Chemistro is a minor-level villain that somehow manages to keep himself employed throughout the years despite never breaking into the big leagues. But that’s okay, because the big leagues are pretty full, and the Marvel Universe needs these nuisance guys to come around and start trouble once in a while.
Chemistro has a great look and a great gimmick. Basically he alters the chemical makeup of things he shoots and turns them into other things. For instance, he can turn an asphalt street into water and then turn the water into lead. Boom — instant lead-encased superhero.
To me he’s been underutilized but that probably adds to his charm. He’s been a Luke Cage villain, an Iron Man villain, and even did some damage as part of the Hood’s gang back when the Hood was placing want ads for bad guys on Craigslist fairly regularly. To me, if you can flip back and forth between being a quasi-Iron Man villain and a Luke Cage villain, you’re living in a very rarified little niche. Besides, it’s not like he showed up and was easily taken out . . . he did some major damage to both Cage and Iron Man when he fought them.
Chemistro’s main method of attack has been portrayed in a number of ways. At one point he was dependent on a gun to do his chemical transmogrification thing, but then he was upgraded with some wrist blasters that he could fire at things, which simplified his gimmick. Recent appearance have him going back to a gun, so basically I’m not sure he can make up his mind how he wants to do that thing he does so well. It’s probably more likely that a figure would come with a swanky chemical rejiggering gun than having to sculpt some wrist-blaster dealies, so that’s fine with me.
Other than his choice in weaponry, Chemistro has been consistent in his appearance over the years. He’s almost always had the red and silver with the spiral Bullseye-type design on his chest and the rings around his arms and legs. If you’re Chemistro, you want to stick with brand recognition because it’s a good chance not a lot of people are going to remember you when you’re surrounded by other, more dynamic villains who have gone toe-to-toe with entire teams of Avengers and whomever. You really don’t want to have to reintroduce yourself to people you’ve already met; you want them to say, “Hey, circle guy, you’re Chemistro. I remember you.”
I see someone like Chemistro on the BuckyCap body, but I’d probably lean towards wanting him to use the torso they used for Dr. Strange since that has less of a flex to it, so that chest symbol has a better canvas to rest on. It’s a minor thing but I think it would help out.
Other than that, he’s just a paint job and a new head. I know the knee-jerk reaction is to want the arms and legs to have sculpted lines, but that really doesn’t make much sense for him here. I’d be perfectly happy for those lines to just be paint apps. As long as they get them straight.
Speaking of head, it’s probably asking for a bit much for somebody like Chemistro, but if they could squeeze in a second head for him to represent his fully masked look, that would be awesome, but I think that’s probably asking a bit much.
Nowadays when waves are built more around themes, I have no idea where Chemistro could end up. In terms of “catch-all,” he could be tossed into an Avengers wave as he did make an appearance on the Avengers cartoon, or he could end up in some Spider-Man wave. Grim Reaper showed up in an Ant-Man wave, so I think there’s a broad range of acceptability for where a character could show up, especially since there’s no way of knowing what property will be getting their own wave. So basically, I don’t care, just shove him somewhere.