Freak's origin story sucked, as did most of the beginning of BND. However, his current status is amazing and I'm glad he's around.

There's been a number of villains with crap origins and bad first issues. But if a writer can turn them into something good, useful, and entertaining, I'm all for it.

I thought Menace was actually pretty good, as far as the villains go. The Goblin and Osborne name have been a big influence in the Spidey world, and to a lesser extent, the Marvel universe. It's not that far of a stretch someone would be making a new Goblin outfit every few years or so.