History As a young boy, Joseph and his family fled the Soviet Union with the help of a man known as The General. Growing up, his father would berate him for speaking Italian in their Russian household, and would beat the boy with a hammer when punishing him. In school he would lie and say he was Italian, only for a bully named Rico to reveal his lie and steal the hat he wore showing the ugly scars on his head from frequent hammer blows. Rico and his girlfriend would be the kills Hammerhead needed to join the mob. Hammerhead convinced the mob that he was Italian, which was necessary since they did not take 'inferior stock'. He eventually killed his father with a much bigger hammer than his father had ever used on him. Hammerhead began his career as a junior hit-man, working for the Maggia. When his head was shattered in a brawl, Jonas Harrow discovered him in an alley, and operated on him - replacing his broken skull with one made of steel. Hammerhead clearly had mental and emotional problems prior to his injury, and they were exacerbated by the trauma. Upon awakening, Hammerhead became fixated on a 1920s movie poster which had been the last thing he saw before the brawl. He adopted the identity of the mobster "Hammerhead", favoring 20's clothing, weaponry, speech patterns and behavior of the criminals of that time. He claimed to no longer remember his real name. Hammerhead was involved in a major gang war[7] after Wilson Fisk decided to lay low - leaving the way open for Doctor Octopus and Hammerhead to lay their claims as his replacement. Hammerhead was also involved with Doc Ock when he attempted to woo Peter Parker's Aunt May. He was apparently killed in a nuclear explosion and began haunting Octavius as a ghost.[8] He was brought back to life with a device that Octavius had built to dissipate the ghost.[9] He kidnapped Aunt May, but was defeated by a temporary alliance of Octopus and Spider-Man.[10] Hammerhead was also a player in another Gang War.[11] He survived, and then allied himself with Chameleon in the Lobo Brothers' gang war.[12] Civil War

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