Octavius, Otto

Dr. Otto Octavius is a highly intelligent and prideful scientist, better known as the criminal mastermind Doctor Octopus. During an atomic research project, Octavius' body was fused to four mechanical, tentacle-like arms, also causing him severe brain damage that turned him into a criminal. He clashed with Spider-Man and went to become one of his greatest enemies.

## Otto Gunther Octavius

### Aliases

Doctor Octopus, Master Planner, Master Programmer, Doctor, Dr. Elliot Tolliver, Octopus Man, Prisoner Vol 1 4756689

### Relatives

Torbert Octavius (father, dead), Mary Octavius (mother, dead), Karl Octavius (uncle), Elias Hargrove (cousin), Thomas Hargrove (cousin)

### Affiliation

Atomic Research Center, Superior Four Thunderbolts, Sinister Six (founding member and leader), Masters of Evil V (leader), Legion Accursed, partner of Green Goblin, Night Shift, frequently headed his own gang of hired thugs

### Occupation

Criminal mastermind, terrorist, former personal assistant, scientist, atomic researcher consultant, government agent

## Biographical information

### Place of birth

Schenectady, New York, United States of America

## Physical description

### Species

Homo sapien (formerly), Homo sapien ultimatus

## History

### Early Years

Born in Schenectady, New York, to a lower-class family, only child Otto Octavius was raised by his overbearing mother and his abusive father. During his youth, Otto would often receive beatings from his father at home, or from bullies at school. Otto was devoid of friends but excelled academically.

After high school, Otto was accepted into M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for university. During Otto's first year of school, his father Torbert died in a construction accident, a fact for which Otto was very grateful. Otto continued a very close relationship living with his mother, but his mother continued to become more over-attached, and was jealous that Otto spent so much of his time at school.

After graduating M.I.T., Otto was hired by the U.S. Atomic Research Center to research radioactivity, a study he had already begun in his college career. To help manipulate radioactive substances from a safe distance, Otto constructed a chest harness that could control four mechanical, tentacle-like arms - via neural impulses. This earned him the nickname *Doctor Octopus*. At work, he had fallen in love with a fellow researcher, Mary Anders, and they began a romantic relationship. When Otto's mother, whom he lived with, found out about his relationship, she accused Otto of turning his back on her and forced him to traumatically end the relationship. When Otto discovered his mother hypocritically dating behind his back, he blew up in rage at her. During his confrontation with his mother, she died of a heart attack, leaving Otto with bitterness at being the cause of his mother's death.

### Becoming Doctor Octopus

Consumed with guilt, Otto couldn't fully focus during work, and volatile liquids exploded - bombarding the scientist with radiation. The substances left him capable of mentally controlling the arms, but the accident also caused irreversible brain damage - transforming the respected scientist into a megalomaniacal superhuman criminal.

Waking in a hospital, Otto knew this newfound strength - combined with his awesome intellect - could render him supremely powerful. Holding the medical staff hostage, Otto forced them to gather lab equipment for him to continue his work. But Spider-Man showed up. Doctor Octopus easily defeated Spider-Man. Doc Ock then took control of a leading nuclear research facility and again squared off with the wall-crawler, who this time defeated him with one punch to the jaw.

After serving time, Doc Ock attempted to raise funds by springing gangster Blackie Gaxton from a Philadelphia prison - assisted by Gaxton's lawyer, Bennett Brant. Spider-Man foiled the scheme but could not save Bennett from being shot in front of his sister, Betty Brant. After escaping from Spider-Man during a scuffle on a getaway boat meant for Gaxton, Octopus travelled throughout the country, committing some of the most spectacular crimes in an attempt to bring Spider-man to confront him. When that failed, Octopus returned to New York, where he hoped to find Spider-Man.

After kidnapping Betty Brant, whom Octopus knew Spider-Man had risked his life saving before, he fought Spider-Man on Coney Island, who was suffering from a severe virus attack, and easily defeated and unmasked him as Peter Parker. Falsely realizing that the weak Peter Parker could not be Spider-Man, Octopus left and went on a rampage, releasing zoo animals and finally confronting the "real" Spider-Man, and was defeated when he was trapped in a burning building.

