Escaping, the Reaper recruited fellow Avengers foes Living Laser, Man-Ape (M'Baku), Power Man (Erik Josten) and Swordsman (Jacques Duquesne) into the Lethal Legion, whose members competed with each other to see who could capture or kill the most Avengers but the Legion was soon defeated and imprisoned, thanks largely to a new Avengers recruit, the Vision, whom the Reaper could not bring himself to kill. As the Grim Reaper, Eric very nearly killed the Avengers but was thwarted by the Black Panther.
He hired the Tinkerer to build him a high-tech miniature arsenal in the form of a scythe, enhancing it with a coma-inducing device created by the mad robot Ultron, a fellow Avengers enemy who became so intrigued by Eric's family-inspired vendetta that he secured a copy of Simon's brain patterns for experimental purposes, later using them to create the android Vision. Learning of Simon's apparent demise, Eric went mad with grief and wrongly blamed the Avengers for Simon's death. Simon was transformed into Wonder Man by Baron Heinrich Zemo and used against the Avengers before sacrificing himself to save the heroes, who preserved a copy of his brain patterns in the hope of resurrecting him someday. Unable to accept his brother's fall from grace, Eric lied to his mother and others by claiming that he was the real embezzler, insisting that Simon had merely taken the blame. As a last resort, Simon stole money from his own company, hoping to invest it in Eric's Maggia ventures for a fast profit and save the business but Simon got caught, and was arrested for embezzlement. Williams Innovations gradually failed, thanks in part to stiff competition from rival firm Stark Industries, and a desperate Simon turned to Eric for help-though Eric's attempted intimidation and coercion of business rivals and potential clients failed to produce useful results. Simon, meanwhile, dutifully entered the family business and took over its management after Sanford's death.
Scorning his family's high-tech manufacturing business, Eric became a gambler and a professional criminal, rising within the ranks of the Maggia organized crime cartel. Secretly admiring Simon's virtue, Eric developed an unrealistically idealized view of his brother, whom he loved and resented in equal measure. Regarded as the black sheep of the family, Eric became a thief and tried unsuccessfully to pressure Simon into participating in his petty crimes. Both brothers struggled in vain for the approval of their demanding, abusive father, Sanford but where Simon was shy and studious, Eric was athletic, wild and reckless.
Supposedly born bad, Eric Williams always defined himself by comparison to his "good" brother, Simon.