Martin Li

* Martin Li
* Mister Negative

**Martin Li**, nicknamed **Mister Negative** by J. Jonah Jameson, is a recurring character in the *Marvel's Spider-Man* series. Li serves as an antagonist in *Marvel's Spider-Man*, was mentioned in Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and returns as a major anti-hero in *Marvel's Spider-Man 2.* Li was the founder and owner of the F.E.A.S.T. shelter. At the same time, he was also secretly the ruthless leader of a criminal group known as the Inner Demons and possesses the ability to harness a form of negative energy at will. He had a personal vendetta against Mayor Norman Osborn, which led him to terrorize the city. Following his defeat and imprisonment, he became a member of the Sinister Six, organized by Doctor Octopus, but was defeated once again and reimprisoned along with the other members of the group by Spider-Man.

His time imprisoned allowed Li to reflect on his life choices and he now sought redemption for his past crimes. Li was initially hunted by Kraven and the Hunters, and put at odds with the new Spider-Man, Miles Morales, for his role in his father's death. However, they put their differences aside and Li redeemed himself by helping the Spider-Men defeat Kraven and the Symbiotes, even helping Peter get rid of the remaining symbiote in his body and converting it into the Anti-Venom symbiote, before turning himself over to the authorities to pursue his redemption.

He is portrayed by Stephen Oyoung, through voice acting, motion capturing and face modeling.

## History

### Early history

Martin Li was born somewhere between September 18 and December 31, 1978, in Dali, China. He and his parents immigrated to the United States in his early childhood. In 1986, at the age of seven, Li and his parents came to Oscorp for medical consultation regarding an unknown physiological condition. On September 19 of that year, Oscorp's co-founder Norman Osborn had Li injected with the experimental prototype of the GR-27 (codenamed "Devil's Breath") serum created by Oscorp. The treatment combined with the condition triggered a reaction that altered Li's physiology, granting him powers and causing an explosion that killed his parents.

An orphaned Li spent the rest of his childhood in foster care in Manhattan. At the age of 18, he returned to China, where he made a fortune in the shipping industry. When he came back to New York nearly a decade later, he was already a billionaire. Rather than living off his fortune, Li founded his F.E.A.S.T. homeless shelters to ensure nobody would ever feel forgotten or abandoned. He opened his first F.E.A.S.T. shelter in Chinatown in 2013.

### *Marvel's Spider-Man*

Li is the employer of May Parker, who serves as the operations manager of F.E.A.S.T. All outward appearances indicate he is a generous man, but secretly he runs the criminal organization the Inner Demons. With the arrest of criminal Wilson Fisk, Li moves swiftly to take advantage of the resulting power vacuum to take over his territory and weapons, preparing to move on now-Mayor Norman Osborn.

Obsessed with exacting revenge against Osborn, he intends to uncover his lies and use Oscorp's own Devil's Breath against him and the city. He and the Demons attack one of Osborn's re-election rallies by using suicide bombers, killing Jefferson Davis and countless others. Prior to fully committing to destroy Osborn, Li makes May the new head of F.E.A.S.T. He then steals the Devil's Breath from Oscorp and attempts to release the gas on Grand Central but is foiled by Spider-Man.

After his arrest and imprisonment, Li is freed by Doctor Octopus and becomes one of the Sinister Six. Under Doctor Octopus's orders, he kidnaps Oscorp scientist Dr. Morgan Michaels to take the Devil's Breath antiserum from him. Li also captures Osborn and confronts him. Before he can kill Osborn, Spider-Man follows him into the lab and defeats him in battle. After being betrayed by Otto, and May's death, Martin's whereabouts were unknown, until he got arrested off screen sometime later.

### Miles Morales

Despite not appearing due to his imprisonment, Martin is mentioned and alluded throughout the story. It was mentioned that the Inner Demons disbanded following a fight with the Underground sometime after his second arrest. He was also mentioned by Rio Morales, Miles' mother and Aaron Davis, Miles' uncle.

Mister Negative's actions deeply impacted Miles Morales' family: it was because of Jefferson Davis' death, which he caused, that Jefferson's wife Rio started to run for councilwoman and it was also because of losing Jefferson that Aaron Davis, his brother, decided to do whatever he needed to protect his nephew at all costs to not lose him too.

