The son of Russian immigrants, Joseph passed himself off as an Italian and joined the Maggia. Mortally wounded in a brawl, he was given a new life when a down-and-out surgeon named Jonas Harrow performed an experimental operation that replaced most of his skull with a steel alloy, giving his head a boxed look but making it hard enough to even block some of Spider-Man's punches. Amnesiac, Joseph took to calling himself the Hammerhead and established a criminal empire in the style of old 1920's gangsters, as the last thing he saw before passing out was a poster for an Al Capone film. Eventually gunned down by the Kingpin, Hammerhead was given a cybernetic adamantium skeleton by Mister Negative.