Wilhelm van Vile (Earth-616)

Wilhelm van Vile was a counterfeiter who was arrested after trying to pay with a badly counterfeited dollar bill in a bookshop where the Human Torch was working. After he broke out of prison, he discovered extraterrestrial paints in a cave that he was able to use to paint scenes that came to life, and manipulate others. However the Torch managed to avoid his fate because he realized that he was dealing with fakes when he noticed several flaws in the Painter's "artwork" including that none of the other FF members had the famous Fantastic Four insignia on their uniforms. Tracking the Painter back to Tobin's lair, the Torch burned all the paints and took all the criminals to jail where the Torch revealed to the Painter how he saw through his traps.^[3]

He later recruited Bora and Spark for his Avant Guard and clashed with Spider-Man and the Torch again.^[4] In a high security prison and hypnotized by the Hypno-Hustler into seeing his deadliest foes, Spider-Man fought various freed prisoners, only discovering who each of his opponents were by the name on each cell; the Painter appeared as Morlun, but was quickly knocked out.^[5]

Extraterrestrial Paint: Paints with the ability to make whatever is painted with them, either exist in reality if they are objects or physically happen if they are events. They disappear when the painter commands it or they wear off on their own accord.