Headscratchers / Spider-Man 2

• Doc Ock makes a point of claiming that Tritium, the isotope he uses as fuel in his nuclear fusion experiment, is the rarest substance known to man — to the point that there are apparently only mere ounces of it in all of the world. Now how exactly in high hell does this help Doc Ock's case in pushing fusion as a cheaper alternative to fission when there's not even enough of the stuff in the world to last into next week?
  • Perhaps the tritium is only needed to jump-start the reaction, and after the mini-sun stabilizes, the reaction becomes self-sustaining. Honestly, nothing else about the reaction makes any physical sense, either.
  • Tritium's not rare, per se. What it is is very light: It's an isotope of Hydrogen, the least dense thing in the universe. His numbers are wrong, BTW, as there's been about 225 KG of it produced since 1955.
    • On the other hand, the current price is somewhere around thirty thousand US dollars per gram. And it decays radioactively, with a half-life of 12.32 years - so it goes away too, even if you aren't using it.
    • And, For Science!, the rarest element is Astatine, of which there is usually less than an ounce at any one time on earth.

• When Peter Parker comes across a guy being mugged in an alleyway by two other guys, why does he just walk away? Even an ordinary citizen would at least try to call the police or stay long enough to get a description of the attackers. Hell, even a medium-strong person would try to at least stop them or get the guy away.
  • He probably felt an urge to go help, and you can see by the look in his eyes it takes a lot of willpower not to interfere. He's associating fighting crime with being Spider-Man, which, at this point is a memory he's trying to shed. So he has to force himself to take on the attitude that it's not his problem. We're supposed to disagree with this attitude. We're supposed to question his actions in this scene, and at that point if we haven't already, disagree with his decision to quit being Spider-Man as a whole.
  • Genovese effect
  • Across all three movies, Peter is never depicted as being particularly caring of others.
    • Um...across all three movies, Peter is depicted as repeatedly risking his life to save people, having learned the lesson that "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility". He's a very caring person. That's what makes him a hero.

• Okay, so Otto Octavius is working on his big fancy fusion reactor thing that'll provide infinite power forever. He's well aware (even before Peter points it out to him) that even the tiniest error in his calculations will turn the surrounding few miles into a fairly large hole in the ground. And so he chooses to build this extremely dangerous machine...in his his loft in downtown Manhattan. Nobody, uh, objected to this? No one pointed out, "You know, Otto, we've got some deserts in Utah miles from civilization."
  • While the idea of creating an infinite source of power would make any physicist salivate, how does everyone overlook the fact that, as a byproduct of this endeavor, Otto Octavius has made several significant breakthroughs in the field of robotics, to say nothing of creating an artificial intelligence? Whether doing it was a well-advised move or not, he managed to make a machine that he could control with his mind, as well as one that could think for itself. It's never so much as remarked on. Now if he'd done it in a cave, with a box of scraps . . .
  • Seriously, forget the miniature sun thing. Why didn't he just market the robotic arms? Doesn't he know how utterly useful those would be? Use 'em for construction, warfare, scientific research where using one's own hands is a bad idea (like with diseases)...Doc Ock, a business man he is not.
    • It probably just didn't occur to Octavius to do that. It's not like he has a friend who's an amputee or... oh wait.
    • Considering Ock's bitter misanthropy and tendency to view the rest of humanity as his intellectual inferiors, he probably doesn't consider them "worthy" of using his arms. Anyway, it's Cut Lex Luthor a Check Syndrome. And in the movie, perhaps he was planning on marketing the arms, at least before the accident shot everything to hell.
    • Poster above: You are thinking about comic books Doc Ock, not movie Doc Ock.
    • In the comics, at one point he did begin working for pay with those arms. Unfortunately for fans of cutting him a check, his new boss turned out to be a Corrupt Corporate Executive named Carlyle who used the technology to build a suit of Powered Armor. It ended up with, believe it or not, a Spidey/Ock Enemy Mine scenario where both of them worked together to beat the crap out of Carlyle. Later he did made some profit creating artificial limbs, but got shot down by Spider-Man. For trying to mind control people with it. What a dick.
    • It could be possible Ock's technology isn't really all that impressive. In the first movie we see the Green Goblin's Power Armor, the glider, and an apparent super soldier serum. It's safe to assume advanced technology already exists to one extent or another. It might be Octavius regards his arms as impressive, but not enough to market since it could be perceived as following an existing market trend, rather than setting the trend. Octavius wanted to be noteworthy rather than mildly successful.
    • Of course turning into a supervillain also tends to have side effects on your mind, so those options either never occurred to him, or he dismissed them.
  • Chicago Pile, world's first artificial self-sustaining fission reactor, was built on a football stadium. Perhaps Otto was inspired by this.

