Brothers Grimm (comics)

Brothers Grimm
The first Brothers Grimm and Priscilla Dolly
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Spider-Woman #3 (Jun 1978)
Created by	Marv Wolfman and Carmine Infantino
In-story information
Alter ego	Jake and William Dolly
Abilities	Costume granted matter production

The Brothers Grimm are two sets of fictional twin supervillains appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

The first appearance of the first Brothers Grimm came in Spider-Woman #3. These were a pair of identical, magically animated mannequins created by doll collector Nathan Dolly (also known as Mister Doll) and his wife Priscilla. During their initial appearances only one was ever seen at a time and the singular identity, Brother Grimm was used instead of their true plural name. After three return appearances in Spider-Woman, they perished in issue #12.

Though the characters were introduced while Marv Wolfman was writing Spider-Woman, their origin and identities were not revealed until Mark Gruenwald's run on the series. Questioned as to whether he had told Gruenwald the characters' origin or Gruenwald had come up with it himself, Wolfman admitted that he could not even remember if the origin he had originally envisioned for the characters was the same as the one ultimately used by Gruenwald, except that "Brother Grimm" actually being two people was his intention from the beginning. Though Wolfman could not remember how the Brothers Grimm were created, he has said he is confident that their visual design must have come from series penciler Carmine Infantino: "I usually gave the artist a concept of what I wanted and then let them have a field day with it. Carmine created brilliant designs in The Flash, so I would certainly have bowed to his expertise."

The second Brothers Grimm appeared in Iron Man #188. They would eventually be thrown together with other lesser known super-villains in a group called the Night Shift.

Mister Doll was a criminal who could mystically harm a person by harming a doll whose features he could reshape to resemble the victim's. Later, in the process of creating the Brothers Grimm dolls, Nathan's consciousness was trapped simultaneously inside both doll mannequins. These mannequins mailed themselves to Nathan's wife Priscilla and transferred their life forces into two life size versions. She named them Jake and William (after the historical Brothers Grimm), and believed them to be her sons, a delusion which they played along with.