Amazing Spider-Man #687
Everyone Dies
Having track down Doctor Octopus to his hideout in a Mayan temple in Guatemala, Spider-Man and his allies — the Black Widow and Silver Sable — are attacked by mind-controlled Avengers. Spider-Man has realized that Doctor Octopus has been reverse engineering the technology he made for Horizon Labs and realizes that this is all his fault. When the Widow and Sable ask Spider-Man to use one of his gadgets against the Avengers, he tells them they are fresh out. Then, by taking control of Spider-Woman, Doctor Octopus attacks. He thinks that by using Spider-Woman as a proxy he will be able to defeat his old foe, but he doesn’t anticipate the martial arts that Spider-Man recently learned from Shang Chi.[1]
Doctor Octopus then tries to set the Red Hulk against Mysterio for betraying his plans. However, the master of illusions is far from harmless and activates a giant robot fashioned to look like an ancient Mayan warrior to fight the Hulk. Octavius tries to respond by attacking Spider-Man with Thor, however Otto is not worthy to carry Mjolnir, forcing Thor to drop the enchanted hammer. When Spider-Man attempts to use his magnetic webbing to interfere with the octobots controlling the Avengers he is punched by a mind-controlled Thor.
Not far away, Silver Sable is matching her skills against Captain America. She is easily able to defeat Cap due to the fact that he is also under mind control. She then asks Mysterio if he has anything comparable to Spider-Man’s magnetic webbing. As it turns out, Mysterio has a device that can unleash an electromagnetic pulse and uses it to short out the octobots, freeing the Avengers from Doctor Octopus’ control.
Not willing to surrender, Doctor Octopus launches his satellites. This prompts Thor, the Red Hulk, and Iron Man to fly after them to take them down. Still, Spider-Man doesn’t want to take any chances and demands that Mysterio reveal the location of Sinister Six’s hideout. After pointing out the undersea location, Mysterio makes his escape, deciding he has done enough. Spider-Man and Silver Sable prepare to take the final battle to Doctor Octopus himself.
Meanwhile, aboard the Zenith, has tracked the signal from the Sinister Six’s hideout and are attacked by Doctor Octopus’ Octahedral. Luckily, Spider-Man and Silver Sablearrive in one of Otto’s amphibious octo-tanks and deflects the missiles. Spider-Man and Silver Sable force their way inside, forcing Doctor Octopus to seal off the control room and flood the rest of his hideout even though this will compromise its structural integrity. By this time, Spider-Man and Sable are confronted by the Rhino who tells them that he agreed to help Doctor Octopus because he promised to make the world burn, a fitting fate for it since it took away the Rhino’s one true love, Oksana.[2] Silver Sable tries to fight the Rhino, but he quickly pins her to the ground, threatening to drown her as the hallway fills with water.
Silver Sable orders Spider-Man to leave her as he life is not worth it if it means the end of the world. Despite his better judgement, Spider-Man leaves Silver Sable who appears to be drowned by the Rhino.[3] More furious than ever, Spider-Man forces his way into the control room and battles Doctor Octopus. As thy fight, Octavius explains that his plan wasn’t to wipe out all of humanity, as he calculates .008% of the population will survive the coming cataclysm. He hopes that those who surrived will always remember how he brought the entire world to its knees. Doctor Octopus uses all his mechanical arms to restrain the wall-crawler and is forced to exit his life-support system to get to the control panel to activate his Octavian Lense.
With time running out, Spider-Man thinks of a way to stop his foe. He has a moment of inspiration and tells Octavius that his device will fry the brains of those survivors leaving them vegetables with no memories of what he had done. Hearing this causes Otto to pause as he tries to think about what to do next. This gives Spider-Man the time to break free from the mechanical arms and smashes the control panel. With his plans ruined and his control room filling with water, Doctor Octopus tries to drown himself, but Spider-Man refuses to let anyone die, not even his greatest foe. As Otto’s base blows up Spider-Man climbs aboard the Zenith with Doctor Octopus as his prisoner. When Max Modell congratulates Spider-Man for saving the world, Spider-Man still feels like a failure because someone — Silver Sable — still died.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Black Widow, Silver Sable, Sinister Six (Doctor Octopus, Mysterio, Rhino), Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, Red Hulk, Spider-Woman), Max Modell, Grady Scraps, Sajani Jaffrey, Uatu Jackson, Bella Fishbach, Tiberius Stone
Continuity Notes
Spider-Man underwent training under Shang Chi during a period in which he lost his spider-sense between Amazing Spider-Man #654 to 672. See Free Comic Book Day 2011: Amazing Spider-Man #1.
The Rhino married Oksana in Amazing Spider-Man #617. She was later murdered by a would be successor in issue #625.
Silver Sable actually survives this encounter. See Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 5) #33 for details.
Topical References
Doctor Octopus says there is just over 7 billion people on the planet. This should be considered topical since, as I write this in October 2020, the world population has continued to grow and is currently at 7.8 billion people.
