Creation

The Maggia first appear in The Avengers (1963) #13 by Stan Lee and Don Heck

Team Description

The Maggia are the worlds most powerful crime syndicate. The organization's operations are world wide, though its roots began in southern Europe during the 13th century and it spread to the USA in the 1890s. The Maggia has its hands on gambling, narcotics, loansharking, organized labor and crooked politics. Those who betray the Maggia are murdered, often by a death-grip to the chin named "The Maggia Touch". The three main gangs live in New York: The Silvermanes, who are an original-structured crime network controlling the narcotics trade, the Hammerheads, who are styled in fashion of 1920s gangsters, and are lead by the flat-topped Hammerhead, and the Nefaria family. The Nefarias, lead by Count Nefaria, are the most colorful of the three families, recruiting costumed criminals to further their plans. Early in his career, gang boss Kingpin was one of the Maggia's most successful rivals.

Major Story Arcs

Secret of the Petrified Tablet

When a mystery clay tablet started making it around the criminal underworld, the Maggia naturally got interested. Silvermane sent Man Mountain Marko to retrieve the tablet from Shocker, while Caesar Cicero bailed Kingpin’s archeology expert, Louis Wilson, out of jail, so that he could study it for Silvermane. Silvermane additionally had Curt Connors kidnapped to work on the research, kidnapping his wife and son, Marth and Billy, to keep him motivated. Silvermane believed the tablet had a biological secret and needed a biologist to translate.

When the newspapers break the story that Cicero bailed out Wilson, Spider-Man went by Cicero’s office to look for a lead. Cicero and his henchman jumped to the conclusion that SPidey was there to save Connors’ family, so while his men fought off the web-slinger, Cicero escaped with Martha and Billy. He brought them to Silvermane’s location, much to Silvermane’s disdain. He was afraid Spidey was just led to their location. Scared, Silvermane pressures Connors and takes his untested serum, which revitalized his youth.

His new youth angered his minions who saw their chance to take over for the aging mob boss disappear. Spider-Man finally tracked them down and interrupted Silvermane beating on his own men. Enraged, Silvermane started to lash out at Spidey, but as he did, he continued to age. While the Maggia goons start to fire on Spidey, Silvermane reaches his pre-teen years and runs away. Spidey later found his clothes discarded in the hallway with no Silvermane to be found.

Who the Heck is Hammerhead

The Maggia had a new boss, Hammerhead. He was a former gunhand who had his skull surgically repaired with an unbendable steel alloy. He ran business from a rotating office with a single window that could look out over three different locations with the flip of a switch. After Kingpin was arrested, Hammerhead was about to be the new kingpin of crime if not for Doctor Octopus. The two were in a turf war that Spider-Man found himself stuck in the middle of. During a fight with Doc Ock, Spidey was used as a distraction so the Doc could get away. Spidey ended up kidnapped by the Maggia.

Some of Hammerhead’s goons followed Doc Ock back to his headquarters. They phoned Hammerhead and relayed the location, but unfortunately Spidey overheard the conversation. After Hammerhead left with some goons, Spidey took out the guys left to watch him and escaped. He managed to beat Hammerhead to the location, where Aunt May also happened to be. While Hammerhead busted his way in and wrecked the joint looking for Doc Ock, Spidey went to work looking for Aunt May to get her to safety. Hammerhead eventually gives up on the two costumed foes, believing them to be small potatoes. Instead, he gets on the first flight out of New Jersey.

The Return of Silvermane

Lucky for Silvermane, the serum that revitalized his youth did it so fast that there was an elastic return to middle age. After a stint as Hydra commander, Silvermane was ready to assemble the crime families of New York as a united Maggia. He invited them to Top of the World, the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center to discuss the merger. This party was crashed by a new Green Goblin, secretly Bart Hamilton, doctor of Harry Osborn, who promised Spider-Man’s secret identity for being cut in.

He was given 24 hours to find and deliver Spider-Man to prove it. Silvermane had some of his men follow Goblin. Once he had captured Spidey, they attacked and tried to take Spidey for their own trophy to bring to Silvermane. Unfortunately, they were no match for Spider-Man and lost him. Angry at the attack, the Goblin doubled back and went looking for Silvermane.

