The son of the late Spencer Smythe, Alistair grew up around a father who frequently ignored him in favor of his obsession with Spider-Man. As a result Alistair grew up a bizarre young man, over-weight, poorly groomed and with perverse tastes in women. Alistair inherited, however, his father's knowledge of mechanics, and parlayed that into a job for the Kingpin, where he secretly continued on with his work on Spider-Slayers to finish his father's goal, the death of Spider-Man.