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Born a Russian citizen named Dmitri Smerdyakov, Chameleon was the half-brother of Sergei Kravinoff. His parents were Sergei's father and a servant girl. He was taught to hate himself from his arrival in the Kravinoff family. His father hated the sight of his face and his mother considered him a humiliation. The only member in his family who barely tolerated him was the legitamate son Sergei, who was also abusive towards him. In order to impress Sergei, he entertained him by using his impersonation skills on his neighbors and friends. Dmitri was so deeply scarred that he repressed his very identity and came to believe he had been friends with Sergei.
His ability to impersonate eventually brought him to the attention of the Communist countries, who trained him as a spy. The Chameleon relied on his skills and a mixture of costumes and make-up to conceal his identity. He wore a multi-pocket disguise vest in which he kept the materials he would need to mask himself at short notice.
"Spider-Man will make a perfect fall-guy--for me! I steal the second half of these missile defense plans, I'll have him put the police off my trail!"
Soon after Spider-Man's public debut, the Chameleon stole a portion of the plans for a classified missile-defense system. He learned through the news media that Spider-Man had paid a visit to the world's foremost team of superhuman adventurers, the Fantastic Four. Rumor had it the Fantastic Four were considering the neophyte hero for membership. The Chameleon correctly theorized that the wall-crawler, then wanted by authorities, had sought to join the Fantastic Four as a means of securing a steady income. To cover his tracks, the Chameleon planned to frame Spider-Man for the theft of the remaining schematics. However, the web-slinger captured the Chameleon and exposed him as the real culprit, clearing his name. [1]
Deported following his apprehension, the Chameleon returned to America several months later. Viewing the wall-crawler as a clear and present danger to his illicit objectives, he enlisted his half-brother as a partner in crime. Now called Kraven the Hunter, Sergei had become master tracker and expert marksman. However, Spider-Man managed to turn the tables on the predators. Kraven went on to become a long time advasary of Spider-Man.
Chameleon decided to prove his superiority over Kraven by defeating Iron Man. Disguising himself as Captain America, Chameleon contacted Iron Man and convinced him that he was the real Captain America and that the Captain America at Avengers Mansion was really Chameleon. Iron Man and Captain America fought it out until Giant-Man captured him and exposed his deception.
The Chameleon went on to engage in numerous unlawful endeavors. Sometimes, he has worked in the employ of others, including HYDRA, a technologically advanced, neo-fascist subversive organization; and the Leader, gamma-irradiated super-genius. Often, he committed robberies solely for his own benefit. In addition to Spider-Man, the Chameleon also ran afoul of crimefighters such as the Avengers, Daredevil and the Hulk.
When Kraven the Hunter committed suicide, the Chameleon became obsessed with making Spider-Man suffer for his failure to prevent Kraven from killing himself. To broaden the scope of his impersonation skills, the Chameleon adopted a holographic belt and ingested an experimental formula that rendered his body completely malleable. Capitalizing on his augmented abilities, he attempted to discover Spider-Man's secret identity.
The Green Goblin (Harry Osborn) persuaded Chameleon to create two robots who would appear to be Peter Parker's dead parents in an effort to get Peter to tell them who Spider-Man really was. The Goblin already knew Spidey's identity but wanted to mess with Peter's head so he convinced Chameleon that Parker, due to all the photos he had taken, was sure to know Spider-Man's identity. When Spider-Man discovered the fraud, he went insane over the disappointment of losing his parents again. Faced with a more fearsome and vicious Spider-Man than ever before, the Chameleon's repressed memories of his unhappy childhood with Sergei returned and he fell into a coma-like state. He just kept repeating the words "I'm nothing"...
The Chameleon was taken to Ravencroft Institute but escaped after assuming the identity of his doctor, Ashley Kafka. He kidnapped Spider-Man and unmasked him, finally understanding why Spider-Man had been so enraged after discovering the truth about his robot parents. Chameleon imprisoned Peter and convinced him that he was a writer named Herbert Smith who was incarcerated in an insane asylum, and that his life as Spider-Man had been a figment of his imagination. Chameleon took on the role of Peter himself but was foiled by Mary Jane, armed with a baseball bat, who knew her husband too well to fall for the impersonation. Escaping, he was shot by his nephew Alyosha Kravinoff, the new Kraven the Hunter.
"It doesn't seem fair that you could love someone so much, and then lose her... I feel there'd be a sort of majestic irony if it were to happen again."
Wanting to make up for his past crimes, he arranged to have Spider-Man meet him at the bridge where his first love Gwen Stacy died. The Chameleon declared his own loneliness and love for Peter. When Peter laughed out of surprise he attempted suicide by leaping off the bridge.
The Chameleon survived. He was committed to a mental instition, where he believed he was Kraven the Hunter rather than Dmitri Smerdyakov. A short time later he returned to his Chameleon identity as part of the Sinister Twelve.
After Spider-Man went public with his identity, Chameleon gathered a gang of villains called the Exterminators, including Will o' the Wisp, Scarecrow, Swarm, and Electro and also blackmailed the Molten Man into his employ all in an effort to defeat Spider-Man. He disguised himself as Peter Parker in an attempt to kill May Parker. He was foiled when she figured out he was not her nephew and drugged him with Mary Jane's Ambien.
At the Dark Reign era, the Chameleon was more sadistic and sociopathic than before. He was much more focused after being hired by Colonel Masab and his "pro-Taliban" elements in Pakistan. His mission was to assemble a dirty bomb at New York, which he accomplished by taking Peter Parker's identity. Not that he remembered Peter. His mind, like everyone else, was wiped clean of Spider-Man's ID by the Parkers' deal with Mephisto. As he molded a kidnapped Peter Parker's face, he mused, "Parker. Peter Parker. Why does that name sound so familiar to me? Tch. So many names. So many faces. And I've been them all."
The Chameleon possesses the normal human strength for a man his age, height, and build who engages in moderate, regular exercise.
Early In his career:
He used to hijack a helicopter early in his debut. But no definite transportation was mentioned.
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smerdet meaning "to stink" / "son of the reeking one" in Russian.
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