Goblin tracked Silvermane to a show at Radio City Music Hall. All the commotion got the attention of Spider-Man, who was forced to protect Silvermane from the psychotic Goblin. Unfortunately, Silvermane was dropped from Goblin’s glider, falling nearly the full distance from the ceiling to the floor. He survived but was badly hurt, putting him in the hospital

Big M

The Maggia was increasing its force against costumed vigilantes. They obtained Conquer Lord’s files, which gave them insight into Moon Knight’s double life as a cab driver, and hired international supervillain, Cyclone, to protect them from threats like Spider-Man. Unfortunately, Spider-Man and Moon Knight decided to work together and crash an important meeting at Grant’s Tomb in Morningside Heights.

This put Spider-Man on the radar of Big M, the top of the Maggia hierarchy, who was previously known as The Masked Marauder. He started taking a more hands-on approach, outfitting the Maggia goons in matching henchman suits and relying on his robotic creation, Tri-Man. Spider-Man interrupted them during a bank robbery but was no match for Marauder's gadgets. He was blinded by Marauder’s optic blast, but Spidey managed to tag him with a tracker before he escaped.

Marauder’s master plan was to add a plutonium core to Tri-Man, who could then shapeshift into a nuclear weapon. He threatened to use this weapon on the city of New York unless the mayor gave control to the Maggia. Spider-Man managed to track Marauder’s operation down with Daredevil, who helped Spidey with his temporary blindness. While Daredevil took on the Maggia goons, Spider-Man destroyed the arming mechanism on Tri-Man, rendering Marauder’s bomb inert.

Maggia/FBI Connection

Whitney Frost was killed and her position as Madame Masque, the leader of the Maggia, was usurped by a mysterious new player. This new Madame Masque has increased their criminal operations with the secret help of the FBI, getting the attention of Iron Man, who was also grieving the loss of Whitney Frost. The Maggia went as far as to attack Frost’s funeral so that they could pressure Stark into calling off Iron Man.

The Maggia were targeting Hydra and AIM operations, stealing their resources and hammering them with unexpected aggression, thus taking the organizations out for the FBI. The two rival organizations teamed up and tried to hire Iron Man as their guardian but he refused. Instead, they hired Joe Fixit to capture this Madame Masque so they could wipe her memories and get her off their back. Iron Man, who had been keeping a close eye on the three groups, came to her rescue. While he was fighting the goons, Masque snuck off with her FBI handler, Agent Mallard.

Mallard couldn’t help but tell Iron Man the whole story in an attempt to stop him from challenging them, however, Iron Man recorded their conversation and leaked it to the media.

Dead Man’s Hand

Criminal organizations from around the world meet in Las Vegas at The Maggia’s Palatine Casino Hotel to divide Kingpin’s former criminal enterprise now that Daredevil had him arrested. They are mediated by a woman calling herself The Word, as employed by the Red Skull. Among the gang lords included Maggia members Tombstone and Hammerhead. It also got the attention of a few heroes and mercenaries, including an angry cyborg Silverman who never got an invite. They fought and shot at each other while the criminal leaders were safe in their penthouse office.

As negotiations went on, tensions grew and feats of strength were performed while jockeying for leverage. This included Hammerhead taking out his tommy gun and blowing out the windows. Meanwhile, Tombstone, who had been fantasizing about killing each and every person at the meeting, sat back and watched as they all made fools of themselves. He was waiting for his opportunity to fight back against The Hand for rejecting his membership years prior.

After the violent erupts and Tombstone was satisfied, he and Hammerhead escaped.

The Power of Terror

Violent instances were happening across New York as factions of the Maggia were feuding. Most of it was influenced by Silvermane, who felt his reputation had taken a hit among the Maggia’s ranks since sowing chaos at the Kingpin meeting in Vegas. He was hellbent on regaining a foothold within the organization. With the help of Cicero, he starts engineering disasters like car pile ups and subway train collisions. He even went as far as allying with the Hell’s Kitchen mob to produce a new Scorpion armor for his new enforcer, Scorpia.

Additionally, Silvermane hired the Sinister Syndicate to hunt down Deathlok. Silvermane wanted access to replace his cyborg body with that of Deathlok’s. Deathlok got Spider-Man’s help in keeping the Syndicate off his back. So much so that Silvermane was forced to hack into the Times Square monitors and threaten the whole city unless Deathlok gave up. Reluctantly, Deathlok delivered himself to Silvermane’s estate, where Silvermane planned for Mainframe to copy and upload Silvermane’s mind into Deathlok’s body, rendering his old cybernetic head in a coma.

