Flowers for Rhino

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"Flowers for Rhino" is a critically acclaimed Spider-Man story by Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo. Published in 2001, it is a pastiche of the classic Science Fiction story "Flowers for Algernon." Rhino, a brutish and dim-witted enemy of Spider-Man, undergoes a brain operation that turns him into a super-genius, but has the unfortunate side-effect of eroding his ability to experience joy and delight. A chimpanzee who had the same operation has committed suicide out of boredom and despair, and Rhino sees that he will follow that unhappy road. He saves himself by ordering the surgeons to restore him to his former state, and even make him a bit stupider than before. Soon he is restored to his former stupid but happy self, delightedly crashing through walls. The moral of the story is that intelligence is good, but joie de vivre is better. "Flowers for Rhino" appeared in Spider-Man's Tangled Web #5-6.