Hi guys! This is my first Pure Evil Proposal here and I want to talk about a certain villain from the Spider-Man trilogy. Who is it? Dr. Octopus from Spider-Man 2! The film had an earlier script that gives the main characters different motivations and personality and Dr. Octavius got MUCH more evil...
Who is Dr. Octopus and what does he do?[]
Introduced as an isolated and obsessed, but seemingly kind-hearted scientist, Octavius is introduced to young Peter Parker by Dr. Curt Connors, and Octavius immediately recognizes Peter as the son of his former lab partners, Richard and Mary Parker. AKA, Peter's parents who he lost when he was 6.
Revealing past details of their lives to Peter, Octavius claims that the two were murdered by a Soviet operative named "Black Hand" during their work on a creating a machine capable of producing unlimited quantities of energy, to the point of materializing small suns, and laments that he has spent the last decade and a half trying to honor their memory by finishing the project.
When Peter reveals that he possesses the final piece of the puzzle handed down to him by his parents before their deaths—a device called "the image refractor"—he brings it to Octavius, desiring to help him finish his parents' work.
...Octavius proceeds to take the refractor, pull out a gun and try to blow Peter's brains out, cheerfully bragging "You're a fool, just like your parents! There was no double agent, no Black Hand other than mine, on the handle of the gun that killed them. And now that you've given me what they would not, you can die like they did."
Revealing that he killed Richard and Mary when they tried to hide the image refractor from him due to his megalomaniacal desire to do whatever it takes for science, Octavius chases Peter until the boy seemingly falls to death, leading Octavius to smirk and remark "How touching. A family reunion."
Continuing his work on the device and finishing it with the image refractor, Octavius is confronted by Spider-Man. Utilizing his technologically advanced waistband that has four metallic tentacles attached, Octavius nearly kills Spider-Man, but their fight damages the machine, leading it to explode and seemingly kill Otto.
Truthfully surviving this ordeal, Octavius wakes up in the hospital in horror at the fact that, to save his life, the doctors had to integrate the waistband into Octavius' very flesh and organs. Flying into a rage at his new state, Octavius proceeds to throttle and fling his doctor to his death, rampaging out of the hospital and returning to his lab, where he retrieves the image refractor.
Contacting Harry Osborn, Octavius meets with him and hands him the refractor, offering to put his science to good work for Oscorp in exchange for resources. Harry—secretly pocketing the refractor—reveals he alerted the police, who surround Octavius and hold him at gunpoint. We then get this:
- FBI Agent: "Remove your coat and get up against the wall! We need to check if you're armed!" Octavius: "Oh, I'm armed."
Proceeding to smash his way through the agents and into the streets, Octavius—now dubbed "Doc Ock"—begins to rampage through the streets, flinging cars into crowds of people, smashing cops into the ground, flicking away shrieking civilians like bugs...when enough cops arrive and open fire, Ock promptly grabs a cop and uses him as a human shield, then attempts to grab the nearby Mary Jane Watson to use her for the same purposes until Spider-Man arrives.
Dueling Spidey blow-for-blow, Ock eventually realizes he's outmatched and damages a roof structure, sending it plummeting towards a child on the street and police Captain George Stacy. Though the child is saved, Stacy is killed by the falling rubble, earning a "malevolent smile" from Ock as he slips away.
Later meeting up with a character dubbed simply "the Foreign Man" (I love these scripts so much lmao), Ock offers a partnership with the man to finish his life's work on foreign soil. When the Foreign Man makes it painfully obvious that Ock's invention will be used as a mass destruction device against other countries and even America itself, Ock simply boasts "There are no such things as countries, only truth. All knowledge is good, and whatever it unleashes is natural and inevitable. Even destruction."
Preparing to leave on a helicopter with the Foreign Man, Ock flies into a rage when he realizes Harry pocketed the image refractor during their broken deal earlier, and quickly tracks the man down to his wedding.
Smashing his way inside and sealing the attendees in, Ock endangers them all with swinging his buzzsaw tentacles around and smashing the ceiling, leading to rubble falling on top of Curt Connors and destroying his arm.
When Harry begs Ock to leave the guests alone, Ock grabs a waitress and demands the refractor, flinging her across the room when Harry insists he doesn't have it. Next grabbing Harry's wife-to-be, Ock drops her and grabs Mary Jane when Harry continues to deny, which quickly leads Harry to give up the refractor, truthfully in love with Mary Jane even over his own wife.
Attacked by Spidey as he retrieves the image refractor, Ock proceeds to flee the party.....by means of his tentacles spinning so fast they become akin to helicopter rotors, and Ock floats away as Spider-Man gives chase.
Smashing a construction site girder to send two workers plummeting to their deaths to distract Spider-Man and give himself a headstart, Ock arrives at the helipad and tries to board it with the Foreign Man, but Spider-Man intervenes and the Foreign Man ditches Ock to his fate. Ock proceeds to brag, but his tentacles end up ripped from his waistband.in their ensuing fight, and Ock—begging for mercy—is promised by Spidey that he'll be kept in prison for the rest of his life, for crimes starting with the murders of Richard and Mary Parker.
Freudian Excuse/Mitigating Factors[]
In a staaaaaark contrast to the final product of the movie, Ock is a murderous, treacherous bastard with no wife, no tragedy, no good motives to him. He just wants to complete his experiment, uncaring what it's used for, simply believing that the process of bringing it into existence is motive enough, and even then he's got a massive freaking ego, proclaiming that he's "...knowledge itself! To try to stop me is to try to stop the sun from rising! I am Galileo! I am Da Vinci! I am Thomas Edison!" and even though he's horrified when he wakes in the hospital to the sight of his tentacles fused to him, he gets over it rather quickly and he was a bastard beforehand.
Heinous Standard[]
Although Norman Osborn/ Green Goblin was very evil, I think that Dr. Octopus manages to surpass him in evilness.. He's got a bunch of personal murder on his hands—his murders of the Parkers being an especially notable pair—he's pretty much routinely dragging bystanders into danger to distract or intimidate his opponents, and he's ultimately planning to develop his energy device and hand it off to be used as a mass-destructive force to a foreign nation. It's tons of personal villainy as well as implicitly endangering countless lives by giving such a dangerous device to nations with "hostile, destructive intent" towards America. And unlike Norman, he doesn't show any sympathy/remorse for his crimes.
Final Verdict[]
I would give a yes to this version of Doc Ock.