Hellgrammite

Hellgrammite is a DC supervillain who transforms humans into insect-like creatures resembling the dobsonfly larva he's named after, possessing superhuman strength and a chitinous, armored body. He has clashed repeatedly with DC's heaviest hitters, including Batman and Superman.

Few villains crawl out of the Silver Age with quite the unsettling presence of Hellgrammite, who first skittered onto the scene in The Brave and the Bold #80 in 1968, conjured by the legendary creative team of Bob Haney and Neal Adams. A DC original through and through, this creepy-crawly menace has shared panels with the heaviest hitters in the publisher's stable — Batman, Superman, and Commissioner Gordon among them — which speaks to a threat level that DC's finest have had to reckon with across four decades. Turning up most frequently in the pages of Justice League of America, Supergirl, and Superman, Hellgrammite occupies that special niche of villain who never quite goes away, resurfacing from 1968 all the way into 2010 to unsettle a new generation of heroes. For collectors who love the weirder, more atmospheric corners of DC's Silver Age, this is exactly the kind of character worth digging into.