Marvel Comics General

Has there ever been a spider man work where Norman doc Ock and the venom symbiote all qualify as a complete monster and meet the criteria in the same work?

Edited by Godwriter on Apr 14th 2024 at 6:52:31 AM

I don't think so, though I'm more familiar with adaptations than 'elseworlds' like Life Story and Reign.

I do think it's funny that (IIRC) in both Raimi's film trilogy and Insomniac's games, the answer is 'no' to the first two and 'yes' to the third.

Because I looked at the fanfic trilogy Spider man chronicles and I thought that they would all qualify there.

Edited by Godwriter on Apr 13th 2024 at 7:40:46 AM

So, I'm watching Ant-Man and the Wasp and now I'm kinda wishing Ghost had been an Hank and Janet (and maybe also Scott) rogue instead of an Iron Man Rogue.

The weird dynamics of a fight between a person (or two people) who can shrink and a dude who can make himself intangible would have made for some great fights.

I'm surprised Marvel didn't make Ava a Canon Immigrant. But then again, Comics Egghead had a daughter that he betrayed years ago in the finale of Hank's big arc that ended his career as a Superhero (at first), but if they did, they could maybe have her be another illegitimate Daughter of Classic Egghead who takes up the Ghost moniker (and maybe even gets trained by the original) and ends up with Nadia as her arch enemy.

The Pym/Star Feud reborn!

I think thats cause there's not much to Ava, all she wanted was a cure for her powers which is also the entire extent of her character. Its not really a recurring motivation or entertaining character compared to comic Ghost's anti-corporation saboteur MO and personality as a dirty gremlin man.

True, but the comics can give her a bit more.

Like, I got a bit of an impression Ava might have blamed Hank for her condition, though she was more focused on curing herself.

But a comics Ava could easily go all in on revenge for the death of her father. It's not like villains can't be petty, and....like lets remember what Egghead did during that last arc. The man lived and breathed petty little bitch.

I feel like a way Ava could be worked into canon is having her as someone who tries to steal and replicate Ghost's technology, maybe even tie her to the corporation that Ghost worked for in his origin story from the Jeff Parker Thunderbolts run.

That could work as well.

×2

Waa that corporation ever named?

Maybe the original Ultimate Spider-man? Norman is obviously a complete monster as always, Otto is way less sympathetic than 616 - having no known backstory or dislike for children being harmed - and was incredibly cruel to Peter when he abducted him, taking delight in injuring him and causing him pain, and he was also behind the entire clone saga, so he's full on mad scientist. Meanwhile Eddie eventually ends up becoming an remorseless cannibal to feed the symbiote in addition to not having any of his sympathetic qualities from 616.

Does make me wonder what Hickman's got planned for Otto and Eddie in 6160. If anything.

Most of the rogues gallery in Ultimate Spider-Man were less sympathetic compared to their 616 counterparts.

Except of all people Norman Osborne. He's still a monster, but this Norman actually seemed to care about Harry. When he killed Harry in a fight in their Goblin forms, Norman was so horrified he powered down and begged the nearby SHIELD agent to kill him. Unfortunately, blowing his brains out wasn't enough to kill him.

Ultimate Shocker was also more sympathetic. Or at least, he's got a more tragic backstory.

You forgot that Doc Ock actually repented on being a full time villain and was grateful towards Spider-Man for saving his life in the last story he was in, to the point he told Norman he just wanted to be a scientist.

Of course, Norman being something of a scientist himself, didn't let him.

Of course by venom I meant the symbiote.

Well the Ultimate Symbiote isn't even sentient, it's just a biological suit that Peter's dad made. So that disqualifies it from being a complete monster.

I think the closest to what you are looking for is Spectacular Spider-Man. Both Venom and Eddie Brock are at their most evil in that series, with Eddie Brock Venom deliberately trying to kill Gwen Stacy to torture Peter. Eddie isn't even in his twenties and he's already trying to commit his first murder. The Symbiote is in full jealous ex mode as well.

I wouldn't exactly call Doc Ock or even Norman Complete Monsters in that version, but granted, they don't have much sympathetic traits as villains, since Doc Ock is has some noble qualities before his accident, but is still a coward.

But I'd say that series' versions of Venom, Doc Ock, and Green Goblin are closest to being complete monsters out of all their other selves. Even Comic Norman treated Harry better than Spectacular Harry.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Apr 14th 2024 at 10:00:09 PM

No, I disagree.

He doesn't mention being grateful to Spider-man in his last appearance. He just says he and Norman should consider Peter their greatest achievement and leave it at that.

He thanked Peter immediately after saving him in Ultimate Doom, but that wasn't following any kind of change of heart. He just wanted revenge on Reed Richards, and for Shield to cut him a deal to look at Reed Richard's tech. In fact, just before that he had captured Jessica Drew and was preparing to experiment on her, hoisting up a fucking saw until Spidey interrupted.