• How are Octavius' tentacles non-magnetic? Aren't they made of adamantium?
  • Not in the movie. The movie version of the tentacles have an entirely different purpose, including functioning in and maintaining a very powerful EM containment field. Even if the comics substance existed in the movie, those things would have had their own magnetic field to protect them.
  • Not all metals are ferromagnetic.
  • In original comics, the first set of tentacles are all but indestructible. Spider-Man destroys them several times, until Ock grew sick of that and built a new adamantium set, without eternal controls. He even used the old one as a remote-controlled drone once (they are immediately destroyed for good).

• Harry makes a deal with Doc Ock to find Spider-Man using Peter Parker, only he warns him not to hurt Peter. However, when he finds him, he throws a car. It was his Spidey sense that saved him, but Doc Ock didn't know that yet. So WTF?
  • Considering Ock was already halfway down the building, with those loud tentacles clacking away, it's most likely he didn't hear Harry. Another possibility is that he simply didn't care. Although, throwing a car at the guy you want to interrogate is a pretty stupid idea, maybe he just gave into the aggressive nature of the tentacles.
    • The Novelization indeed confirms the latter; the tentacles were the ones who gave Otto the idea to throw the car.

• When Ock throws the car at Peter while he's chatting with MJ, how did he find Peter?
  • It's not like Peter's trying to hide, and Ock knows where he goes to school (and could probably find out more with a little digging). He could have just hid his tentacles under his coat and gone around asking until he found someone who knew where he was.
    • Even without the tentacles, he's a wanted criminal and maniac, who murdered half a dozen people. Besides, what, did Peter and/or MJ announce precisely which random diner they're going to to talk, and then Ock found those exact people who heard it?
  • Harry told Ock that Peter would know how to find Spider-Man. And in the script, it's also established Doc Ock tapped Peter's phone lines.

• What the hell was Doc Ock made of? His only enhancement were the arms. Other than that, he was just a plain old human. Why could he take dozens of punches and kicks from Spidey? Are we to believe that Spidey was holding back THAT much? I could take Spidey not being able to get past the arms effectively, but he was whaling on Doc Ock repeatedly. And he just kept going.
  • My guess was more that the interface with the cyber tentacles had gone on long enough that they were killing his pain receptors.
  • In the game, it explains it for the most part as him using a force field. This is a guy who made revolutionary robotic arms and made a nuclear doomsday device when attempting to get free power, making a force field isn't unbelievable. Alternatively, Peter's powers were going, and that likely included his strength. He was probably hitting like a girl at this point.

• Doctor Octopus, despite the addition of his arms, is still physically a normal man. Despite this, Spider-Man punches him many, many times over the course of the movie, doing relatively little damage. Shouldn't have Peter's first punch caved Doc Ock's face in?
  • Yes. And that's exactly why Spider-Man pulls his punches.
    • He hits Doc Ock in the face with a bag of coins. No pulling that punch.
    • Besides, why does he? Why not just knock him out? Ok, maybe the tentacles would just carry on even with an unconscious body, but Spider-Man doesn't know that. Even barring the punches themselves, Ock repeatedly falls from big heights and tumbles around - he should at least have a few broken ribs!
    • He pulls his punches because he's strong enough to lift cars. If he punched a normal human at full power, he'd probably kill them.
    • Again, he hits Doc Ock in the face with a bag of coins from a floor above him. The impact of which would have crushed his skull. Ever been hit in the head by a thrown coin? Now multiply that by thousands.
    • You know, there's no 'standardized' velocity that a thrown bag of coins would have if it's thrown. Spider-Man can adjust how hard he throws a bag of coins just as well as he can adjust how hard he throws a punch. Also, even if there were "thousands" of coins in the bag, the amount of force wouldn't be directly proportional like that anyway unless Spidey is throwing it thousands of times more force on it.
    • Look at this video and skip to 1:48. Now tell me that wouldn't cause serious injury to any normal human being. Still not convinced? Then how about the time later on in the scene where he hits him with a flying desk, which propels Ock out the window and into the side of a taxi, leaving a huge dent in it?
    • Reality Is Unrealistic. The human body is FAR more resilient and durable than Hollywood would have you believe(i.e. Made of Plasticine).
    • Even if I accept that (and I'm not) most normal humans would at least show injury or bruises from being pummeled with heavy objects and being punched and jossled by a superhuman, especially if you are a pudgy, out-of-shape scientist who probably hasn't been in a fight since the playground (pulled punches or no, being hit in the face repeatedly adds up). All the damage he visibly sustains are broken glasses (at Aunt May's hand, no less).
    • Even if the bones can take it, there's still something called blunt force trauma. And it doesn't even take much to mess with your head.
  • And, this exact question was asked right above, but with less response.

