Superior Spider-Man #4
The Aggressive Approach
After spending some time living the life of Peter Parker, Otto Octavius has seen such wasted potential and vows to never let this happen again.[1] This is on the evening when he unleashes an army of his spider-bots which will carry out surveillance on the entire city of New York looking for crimes to better maximize Spider-Man’s usefulness as a crime fighter.
With his spider-bots, Otto takes down four times as many crime as his predecessor could. This includes rounding up most of the Vulture’s child soldiers and busting the White Rabbit.[2] Eventually, when one of the spider-bots reports another crime he contacts the police, deciding that he has more important things to do. Watching this is the spirit of Peter Parker, who tries to remind Otto about great power and great responsibility, but this falls on deaf ears. This is because Parker is a prisoner in his own body with little ability to influence Otto’s thoughts or actions.
However, Peter lets this go when he realizes that Otto is going to check on Peter’s Aunt May who is still undergoing physiotherapy for her injured hip.[3] There “Peter” is certain that May will recover enough that she will no longer need to walk with a cane. May is just happy to see her nephew who has been spending much more time with her recently. Watching this, Peter can’t believe that even his Aunt May can’t tell that the man posing as her nephew is an impostor. Peter then meets with May’s doctor, who says she is too old for any radical form of surgery and that she will need a cane to walk for the rest of her life.[4] Otto finds this prognosis insulting and vows to prove him wrong.
Otto then returns to Horizon Labs where he has the Living Brain assist in creating his latest invention. Watching this, Peter is uneasy about what Otto might be planning now. Once he is finished his work, “Peter” calls on Max Modell to see his latest invention. Max arrives with their co-worker, Uatu Jackson, and reminds Peter that he is not used to being summoned and reminds him to go through proper channels. He then shows off his latest invention, a new cybernetic neural-interface that is grafted to the spine which will allow the injured to walk again. “Parker” insists that Aunt May be the first test subject. The fact that “Peter” wants to conduct human trials right away horrifies both Max and Uatu, the latter even asks if “Peter” thinks he is Doctor Frankenstein. Otto takes offense to this and tells Uatu to refer to him as “Doctor Peter Parker". This brings Peter joy because Otto Octavius is going to learn that Peter never got a doctorate. When he audibly says he is “scanning memories”, Uatu becomes suspicious. Otto then realizes that not only does Peter Parker not have a PhD, he never finished grad school.[5] Otto is furious at Parker’s slacking, recounting how he got his doctorate when he was sixteen.[6] He angrilly throws his invention on the floor and then storms out of the lab.
Meanwhile, at the Ravencroft, Doctor Ashley Kafka is going to check on her latest patient, the man called Massacre. She has a guard accompanying her, telling him to be on alert since Massacre is dangerous. She explains how a brain injury has made Marcus Lyman have no regard for human life. When she opens Lyman’s cell she is horrified to find the guard posted at his door inside the padded room, murdered. Massacre had disguised himself as that guard and kills Ashley’s protection. When she tries to convince Marcus that he will need her alive in order to escape, he disagrees and starts reaching for her face.
The following morning, Otto Octavius arrives at Empire State University and as amused when one of the young students begins hitting on him.[7] He then heads to the office of the dean who is welcome to have him re-enrolled at the university after he gave ESU a generous donation and came with a recommendation from Spider-Man. Watching all of this, the spirit of Peter Parker can’t believe that Otto is enrolling him in school again when he has so many other responsibilities. After going over the fact that “Parker” needs to complete a credit in advanced physics and has a thesis to write, he is brought to a class taught by Doctor Don Lamaze. Otto can’t hardly believe that one of his old classmates, one that he considers a clod. He is so taken aback by this, he refers to Lamaze by his old nickname “The Schnoz”, making a bad first impression.[8] As class lets out a woman named A. Marconi passes him her business card for her tutoring services, but she disappears before he can get a good look at her.
That’s when a call comes in for Spider-Man, asking him to come to a crime scene at Ravencroft Institute. There he learns that Massacre has escaped and murdered eight more people. Mayor J. Jonah Jameson is furious because Spider-Man vowed that Massacre would never kill again after he captured him last.[9] While the spirit of Peter Parker tries to justify his decision — to nobody in particular — Otto at first denies what Parker previously said before taking responsibility for what happened by admitting that Jonah was right. That’s when Peter sees that one of the victims was Ashley Kafka, whom Massacre murdered in order to steal one of her eyes to get past the retinal scanners. Peter makes a vow to bring Massacre to justice, despite not being able to do anything about this. Otto, on the other hand, vows to Jonah that he will track down Massacre and end him, much to the horror of Parker.