Spider-Man had put a tracker on Deathlok and recruited Daredevil for a rescue mission, but they were too late. By the time they got there, Silvermane was in control. He tried to pass himself off as the real Deathlok so that the others would join him raiding the rest of the Maggia locations. He couldn’t get his lies past Spidey or DD’s extra senses. He was able to overwhelm the heroes with the help of Scorpia and continue his hostile takeover of the crime syndicate. However, Deathlok still existed as competing software fighting to override the clone Silvermane consciousness, eventually purging him.

Mysterioso

To the public, it seemed like the Maggia were having a bad couple years. Their top men were dying in bigger and more spectacular ways. This left “Baby” Bruno Karnelli as the public facing de facto leader. He was ineffective but family. He had cost the Maggia so much money that all the dead bosses came forward to retake control. They had faked their deaths thanks to their new partner, Mysterio.

Mysterio was also working with Baby Bruno’s consigliere, Carmine, piloting a Silvermane robot double. They were trying to take control of the Maggia, which Bruno was ineligible for. Bruno’s plans were going well for the Maggia, but Mysterio only wanted to control them long enough to make a quick buck. He set them up to be taken out by Mr. Negative, resulting in many dead mobsters. He even killed Carmine himself, this way, Mysterio could sneak away with his cash with none the wiser. Unfortunately, he pushed too far trying to keep Spider-Man preoccupied and showed his cards.

After trying to convince Spider-Man that Big Man was actually the late Capt. George Stacy using robot doubles, Spidey saw right through the ruse. He worked with Carlie Cooper from the morgue to track her father. Her father was also a medical examiner in the morgue. He recently revealed himself alive after faking his own death. He had helped Mysterio fake the death of so many Maggia dons. He led them to Mysterio’s getaway, where Spider-Man managed to burn all the money Mysterio collected from the Maggia.

Gang War

On his daughter's wedding day, Tombstone had invited all of his gangster rivals to keep them in line and prevent them from trying to make a move on her special day. However, Masque decided to attack the festivities anyway. She secretly enchanted Shotgun to do her bidding while she pretended to escape like everyone else. While making her getaway, Madame Masque was believed to have died when her limo exploded, thanks to Hammerhead's bomb. However, that Madame Masque was a body double. Masque posed as a different wedding guest and flirted with Hammerhead to become his new arm candy.

After overhearing his plans to start a gang war to give the Maggia an opportunity to take back New York City, Masque takes it upon herself to incapacitate Hammerhead and take New York back for herself. This meant also taking out Silvermane and her own father, Count Nefaria, allowing her to inherit the leadership of the Maggia. With a combination of tech and sorcery, she built an empire while the other gangs tore each other part.

Unfortunately, Beetle and her Syndicate managed to take over most of the territory north of Central Park, including Harlem. Masque came out of the shadows to target them directly, challenging them to a fight at the park. This got the attention of Spider-Man, who reunited his allies, including Tombstone, to stop the war for good. Tombstone saw the opportunity to usurp his daughter as the head of that crime organization and ordered his new gangs to retreat. With just Masque's gang to contend with, the heroes manage to overpower them, leaving Tombstone as the last leader standing.

Madripoor

Ever since the gang war, the Maggia’s top men have been hiding out in Madripoor. They invited Elektra with a job opportunity, but they accidentally time it at the same time that Elektra’s ward, Alice, went missing. Elektra mistakes the invitation as a passive-aggressive ransom. While waiting for the Maggia contact in the pirate country, she gets caught up in a fight between Crossbones and the new Punisher, Joe Garrison, who gets the Maggia contact killed.

The Maggia turn on her when Elektra returns their dead member, but Elektra fends off both Silvermane and Count Nefaria long enough to interrogate them. As it turns out, they did not take Alice (who called Elektra from her aunt's place in New York) but rather needed Elektra to take out the new Punisher.

Elektra agreed to the hit but had no intention of going through with it. Instead, she reasons with Garrison, who puts aside their differences long enough to strike back against the Maggia together. Silvermane and Nefaria make their escape on a helicopter, which Elektra refuses to let Garrison take out in case it crashed on to innocent people.