• What was Doc Ock stealing from the bank? He was hauling bags of gold-looking coins. The U.S. doesn't use gold coins as currency, and commercial banks don't keep gold coins on deposit. Why wasn't he stealing cash like Sandman did in the third movie?
  • Sacajawea dollars?
  • In the novelization they're old coins just recovered from some underwater wreck.
  • Give the guy a break, its his first time robbing a bank after all.

• Why does Ock have a blade in one of his tentacles? They were originally designed as research aids. Why would he need a blade? Maybe he could have modified it before he robbed the bank, but how? He didn't have money/equipment yet.
  • Don't you ever need to cut anything when you're assembling or crafting something?
  • Speaking of which, why doesn't he use it? He's constantly grabbing Spider-Man with his tentacles. Just pop up the blade while you're holding him, and boom, instant Spider-Kebab!
    • Doc Ock probably wants to be very careful with his use of the blade. Since Spider-Man is so fast and agile, he could miss and accidentally hit himself or get it stuck in a wall or hit a wire and get electrocuted (like what happens at the end). That's why he uses it when he has the time to aim it. The one other time he should've used it was when he tried to crush Spider-Man's head, but that's excusable as he was clearly rageful at the time ("You're getting on my nerves") so he wanted to kill Spider-Man more brutally by crushing him.
  • I'd like to take a moment and point out that the blade was NOT built into the arm. At first, it seemed that way, but upon later viewings of the scene, (unless my memory is fuzzy as hell) the tentacle ripped off one of the hands of the giant clock they were up on, gripping it with enough strength to use it as if it were built in. He tosses the clock hand aside after the scene with May, and thus, it doesn't show up again.
    • Nevermind, actually. Just rewatched the scene for the first time in a long time, yeah, giant blade popped out of the tentacle itself. Why it's there, probably an oversized scalpel. Why he never used it, I dunno, it probably broke. Doc Ock put the tentacles through a lot of wear and tear over the movie, it's very possible it snapped off while he was escaping the police just then.
    • He does use the blade at both the bank fight and the final battle. The only time he doesn’t use the blade is during the train fight and that’s because he was specifically trying to capture Spider-Man alive as per the deal with Harry.

• In the end, where the hell was that train headed? We don't see it switch tracks or pass any stations. It's a good thing Doc Ock chose it as a distraction, because for all we know, it was on its way to the unfinished track anyway.
  • I'm pretty sure it passed through at least one station.
  • It definitely passed through a couple of stations before Spidey stopped it.

• Speaking of train. So, Ock disabled the speed lever. Did he also disable the emergency breaks? I didn't see that.
  • He ripped out the brakes. How would you expect any of its functions to work?
    • He ripped out the throttle. Even if that disabled the entire console, there's no reason why that would disable the emergency brake lever that the subway would have in every single car.
  • He tore the console apart, it's smoking and sparking. Even if the lever he grabbed wasn't the brake, he could've done enough incidental damage by tearing it out that the brakes can't work. And nobody else on the train might even know about the emergency brake lever or where it is.

• We see how much Peter is struggling financially since it's too hard to go to school, hold a part-time job and save the city. Why doesn't he just swing into the mayor's office and negotiate a salary while explaining his situation? Those in charge would probably be more than happy to pay a superhero for drastically reducing the amount of crime.
  • This is the same superhero who the cops chose to pursue for arrest on sight partly because of the smear campaign the Bugle's been running, remember? And getting a salary from the government is not a simple thing. It would involve, for starters, Spidey revealing his identity, which would put it in the public record eventually, and have to be approved by the city council, in public hearings, etc...
  • There were a lot of solutions to his problem that he never considered. For one, Peter could've sought a research assistant position with Doc Connors, which would pay more than a pizza delivery job and keep him on campus. Or, he could have moved to a rougher neighborhood which would have given him lower rent (he's not in real danger anyway) and lowered his Spidey commuting time.
  • He's already regularly late for or flat out missing classes. Dr. Connors, if he's giving out research assistant positions, is probably gonna want someone he knows is reliable. As for moving, he's not Spider-Man when he's asleep, so yes, he'd still be in some danger, plus it'd extend his Peter Parker commuting time.
    • And, he did get a research assistant job for Doctor Connors, in the first film. It's specifically mentioned that he was late again for that exact same job and got fired because of it. Remember, employment is very difficult for young people right now and has been for quite some time. And, he's A) a student, which limits the amount of working hours and resulting salary, B) a super hero, which also limits how much time he could work and resulting pay check, and C) he's living in a very rundown apartment with a very greedy landlord sucking him dry. He's got a lot of reasons to be dirt poor.