As Otto is asking where Massacre is, the maniac has taken hostages at a Burger Town restaurant in Westchester. He is disappointed they don’t carry his favorite type of cola. Still he decides to spare everyone as long as they follow his orders and go into the back room and someone surrenders their keys to him so he can make his get away. That’s when he notices one of the counter employees hitting the silent alarm. He is disappointed that he did that, telling everyone else that their deaths are because this one employee didn’t play by his rules and opens fire on the patrons. The only survivors are a young mother and her child. Massacre tells them that he kept them alive because he needed some hostages.
By this time, Spider-Man has paid a visit to Uatu Jackson at Horizon Labs and asks for his help. He knows that Uatu gave his facial recognition software to the Wraith to help her with her war on crime and asks him to give the same technology to his spider-bots so he can use it to track down Massacre.[10] Later that day, Massacre arrives in Times Square and lets his hostage go, but warns her that he will end the life of her and her baby if she raises the alarm as well as countless other innocent people in the street.
Elsewhere in the city, the last two free members of the Vulture’s gang of juveniles are trying to figure out their next move now that the Vulture has been arrested.[11] That’s when they see one of Spider-Man’s spider-bots and fear that they’ll get caught. That’s when the Green Goblin arrives and crushes the device, telling the boys to spread the word that he will offer sanctuary and protection to any criminal who sides with him.[12]
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Massacre, Peter Parker, Living Brain, J. Jonah Jameson, White Rabbit, Ashley Kafka, Ruth Goldman, Don Lamaze, Anna Maria Marconi, Sha Shan Nguyen
Continuity Notes
This story states that Otto has been acting as Peter Parker for a month. This should be considered an accurate measurement of time per the Sliding Timescale which operates on a 4:1 ratio, meaning for every four years of publications one year passes in the fiction. As this is the fourth issue of Superior Spider-Man four months of comics would = 1 month in the fiction.
The White Rabbit surrenders instantly, afraid Spider-Man will do the same thing to her as he did Boomerang. Otto beat the living shit out of Boomerang in Superior Spider-Man #1.
Aunt May injured her hip when the city was attacked by Terminus in Amazing Spider-Man #694.
Per Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #2 and the Sliding Timescale, May would be roughly 73 years old here.
Otto stating he got his first doctorate at 16 tracks. Per Web of Spider-Man (vol. 2) #12 and Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus: Out of Reach #1, Otto breezed through elementary and high school and ended up at MIT when he was still a teenager.
Otto learns that Peter only has his high school diploma and never completed grad school. Peter graduated high school way back in Amazing Spider-Man #28. He then started attending at Empire State University in Amazing Spider-Man #31. He did graduate in Amazing Spider-Man #185 but dropped out of his post-graduate studies in Amazing Spider-Man #283. He did return on two different occasions in Amazing Spider-Man #310 and 420, but these return to his studies never stuck as his responsibilities as Spider-Man always took Peter away from his studies.
Peter states that the students that Otto is hitting on are too young for himself, and that Otto is too old for their mothers. Per Civil War #2 and the Sliding Timescale, Peter Parker would be about 28 years old at the time of this story. There is no hard evidence to how old Otto Octavius is about 60 years old. See my reasoning below.
For an idea of when Otto attended Empire State University, according to the Marvel Chronology Project, it would have been after the death of his father, as chronicled in Spider-Man Unlimited #3 and 18, as well as Web of Spider-Man (vol. 2) #12.
This was actually when Peter Parker was still Spider-Man. See Amazing Spider-Man #656.
Uatu’s facial recognition software was first invented in Amazing Spider-Man #656. The Wraith started fighting crime in Amazing Spider-Man #658. She didn’t start using Uatu’s program until issue #664.
The Vulture was arrested after a severe beating at the hands of Spider-Man last issue.
Although the identity of this Goblin is not revealed here, it is later confirmed that this is Norman Osborn in Superior Spider-Man #31.
So How Old is Doctor Octopus?
This issue is the first time, at least in my memory, that anyone raises the issue of just how old Doctor Octopus is, of course, ignoring the fact that he is currently inhabiting the body of a much young man. It’s led me to pause for a moment and consider the question. My guess is that he’s about 60 years old here. Here’s how I came to this assessment and it uses a number of topical references as clues as well as the Sliding Timescale to figure this out.
I draw my theory on his age from the details laid out in Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus: Year One #1 (SM/DO:YO). That story focuses on Otto’s childhood and it is framed as though he was a child during the height of the Cold War. In particular, we see a young Otto who is probably about 5 years old participating in “Duck and Cover” drills at school. While the Cold War elements of the plot should be considered topical, they kind of give you an idea of the time frame we’re looking at. SM/DO:YO was published in 2004. Duck and Cover drills began in 1951.
From the context of SM/DO:YO it would have been 53 years between the time when Duck and Cover drills were done in elementary schools and the time that comic book was published. Assuming Otto was 5 at the time, that would make him about 58 around the time when comics being published in 2004. Per the Sliding Timescale that would have made Otto about 45 when he first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #3, and that would make him about 60 years old around the time Superior Spider-Man #4 was published.