### *Marvel's Spider-Man 2*

In the time leading up to the game's events, Li has noticeably aged, with visible facial stubble and long hair. While being transported alongside Scorpion to another maximum security prison, Hunters attack the transport ship with intent to kidnap both Li and Scorpion, for Kraven's own end.

After being captured by Kraven, Miles is forced to fight Li in a combat arena for he and the Hunters’ amusement. During the fight, Li transports Miles into his own mind, where he is forced to contend with his deepest insecurities on top of Li's immense power. However, he ultimately resists Li's influence and proves victorious, nearly giving in to his impulses to kill Li for what he did to his father. Instead, he frees Li from Kraven's compound and directs him to find Peter, before being subdued by the nearby Hunters.

Now free, Li decides to get Peter's attention by going to the old F.E.A.S.T. center and creating a beacon of negative energy. This proves successful, and upon his arrival, he informs Peter of Miles’ whereabouts and offers to come with and help, but Peter refuses, having increased mistrust of Li due to the influence of the Venom symbiote. As he leaves, Li tells Peter that he is lucky to have Miles and that he reminds him of him.

Li appears again after Venom, now in control of Harry Osborn, has launched a symbiote invasion of New York City. Peter and Miles rush to City Hall to stop an attack from the symbiotes, but are soon overwhelmed. Li manages to rescue Miles before he can be overtaken and he creates a barrier of negative energy that keeps the symbiotes temporarily at bay. After discovering that a fragment of the Venom symbiote still inside Peter starts trying to retake control of him, Li and Miles enter his mind to find the source of his pain and destroy the lingering symbiote. Inside Peter's mind, they discover his pent-up anger toward all the criminals that he's had to fight over the years, and how he feels that the symbiote's power and willingness to kill could solve the problem permanently. After fighting their way to the source of Peter's pain and subsequently the symbiote core, they find its power too overwhelming and are soon after rushed by symbiotes. Li decides that if he can transfer all of his remaining power into the core, he may be able to destroy it as the symbiotes are weak to it, while also posing the risk of killing him. Upon hearing this, Miles decides to settle his grudge with Li, telling him that while he can never forgive him for his crimes and the death of his father, he cannot hold onto his hate for him any longer, expressing a desire to move forward. They make peace and proceed to combine their powers and destroy the core, breaking the symbiote's hold over Peter for good.

Back in reality, Miles and Li find themselves surrounded by symbiotes, and Peter is seemingly unconscious. He then suddenly reawakens before they are overwhelmed, and a new white symbiote envelops his body which grants him many of the same enhanced abilities he had when bonded with the Venom symbiote, except he is now completely free from the hive mind's control. Along with this, because of Li's powers, the suit is highly caustic against the other symbiotes, including Venom.

After defeating the symbiotes, Peter thanks Li and Miles for saving him. In turn, Li thanks the Spider-Men for reminding him of the person he was prior to his crusade for vengeance, echoing May's philosophy of "When you help someone, you help everyone." Now at peace with himself for the first time in years, Li sets off on a new path, promising to the Spider-Men to "set things right, your way this time."

## Characteristics

### Appearance

Concept art
Li is a middle-aged Chinese-American man with a muscular build and clean shaven face. His standard attire is a black suit and tie with a white handkerchief in his breast pocket.

In his "Mister Negative" form, Li's appearance resembles a photo negative version of himself, with black skin, white hair, and glowing eyes. His clothing takes on the same transformation, and seems to react to light in an inverse manner.

In *Spider-Man 2*, he sports medium long hair and a beard. When he is first encountered, he wears an orange Raft inmate uniform with a harness to suppress his powers. This harness was removed during his fight against Miles. After being freed from Kraven's compound, he wears a black button-up shirt with rolled-up sleeves, a white undershirt, and blue denim jeans.

### Personality

There are two sides to Li's personality. The good side is that of a generous altruist and good-natured humanitarian: calm, pleasant, and humble in demeanor. Instead of using his incredible wealth to live a life of luxury, Li chose to create F.E.A.S.T., the most extensive and well-funded charity organization in New York, so that no one would suffer abandonment, hunger, and homelessness like he did when he was a child. Li takes great pride in his charitable work, seeing F.E.A.S.T. as his greatest accomplishment and a way of honoring his parents.

