DOCTOR OCTOPUS

 

DOCTOR OCTOPUS

Real Name: Otto Octavius

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #3, July 1963

Powers: Dr. Otto Octavius was a nuclear physicist and radiation specialist who engineered a body harness with four servo arms controlled by motion-sensitive panels on the chest plate in order to manipulate hazardous materials from a safe distance. An explosive accident, however, physically and mentally fused Octavius to his mechanical arms, creating Doctor Octopus (aka "Doc Ock"). Although rarely, if ever, acknowledged, the accident also must have strengthened the arms physically as well, making them capable of the multi-ton manipulating feats they later demonstrated.

Doctor Octopus' arms were mentally controllable after the accident and no longer relied upon the motion panels on the harness (although Spider-Man once demonstrated the panels were still active, and used them to send conflicting control signals to the arms. Doc Ock presumably fixed this flaw later on.) This connection was due to radioactive psion particles shared between Doc Ock and the arms. Even after the arms were surgically removed from Doc Ock physically, he retained a mental connection to the arms allowing him to control them from even hundreds of miles away, summoning the arms from one prison to break him out of another. When together, Doctor Octopus' arms were controlled by both his conscious and subconscious mind. Therefore, they reacted instinctively to protect him from danger, just like a normal man might reflexively throw up his arms to shield himself. If he was ever paralyzed or knocked unconscious, Doc Ock had also pre-programmed the arms for specific responses, such as lashing out at anything that got too close or carrying him off to a predetermined safe house. The arms suffered the natural wear and tear of mechanical systems, and their parts could be repaired or replaced as necessary. New parts incorporated into the arms accumulated psionic particles from the other parts over time, allowing Otto to continue controlling the entire set of arms. Doctor Octopus used this feature to create entirely new Adamantium arms on one occasion, incorporating redundant parts and circuitry from his main arms into the new ones so that he could mentally control the second set as well. However, his connection to the Adamantium arms was never as strong as his original arms, and they were eventually destroyed.

The arms of Doctor Octopus are telescopic and incredibly dexterous. Doc Ock trained extensively to control his arms, making them skilled enough to hold a cigarette in one claw while striking a match to light it with another. They can deliver tremendous amounts of brunt force, bursting through brick walls or severely denting steel. Each arm is capable of supporting 8 tons of weight. In practice, though, Doctor Octopus can typically lift between 16-24 tons, not the 32 ton maximum of all four arms at once. This is because his human body cannot support the weight lifted by his arms without being crushed, so at least one arm must be braced against the ground at all times to keep him from being squashed. The arms can lift him off the ground and propel him forwards faster than a human can run, as well as climbing walls and buildings by digging handholds into the surface. By whipping the arms around at high speeds, Doc Ock can create winds strong enough to dispel gas attacks. His arms and glasses are coated with an anti-stick chemical that prevents Spider-Man's webbing from clinging to them. For both good and ill, Octavius's sense of touch extends through the arms. This allows him to perform complicated and delicate actions with his claws by sense of touch alone, but it also means that damage to his arms is felt psychosomatically through their link, often enough to incapacitate him.

In the months leading up to his death, Otto Octavius was physically incapacitated by the effects of cumulative head trauma during his super-villain career. He compensated for his near-lifeless human form by adding additional arms. Later upgrades included Carbonadium arms extending from a cephalopod exo-frame containing his body. Cerebral circuitry allowed him to access and control his Octo-bots, millions of tiny octopus robot drones that could swarm his opponents, produce electrical discharges, and interface with technology, enabling him to mentally uplink with computers and other mechanical systems to control them remotely.

When Otto Octavius took possession of Spider-Man's body and memories, he strove to become a Superior Spider-Man. He had access to Spider-Man's traditional abilities of Class 10 strength, superhuman speed, agility, endurance, reflexes, balance, coordination, and sense of equilibrium, danger-sensitive spider-sense and wall-crawling abilities. The mnemonic bond he had with Parker's mind also gave him a perfect memory of Parker's life, able to access memories like computer files, "reliving" them with absolute recall.

Otto updated Spider-Man's costume to include more advanced optical lenses, equipped with scanning and identification software that provided him with Head's-Up Display data on anything he looked at. This included identifying various people and superhumans (with a brief powers and bio summary for his review), pinpointing electronics and adjusting for different visual tracking modes, such as infrared, night vision, or tracing specific radio frequencies. The lenses also coordinated with his Spider-Bots, modified from Octavius's earlier Octo-bots, which patrolled the city by the thousands and sent him alerts on various threats or crimes to the lenses or his personal tablet. The Spider-Bots were equipped with Uatu Jackson's facial recognition software, allowing Otto to rapidly locate individual people within the city limits. They could also tap into communication frequencies, such as cellular or police band radios, or assume control of different electronic systems. The Superior Spider-Man adapted talons on his gloves and boots that not only functioned as weapons, but also carried "nano-tracers" that microscopically cling to a target, providing GPS location signals and audio reception. For pre-planned battle scenarios, Otto rigged his chest piece with a touch-activated switch that triggered specific traps and programs based on his verbal commands. He later upgraded his costume with four retractable "legs" from the backpack, useful for support or to lift and strike at objects from a distance.

A complicated sequence of events led to a copy of Octavius's mind surviving when he deleted the main conscious to allow Peter Parker to retake his own body. The copy of Octavius migrated from a wrist device to the Living Brain robot to an advanced resurrected clone of Otto Octavius's body, and finally to his current incarnation. A genetic hybrid of Otto Octavius and Peter Parker, the body is genetically Otto's but with the fitness and superhuman abilities of Parker's. With a new version of his octopus arms added to the body, Otto Octavius became the Superior Octopus.

Dr. Otto Octavius is a genius-level intellect who holds a Ph.D. in nuclear physics. He is one of the world's leading authorities on nuclear radiation and its effect on human physiology. He is also a brilliant engineer and inventor. He suffers from neuroses as well as myopia, necessitating the use of prescription glasses.