• So... Why exactly did Peter lose his powers in the second movie and why did they come back?
  • Are you asking for something besides the explanation that Peter and the doctor clearly discuss on screen?
  • I had a Fridge Brilliance moment about this plot hole a few years back. Peter's powers return when Mary Jane is in trouble. Earlier in the film, this line was given:
    Doctor Octavius: Love should never be a secret. If you keep something as complicated as love stored up inside, it can make you sick.
  • And, it may not be so much him losing his powers as subconsciously suppressing them. Psychology can do a lot to a person.
  • His powers are little claws growing out of his fingers and soles, healthy eyes, enhanced musculature, and organs that shoot web. That is one freakishly strong subconsciousness he has if it can "suppress" all that.
  • People can die from psychological issues. Not just being depressed enough to commit suicide (though that also happens very often), but actually have their bodies just start turning off because their mind has decided it's time to go.

• Doc Ock's tentacles take almost as much space as his whole body does. How the hell does he hide them under a trench coat without looking like a Hulk?
  • It's most likely that they are able to compress themselves, similar to a Slinky. (Or they are telescoping, or both.) If you look at the way he unleashes his arms at the beginning of the bank robbery scene, he looks like he's ripping something off his jacket, something that was probably keeping his arms in place. That would also explain how he's able to avoid being found by the police after his escape, or how he was able to get all the way to a cafe in the middle of the East Village to abduct Mary Jane without anyone noticing his presence until he threw the car at the cafe.

• Speaking of the tentacles, they look quite sturdy and heavy and he looks like a guy who barely ever exercises. How the hell does he manage to support them. Or at any rate support anything with them without breaking his legs or spine?
  • For the last, he uses 2 of the tentacles to brace himself, as for the first, do you really think Doc Ock would create a bunch of mechanical tentacles that were too heavy to actually use? They're probably either made out of very light metals, or designed to evenly distribute the weight so his body can support it.
    • No, he doesn't. Half the time it's just his own legs. If the tentacles are very light, how can he use them to hit Spider-man?
    • Relatively low weight, high speed and durability. A baseball isn't terribly heavy but getting hit in the face with it still hurts if its moving fast enough.

• How did Peter find Ock's offshore laboratory? He implores Harry to tell him where Ock took MJ, but how was he supposed to know? The place seems completely abandoned when Ock first comes there, so it's unlikely he and Osborn had some business there recently.
  • Harry probably told him off-screen. Plus, even if he never found out directly, it was right at a dock, so if he explored the whole city, it wouldn't be hard to miss.
  • Indeed it wouldn't be hard to miss. In fact it would impossible NOT to miss. And, "Explored the whole city of New York"? You kidding me?
  • We see Doc Ock receiving packages at the offshore lab. It's possible he was ordering things through Oscorp, or that while they were making their deal, Harry asked where he could get in touch with Ock.

• Has it ever occurred to people that the arms are controlling Ock's mind? You don't wake up one morning and decide to become a criminal. The metal arms are the real villains. If Doc Ock were to get arrested, would the jury convict him for the crimes? The arms made him evil. He wasn't in full control of himself.
  • How many people would be aware of that? Only a few people were at Octavius' presentation the first time, and the info regarding the presentation wasn't released to the public either, seeing as Peter Parker was...busy taking pictures of squirrels...while Spider-Man saved the day.

• "There was a disturbance," lame excuse, Parker. Why doesn't he just tell MJ that he was on his way, but his moped got run over and he nearly got killed? It's a perfect excuse — it's obviously not his fault — and totally true.
  • He used "There was a disturbance," story with his boss at the pizza place when he was late, so perhaps that's just his default excuse and he didn't have time to come up with another one. He does mention the theater usher not letting him in during his phone message to her. In any case, Mary Jane cut him off before he could go into detail.
  • Peter doesn't feel comfortable directly lying (it's why he never says to Harry that he would tell him who Spider-Man is if he knew). In addition, him nearly getting run over comes across like a really convenient excuse, especially considering he has no injuries on him (which is because he has spider-powers so he might not to raise suspicion that he's Spider-Man too). Plus Peter is exhausted and overwhelmed with all the stuff going on in his life, so he'd probably just say there was a disturbance because he doesn't have the time to plan out a thorough explanation while also not giving away that he's Spider-Man.