Li's evil side sees him as a ruthless criminal and fanatical terrorist leader, who commands the fearsome Inner Demons in an almost cult leader-like manner. He follows the philosophy of necessary evil, claiming that he is a hero who camouflages himself as a monster to do justice. Aggressive and short-tempered, this side of Li is driven by his hatred for Norman Osborn for indirectly causing Li to murder his parents.

Li is aware of the duality of his character, acknowledging that he has fallen "out of balance" in his quest for revenge. That said, he does not feel he can resist desire for revenge. He states that sometimes to fight a demon, you must become one in reference to Osborn, implying he thinks that, by killing Osborn, he could put his evil side to rest.

While imprisoned in the raft, Li spent a lot of time reflecting on his choices in life and regrets his quest for revenge, showing guilt for the destruction and death he caused. He decided that giving up everything he cherished would not have been worth the payout. He helps the Spider-Men before willingly turning himself in to the police, displaying a desire atone for his crimes.

### Powers and abilities

Mister Negative possessed the ability to generate and control a highly destructive electric negative energy. He typically uses this energy to project powerful blasts from his hands, or to charge up swords, combining his dark powers with his swordsmanship skills in battle. Mister Negative also displays increased physical attributes in terms of reflexes, resilience, and strength. He is able to take extreme amounts of physical trauma without major injuries and can move in small dashes of superhuman speed, akin to teleportation. His attacks also have great range.

Mister Negative appears to have a mind control ability. With just a touch, he is able to "corrupt" people, effectively bringing them under his control, or give himself even greater power through amplifying his victims' negative emotions. He can additionally gift small portions of his powers to his followers. Furthermore, Mister Negative's mind control ability allows him to create realistic illusions in his victim's mind, such as zombie-like holograms that he creates to use against Spider-Man when the two battle. While truly angered, he is able to generate a large holographic demonic entity that he weaponizes against Spider-Man during their final battle.

Publicly, Li is known for his inspiring philanthropic leadership. In addition, he has a college degree in art and has a detailed knowledge of history, historical art and relics as well as arcane lore.

Li has studied martial arts, being a highly skilled swordsman and is competent in unarmed combat.

### Equipment

In control of New York's criminal underworld, Mister Negative is often accompanied by several henchmen, known as his Inner Demons, who wear Chinese masks and use electrified versions of swords, whips, knuckles, and various other weaponry, including guns stolen from Fisk's weapons stashes. Similar to Li, they are incredibly resilient to even the most lethal attacks. Their loyalty to Li is unquestioned, as they are directly under his control.

Mister Negative's primary sidearm is a double-edged Chinese sword called a *jian*, commonly used in tai chi and other Chinese martial arts. His skill as a swordsman coupled with his superhuman physical attributes and energy manipulation abilities make his use of this weapon unquestionably lethal, able to project high blasts of energy through it when delivering punches or kicks.

## Relationships

### Norman Osborn

Norman Osborn was responsible for Li's exposure to Devil's Breath, and, as a result, Li's powers and the death of his parents. Li would hold a grudge against Norman for the incident, which only grew as Osborn avoided culpability for his actions. Eventually, Li gave into his hatred and began plotting a lifelong vendetta against Norman.

Leading the Inner Demons terrorist group, Li threatens and harms countless New Yorkers, including innocent civilians, all in order to get to Norman. When he finally faces Norman in the Devil's Breath research lab, he prepares to slowly and painfully kill the man he deems a "piece of scum". His hatred for Norman leaves him deaf to Spider-Man's attempts to reason with him, demanding that Norman face "true justice" and suffer for his crimes.

Unfortunately, upon learning of May's passing, and later learns Miles is the son of the late Jefferson whom Li directly killed at the City Hall bombing, Li comes to realize that he repeated a same mistake as how Norman did directly to his parents.

### Otto Octavius

Otto Octavius first encountered Li when the latter came to Oscorp for medical consultation. While Octavius was unable to stop Li from being exposed to GR-27 and accidentally killing his parents, it appears that he was in touch with Li for some time, providing him with medication to help him suppress his powers.

