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Dr. Otto Octavius, better known as Doctor Octopus is a Marvel Comics supervillain, an enemy of Spider-Man. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #3 (July 1963). more...

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"Doc Ock," as Spider-Man often calls him, is a stocky, myopic man, supposedly modeled after pop singer Roy Orbison, who utilizes four powerful, mechanical appendages. A highly intelligent mad scientist, he is obsessed with proving his own genius and destroying his arch foe.

Doctor Octopus is one of Spider-Man’s greatest adversaries, if not the greatest, rivalled only by the Green Goblin. He has been featured in most Spider-Man animated series and video games and was played by Alfred Molina in 2004’s Spider-Man 2.

Character biography

Born in Schenectady, New York, Otto Octavius had a turbulent upbringing. His father, a factory worker, was abusive and violent towards both Otto and his mother, leading Otto to be shy and reclusive in school. However, at his mother's insistence, he was determined not to become like his father and threw all his efforts into his education, regularly scoring top marks. His father's death due to an industrial accident pushed him further towards the study of, and obsession with, physical science.

Before his transformation into the megalomaniacal archenemy of the web-slinger, Otto was a brilliant and respected nuclear physicist, inventor, and lecturer. He had a girlfriend who he wanted to marry. His mother did not approve. When the woman died of cancer, Otto rebuked his mother, causing her to have a fatal heart attack. He then designed a set of highly advanced mechanical arms to assist him with his research into atomic physics. The tentacled arms were resistant to radiation and were capable of great strength and highly precise movement. They were attached to a harness that fit around his body.

During an accidental radiation leak that ended in an explosion, the apparatus became fused to Octavius' body. It was later revealed that the radiation (or possibly his own latent mutation) had mutated his brain so that he could control the movement of the arms using his thoughts alone. The tentacles have since been surgically removed from his body, although Octavius retains the power to control them telepathically from a great distance. The accident also seemingly damaged his brain (although it was later suggested that what was interpreted as brain damage was in fact his mind rewiring itself to accommodate four extra limbs), and the scientist turned to a life of crime.

Though Doctor Octopus himself is portly, in poor physical shape, and near-sighted to the extent that he is almost blind without the aid of his eyeglasses, with his harness attached he is physically more than a match for Spider-Man: in his first appearance he beat Spider-Man so badly that the wall-crawler considered giving up his heroic career, until he was inspired to continue by the Human Torch at the time when the Fantastic Four were called in to fight Doctor Octopus.

Read more at Wikipedia.org