If you ever have trouble with a positive self-image, consider this guy:

Since I bought well over a hundred comics at the last con alone, it's weird for me to remember when I was young and didn't get comics every single week. Moreover, even a big-name like Spider-Man I wasn't getting to read with any regularity, and was rarely exposed to a big-name villain! Electro was probably the biggest name Spider-Man villain I saw for years. My earliest Spidey comics had guys like Equinox, Fusion, Jigsaw, or this guy: from 1979, Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #35, "Labyrinth!" Written by Tony Isabella, pencils by Lee Elias, inks by Mike Esposito.

This issue features the return of Mindworm, an obscure villain that had faced Spidey maybe once before, five years prior in Amazing #138. He was a mutant, with an unusually large head, and somewhat unfortunate mental powers: he had accidentally killed his mom by draining her mental energy, which caused his dad to kill himself. It's probably not even fair to call him a villain: he had been draining energy from people but not killing them, but maybe wasn't prepared for Peter Parker's drama. Spidey had given him a pretty good shot to the head, which interfered with his powers, so he wasn't getting the energy he needed and was wasting away, but eventually pulled himself out of it...but for what? He wasn't exactly blending into polite society, and seemingly having little else to do, sought revenge on ol' Web-head.

Spidey gets thrown into the proverbial labyrinth, along with Mindworm's pretty doctor, and some giant rats. The doctor realizes those were manifestations of Mindworm's childhood fears, after a rat attack. (It's super-weird that two of the few comics I read back then were issues of Spider-Man with a child getting bitten by a rat as a plot point!) Mindworm presents himself, as a very EC Comics-looking blob; which the doctor explains is his feeling of alienation from humanity. During the ensuing fight, Spidey brings up his parents, which dredges up that trauma, forcing him to deal with it. "Spidey" tells the doctor he's defeated his foe...but his mask is torn, revealing Mindworm beneath!

Luckily, it's all a dream...or is it? Peter isn't sure, so the next morning he swings over to the hospital to see, and finds a sedate Mindworm being treated by a nurse, the doctor from his dream. Telepathically, Mindworm explains how Spidey and the nurse helped him work through a lot of his problems there, and he had realized the old Spidey mantra, with great power, etc. A happy ending...that would be wiped out some years later, when he'd be a homeless mental patient killed off in Spectacular #22, in a stretch of comics I vaguely remember as being largely gloomy. I also seem to recall Mindworm showing up, more than once, in crowd scenes with guys like Kangaroo, like in Tangled Web #6--it was weird to see him there; like seeing a face from childhood again, and not being sure why.