Otto Octavius

"The following information comes from Doctor Octopus"Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius), also known as Doc Ock, Superior Spider-Man, and currently known as the Superior Octopus, is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. A highly intelligent mad scientist, Doctor Octopus is typically portrayed as a stocky, myopic man who utilizes four powerful, mechanical appendages, and is obsessed with proving his own genius and destroying Spider-Man.

The character has appeared in numerous Spider-Man cartoons and video games, and is portrayed by Alfred Molina in the 2004 film Spider-Man 2. In 2009, Doctor Octopus was ranked as IGN's 28th Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time. His first brief appearance as the Superior Spider-Man was in Daredevil vol. 3 #21 (December 2012) and his first full appearance of the same character was in Avenging Spider-Man #15.1 (Dec. 2012). Comics journalist and historian Mike Conroy writes of the character: "Created by Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, Doc Ock, as he became known, has become one of the web slinger's most persistent and dangerous foes." IGN rated him as the greatest enemy of Spider-Man. He was portrayed by Alfred Molina in Spider-Man 2 from 2004 and will be portrayed briefly in The Spider-Man by Adam Warner.

Growing up
Otto's childhood was an unhappy one. His father was an abusive alcoholic envious of his son's greater intelligence while his mother was, as Otto describes, a shell of a human never standing up to his father and very overprotective of young Otto. When Otto became infatuated with a girl of his age at school, his mother made such a fuss it drove the girl away leaving Otto heartbroken. Otto grew up with no friends but found comfort in his love of science which he possessed a natural gift for.

The Octopus
Octavius worked in various labs when he moved to America and even worked as a teacher at a summer science camp of which a young Peter Parker attended and was inspired to pursue his own love of the subject. Years later, Octavius became a lead scientist at Oscorp BioTechnologies, specialising in advancing cybernetics for humans. However while testing the durability of specialised tentacles to be used around radioactive materials, an explosion rocked the lab and while he survived the blast the tentacles were permanently grafted to his body.

Battling Spider-Man
His first encounter with Spider-Man came after Octavius attacked Norman Osborn at a press conference claiming the incident never happened. Spider-Man swung in to the aid of Osborn and engaged the newly dubbed Doctor Octopus in a battle. During the battle however, Captain George Stacy, Gwen's father, was killed by falling debris while trying to save a young boy from suffering the same fate. Octavius tried time after time to get revenge on Spider-Man for thwarting his various schemes even using a device called a neuro-neutraliser to wipe Spidey's memory and use him as his own minion though he was able to break the wipe thanks to a young girl who idolised him.

Deterioration
Despite Octavius' intellect, he fell short when it came to his mechanical tentacles. To make them resistant to radiation, intense heat and other extremities, Otto combined several toxic materials with the belief that they would counteract each other cancelling out the toxicity. It worked in making them resistant but didn't cancel out the toxicity as he had hoped and so every time he used the tentacles it deteriorated his health.

My Own Worst Enemy
The events of My Own Worst Enemy take place in a currently unspecified period of time after his initial health deterioration.

Behind the Scenes
The idea of bringing Otto Octavius into The Spider-Man came about after an idea Moore had while still writing the script. Warner auditioned for the role of JARVIS but lost out to Richard Mark Milne however it was this that fuelled the idea of introducing Octavius. "Superior Spider-Man was his [Moore's] favourite comic story and he always said to me after he did this one he'd want to adapt it somehow" recalls Warner. "He felt bad about casting someone he barely knew as JARVIS and this gave him an idea of how to use me in his project". Having worked with Warner before, Moore knew what he was capable of and so knew a German accent was doable for him. After a very brief audition consisting of a simple conversation in their best German accents, Moore immediately cast Warner in the role and wrote a small scene to be shown during or after the credits of The Spider-Man in true Marvel style to set up the Superior Spider-Man adaptation.

Trivia

 * The character is altered to be more like the 1994 animated Spider-Man series as well as the 2000 PlayStation, PC and Dreamcast video game. In both, Doctor Octopus was voiced by Efrem Zimbalist Jr who portrayed the character with a German accent.  Despite the name, the character was born and raised in America however for this version, he is born in Germany and speaks with an accompanying accent
 * The reason behind this change is that the director and writer grew up with the animated version of Octavius and as such read every comic that featured the character with the German accent and also thought it made sense for the character as his full name is "Otto Gunther Octavius"