As the game's story progresses, Li's actions come to inspire Octavius to pursue his own plot against Osborn, and Li readily joins him. When Li fails to secure the Devil's Breath antiserum, he is thrown aside by the increasingly unstable Octavius, who deems him useless before taking the antiserum himself and leaving Li to go on the run from the authorities, but ended up being caught second time sometimes later, off-screen.

### May Parker

Li holds May Parker in great respect for her generosity, kindness, and contributions at F.E.A.S.T. He states that May inspires him to be humble and altruistic. When he is about to leave to pursue his vendetta against Norman Osborn, he asks for her to continue running and expanding his F.E.A.S.T. operations, as he is truly proud of their charitable accomplishments for the people of New York.

Before he leaves to move forth with his vendetta, Li leaves a note for May in his office, confessing to his crimes as a terrorist, but promising that the work they have done together is true, and asking that she stay.

Unfortunately, due to his long-awaited revenge on Norman, his own crime ends on taking parts on unleashing Devil's Breath that kills May, Li blames himself for her death.

### Peter Parker

Li and Peter Parker appear to have a friendly relationship, fostered by their mutual respect for Aunt May. Li admires how dedicated Peter is to helping others, and acknowledges that Peter reminds him of himself when he was younger. However, once Li begins his agenda, he does not hesitate to have Peter attacked to keep him from following. Spider-Man ultimately defeats Li after he manages to break free from Mister Negative's corruption.

Li later discovers Peter's identity as the first Spider-Man through his encounter with Miles when being forced to battle to the death by Kraven. When Peter is consumed by Venom symbiote, Li's power is the key to kill the alien "suit" without killing the host. When Venom returns to Harry, and starts to invade the world into a hived planet, Li purges Venom's fragments from Peter's body and transforming it into Anti-Venom Symbiote Suit, with the help from Miles.

### Miles Morales

While the two have yet to properly interact, Miles Morales harbors immense hatred towards Li for the terrorist attack at City Hall that led to the death of his father, Jefferson Davis. Li, however, had not acknowledged Miles for the most part. That being said, he stopped one of his Inner Demons from killing the boy when he was at their mercy.

Li properly meets Miles during *Marvel's Spider-Man 2*. Initially he did not recognize him as the second Spider-Man, until a death battle set up by Kraven, makes him realize Miles' true identity as the son of Jefferson, whom he directly killed. Due to these revelations, a defeated Li is prepared to be killed by Miles to satisfy the latter's revenge. However, Miles refuses, as he follows Spider-Man's oath of no killing rule, thus deciding to risk his life to save Li in exchange to ask him find Peter, who is now consumed by the Venom symbiote. When Venom returns to Harry, and starts to invade the world into a hived planet, Li helps Miles to free Peter from the fragments left by Venom symbiote, thus turning the fragment into an Anti-Venom Symbiote Suit.

## Original appearance

For more background of Martin Li throughout comic book history, see **all appearances of Mister Negative** and the **original appearance of Martin Li** on the **Marvel Database**
Mister Negative first appeared in a cameo in *Free Comic Book Day (Spider-Man)* (May 2007). His first full appearance came in *Amazing Spider-Man* #546 (January 2008). In the original comic continuity, Martin Li is an alias of an unknown Chinese gangster and trafficker, who assumes the name of a deceased Fujian slave (the real Martin Li) and was mutated alongside two pairs youths who would become superheroes Cloak and Dagger by Silvermane's experiments. Li is also the original creator of Anti-Venom symbiote suit when his Mister Negative persona secretly purifies the Venom symbiote's fragment inside the body of a recently cancer cured Eddie Brock.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 *Marvel's Spider-Man*, character
bio
2. ↑ *Just the Facts #31*
3. ↑  Marvel’s Spider-Man – New Story Trailer, Pre-Order Updates, and More. PlayStation Blog. Accessed August 15, 2018.
4. ↑  Daily Bugle #03. PlayStation.com. Accessed April 22, 2019.
5. ↑  Daily Bugle #02. PlayStation.com. Accessed April 22, 2019.