man on PS4 - Get to Know Hammerhead - The Maggia Don in 'Turf Wars' Marvel.com. Retrieved on August 3, 2023.