Dillon, Max (aka, "Electro")

Introduction

Max Dillon was born in Endicott, New York, to Anita and Jonathan Dillon. Jonathan had a nasty temper and took it out on his wife and son. It likely also created problems in his job as an accountant, as he was often fired and forced the family to move to a new town. Jonathan left his wife and son when Max was around eight years old and Anita leaned heavily on her son. She was over protective and often reminded him "You're all I have."

Anita felt betrayed when Max decided that he wanted to go to college to study electrical engineering or to be a scientist. She told him that he didn't have the brains or discipline to be an engineer. She suggested that he become an accountant, like his father. Anita died near Max's twenty fifth birthday but his life didn't get any better. He got married six months after her death but the marriage was a short one. She encouraged him to follow his dream as a engineer or to apply for a management job at the electric company. He glumly told her that he didn't have the brains for jobs like those. She eventually left him.

Max kept his job as a lineman and one day his boss ordered him to climb up an electrical pole to save a fellow lineman, who had been shocked at the top of the pole. Max did it when he was guaranteed a bonus check and was struck by lighting when at the top. He found that the strike had given him the ability to generate and control electricity and embarked on a criminal career as a thief. (Amazing Spider-Man #422)

Psychopathology: An Insecure Dynamo

Despite being nearly god-like in power, Dillon has always felt like a little man. Soon after being granted his power, he was approached by Erik Lensherr, a mutant terrorist with abilities similar to Max's. He hoped to recruit Max into his Brotherhood of Mutants but he refused. "Let me tell you something, bullet head: My whole damn life nobody ever missed a chance to make me feel small. But that lightning strike? That was karma, baby. That was somebody upstairs saying I don't have to take other people's garbage anymore!" (Web of Spider-Man #2, vol 2)

Dillon was always sensitive to other people's criticism. After he was released from prison, he was visited by his parole officer, who praised him for saving some co-workers at a TV studio when a electrical cable shorted out. (Being invulnerable to electricity, Dillon was able to walk past the cable and shut off the power with ease.) Despite the parole officer's approval, Dillon still thought of him as a "smug punk." Back in his apartment, Dillon promised himself that "When I'm ready to go back into action--as Electro again--nobody's gonna push me around! Nobody!" (Amazing Spider-Man #82)

His sensitivity was still there after he tried to increase his electrical power by strapping himself into a electric chair. After getting beaten by Spider-Man again, Max was at his wits end. "Y-you're like all the rest...like my own father. You think that I'm a useless nothing! A pathetic loser! A perennial failure! You are so wrong!" After being finally defeated, he tries to commit suicide by falling into New York harbor. Electricity + water = boom.(Amazing Spider-Man #425)

Momma's Boy Gone Bad

After Jonathan Dillon left his family, Anita depended on her son. She didnt allow him to play with other kids, because she was afraid he might hurt himself. She repeatedly told him "You're all I have." This kind of role reversal between parent and child is called parentification. The parent stops looking after the child and the child starts meeting the needs of the parent. Parentified children can look after a parent's physical needs (like always doing all of the cooking and cleaning) or emotional needs (being an emotional confidant.)

Young children are not yet emotionally mature enough to take on the worries and fears that adults have. It seems that Anita parentified Max by leaning on him emotionally and not letting him have a carefree childhood. Parentified children grow up to have emotional problems, can be very angry people and have trouble forming stable romantic relationships. Max never married again after his wife left him but he did form somewhat of a relationship with a shape shifting Ukrainian prostitute. (Marvel Knights Spider-Man #2) Still, not the most stable of love affairs.



Psychopathology: Depression

Max's fixation on his parents and wife's disappointment in him most likely caused him to become depressed. The parental rejection he dealt with from his father likely caused him to become depressed, as well as the emotional stress he dealt with in living with his mother's needs. Always a crook at heart, perhaps he saw money as a way of dealing with his depression. More likely, cognitive therapy would have eased his symptoms. Researchers have found that changing the way a person thinks has a greater effect on improving mood than changing how the depressed person behaves.

Conclusion

Max Dillon suffered emotional abuse at the hands of his parents and rejection by his ex-wife. These traumas led him to think of himself as a loser and he tried to "self medicate" with money and violence. Constant defeat by Spider-Man only increased his negative self image and depression, resulting in a hatred of the wall crawler. Cognitive therapy may help with his anger and depression but his receptiveness to the idea is in question.

Diagnosis

Axis I: Depression caused by parentification and parental rejection.
Axis II: Antisocial personality disorder.
Axis III: No diagnosis.
Axis IV: Dirty living conditions. (Hid out in a warehouse with rats, Amazing Spider-Man #425)
Axis V: 40--very serious impairment: suicide attempt, major depression