His death of Spider-man appearance does say he sees things differently now and won't kill anymore, but I find that completely at odds with how he's portrayed up until that point - we don't see that development take place, one minutes he's preparing to chop up a captive, crying teenager and the next he's like "yeah not for me thanks" and then Osborn kills him. The later part of Ultimate Spider-man was just Bendis burning through characters for no good reason.

I think that Bendis was trying to connect Ultimate Doom with the Death Of Spider-Man's Doc Ock and not really organically segwaying into the other.

The idea is that Spider-Man saving Doc Ock in Ultimate Doom is what causes his change of heart Death of Spider-Man regarding killing Spider-Man with the idea that being saved by Peter is what causes Ock to realize he should be proud of creating Spider-Man but as you noted, it's very poorly implemented. It's as you said, Bendis is just burning through the cast to wrap up his Peter run.

Now, I do find it funny Doc Ock in the Ultimate universe is indeed one of the more vile versions of the character but thanks to Mainline Doc Ock being a very inconsistent character who can go from being civil and polite to Aunt May, to trying to blow up New York with a nuke to prove his genius, to saving civilians, to trying to be a worse monster than Hitler by killing off 98% of the human race, Ultimate Ock looks more consistent by comparison.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Apr 14th 2024 at 10:27:48 PM

Doc Ock's inconsistency arose around the BND era, I feel. Prior to that, Otto was pretty consistent as a crook and an asshole but not necessarily evil. He could definitely be a prick and caused plenty of trouble, but as far as Spidey's archenemies go, he was by far the least evil and was more just your typical supervillain trying to make ends meet by shrinking city hall or robbing Fort Knox or whatever other zany scheme he came up with that wouldn't kill anyone. BND saw him start becoming more ruthless and evil, which was purposeful character development as his whole subplot in that period was his injuries from battling Spider-Man catching up to him and starting to kill him. That all culminated in Ends of the Earth, which should have been the end for Otto... but Slott decided to do Superior Spider-Man and his love for Otto began to really become obvious, leading to the current situation where he's both doing ridiculously evil shit and yet treated like a likable anti-hero.

I think Ock being scum started way earlier than that. In the Owl and Octopus war which was a 70s storyline, he was planning on blowing up New York to prove his genius, and savagely beat the shit out of Black Cat in front of Spider-Man.

Which lead to Spider-Man beating the crap out of him and even ripping off his tentacles.

And tried to poison all of New York with ink one time.

But it is indeed Dan Slott who gave Doc Ock his most infamous act of trying to commit mass murder of 98% of the population and burning tons of people in his demonstration act.

So yes, Doc Ock was way inconsistent even before the BND era. That's why he could never really seal the deal to be Spider-Man's arch enemy for long periods of time before getting displaced by Green Goblin, Venom, Hobgoblin, and Mephisto.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Apr 15th 2024 at 12:16:07 AM

That's rather ironic considering the 2000s is when Octavius as a sympathetic Anti-Villain took off.

Edited by windleopard on Apr 14th 2024 at 5:13:57 PM

Let's not forget about the time he tried to cure everyone's addiction to cocaine so they'd all die of withdrawal. Probably his worst crime.

Edited by Joshbones on Apr 14th 2024 at 9:15:00 AM

I mean, Spider-man 2 Doc Ock was heavily inspired by his original appearance like trying to complete the science experiment that caused him to be blown up in the first place.

Doc Ock just has wildly inconsistent motivations, and still does right now. Sometimes he's a mad scientist who wants to do science, sometimes he's a mob boss, and sometimes he's trying to blow up New York to prove he's a genius.

More Earth X

Issue 8

Issue 9

This part of the story contains the answer of the series’ biggest mysteries which are also fairly well known via osmosis because Marvel loves reusing the specific plot points.

Captain America gathers allies around the world. The Skull arrives in New New York with his army. He brings Venom May under his control and kills President Osborn. Reed discovers the secret of the mass empowering event. That it was caused by Black Bolt detonating an terrigen bomb and spreading the mist everywhere. And Aaron Stack discovers the secret of the Celestial plan that Uatu has been hiding from him. That humanity has been manipulated from its very start to be guardians of the baby Celestial within Earth. And humanity will die out when the Earth hatches.

Also, Spider-Man is still out of shape. I think someone was curious about that specific plot point.

Edited by Bocaj on Apr 15th 2024 at 1:18:20 AM

And now you all know where the film Marvel's Eternals got its big twist.

It’s why I wanted to read Earth X. I knew its ideas kept popping up in different places. It’s very influential for a book that probably doesn’t get read a lot anymore.