After being imprisoned yet again, a team of specialists found a way to remove his harness. Now believed by the prison to be normal again and without power, they placed his tentacles in another part of the facility. It was at this time that Octopus showed that he had mental control over his arms, even when separated from him over short distances. Using this to his advantage, he summoned his tentacles to return to him and escaped from prison.

Otto then deduced that to defeat Spider-Man, he could not do it alone. He decided to bring together a team of villains to destroy Spider-Man, and thus assembled the first Sinister Six to combat Spider-Man. He plotted to kidnap Betty Brant again and make her their hostage. However, Betty was visiting with May Parker at the time, who was also captured and taken hostage. Doctor Octopus treated May so kindly, though, that she remained blissfully unaware she had been kidnapped by the charming villain.

## Attributes

### Powers

**Cybernetic Tentacles:** Doctor Octopus' superhuman abilities derive from the four mentally controlled, electronically powered, telescoping, prehensile titanium-steel tentacles attached to a stainless-steel harness encircling his body from lower chest to waist. Each tentacle, approximately five inches in diameter, terminates in three single-jointed pincers. The pincers are able to rotate in relation to the arm for 360 degrees, in a screwdriver-like twisting motion. Each tentacle segment contains four high-efficiency electric motors equipped with a clutched, helical-gear train, independently mounted on frictionless gimbals and housed in four thin, overlapping layers of titanium-niobium steel. The titanium-steel alloy is light, has high-tensile strength, a high melting point, and high thin-wall rigidity. The motors get their power from a small nuclear-powered thermo-electric generator, which can provide several hundred watts per hour for up to five years before needing to replace its U-239 core. The tentacles have been modified since the time of the original accident to include high-efficiency battery packs (enabling movement when cut off from the central power source) and individual micro-circuit control modules (enabling each arm to perform certain pre-programmed actions when Octopus loses conscious control). In the event that Octopus loses consciousness, the control module of each arm has enough pre-programmed conditional responses in its memory chip to enable it to perform a relatively complex sequence of actions, such as saving his life. The trauma of his arm or arms being separated from the harness causes a period of disorientation in which his arms flail about uncontrollably until the pre-programming takes over.

* **Technopathic Tentacle Manipulation:** Octopus can control the actions of his artificial arms psionically, even when they have been severed from his body and are separated from him by vast distances (a distance of 900 miles has been recorded).
* **Telescoping:** Each tentacle is approximately six feet long at full contraction but can extend to a maximum of 24 feet in length.
* **Superhuman Striking Force:** Each tentacle is capable of moving at a speed of ninety feet per second and strike with the force of a jackhammer.
* **High-Wind Generation:** The tentacles can generate 50 mile per hour winds if spun like a giant fan.
* **Wall-Climbing and Traveling:** By combining the intrinsic strength of both his tentacles and the pincers, Doctor Octopus can scale stone, brick, or concrete walls by rending "handholds" in the surface of the wall. Octopus is able to use his tentacles for traversing horizontal distances as well. At full extension, he can travel high above the ground as if on stilts, either using two tentacles, or for maximum speed (approximately 50 miles per hour), four tentacles.
* **Sensation Feeling:** Although there are no nerve endings throughout the length of his artificial arms, Octopus can "feel" basic sensations with them. As a result of the mutagenic changes from exposure to radiation during the accident, electrical connections have been made from his chest harness to his spine. Thus, Doctor Octopus can mentally perceive "tactile" sensations by feeling the amount of electrical resistance that the pincer's electric motors feel when the pincers grasp an object.

### Abilities

**Genius Intelligence:** Otto Octavius is a multi-discipline scientist with expertise in various fields of science.

* **Radiation Specialist:** Doctor Octopus is one of the world's leading authorities on nuclear radiation and its effect on animal physiology.
* **Engineering:** Doctor Octopus is a brilliant engineer and inventor, due to his own ability and more recently due to having Peter's memories.
* **High Concentration:** Doctor Octopus possesses extraordinary mental abilities and concentration, and through years of practice is able to perform two complex and two simple independent actions, simultaneously, one with each arm.

### Weaknesses

**Arrogance:** On many occasions, Otto's pride has been a major factor in many of his defeats. Otto considers himself to be the smartest person on the planet and that he could never be wrong due to his massive intellect. This confidence in his own intelligence frequently causes him to ignore factors that could derail his plans leaving him unprepared for when these factors come into play. This also makes him at wits with other heroes, mostly the Avengers.