• I get the opening scene is supposed to be the Parker luck, and Peter failing to meet a 30 Minutes, or It's Free! deadline despite transforming into Spider-Man to beat traffic. But one thing seems kinda weird about it: there’s literally thousands of pizzerias in New York City. Why anyone would order 8 pizza pies from a pizzeria 42 blocks away and expect it to be delivered on time is beyond me.
  • It's worth noting that the customer ordered seven deep dish pizzas. Anyone who knows a thing or two about pizzas know that deep dish ones take longer to make than regular pizzas because of the thicker crust. The pizzeria owner also said to Peter that they would lose the customer to Pizza Yurt if the delivery deadline wasn't met, suggesting that she potentially ordered from the competitor and decided to test them. With that specific order of pizzas it would be impossible to get them on time 42 blocks away in New York traffic. The one who put in the order knew what they were doing.
  • The pizzeria owner was a dumbass. No local pizzeria that isn't a major corporation will deliver almost halfway up Manhattan. And even then, that is what chains are for. These people must've known that and used that to avoid having to pay for the pizzas, knowing the only one who'll get in trouble for it is Peter.
  • Why is Peter considered late if he was already in the building? The lady at the front desk sees him fumble out of a broom closet so that means he made in the building and was on the correct floor, it can be assumed he just got lost. So that means he was there, he was on time. Does he have to literally be right in front of her before time runs out?
    • "I was there, I just got lost on the way" is not the best excuse in this situation, even if it is true.

• Are Ock's tentacles sentient, or is the movie telling us that Ock is losing his mind? Were they alive, or does he THINK they're alive?
  • It's mentioned that they have artificial intelligence. He put the inhibitor chip to keep them from controlling him, but it was fried in the accident.

• Why would the primary autonomous decision of the AI of tentacles designed for scientific work be to kill everyone in the room?
  • Self-preservation/preservation of the scientist they are attached to?
• What nuclear physicist would think to use metal tentacles to touch a hot ball of plasma?
  • Presumably that's covered by their Required Secondary Powers- he mentions that they're "impervious to heat and magnetism".

• What does Octavius need money for? Couldn't he just steal every component he needs? Besides, where did he buy everything from without alerting somebody?
  • Not every component is going to be in or near New York City. And the black market, presumably.

• Unless Peter was really late (or Mary Jane's play was really short) couldn't he at least have gotten in to see her play from the interval onwards? Even if that one snooty usher wouldn't let him in, another staff member may have been more sympathetic had he explained the situation.
  • He was already feeling guilty about missing the first bit of the play. Most likely he just gave up after the usher said he couldn't get in because he was thinking "welp, I couldn't get to the play on time and now this dude is saying I can't go in now. This really sucks, I need to go home and rethink my heroing-life balance."

• I know suspension of disbelief is one thing, but wouldn't Ock have to worry about the cops finding him before Spider-Man when he kidnapped Mary Jane from that cafe? I mean, he kidnapped her in broad daylight with dozens of witnesses. There's no way one of them didn't call the police reporting "Doc Ock took a woman hostage using one of his tentacles", and that would make the police work extra hard to locate her.
  • The tentacles probably don't care about little details like witnesses. Weren't programmed for 'em.
• Upon unmasking Spider-Man, Harry discovers that Peter Parker and Spidey are the same person, thus setting up his revenge attempts in the next film. But why instead Peter didn't think on making it look that Octavius had dressed him as Spidey to fool Harry because he told that he didn't know where Spider-Man was due his retirement? He could have said something like "Harry... where is she? Where is he keeping her? He's got MJ and he dressed me as Spider-Man because I don't know where he is now. Please, untie me! We need to call the cops!". Due Harry's shock and refusal to believe that his best friend had murdered his father, so he could have easily believed Peter that Octavius had tricked him...
  • Peter's immediate concern was to rescue MJ and stop Ock from destroying the city, which is rather more important than preserving his friendship with Harry. Claiming that Ock had merely passed him off as Spiderman would have slowed him down enormously (he couldn't have broken out of his bindings for starters, as that would have given him away). And since he knows he's the only one who can stop Ock, calling the cops rather than confronting Ock himself would be hugely irresponsible as he would be endangering their lives.
    • The question seems to imply that calling the cops would only be a distraction for Harry; Peter of course wold go himself to stop Otto after leaving the penthouse.

• So Peter wants to honor Norman's last request to not tell Harry his dad was the Green Goblin. Fine. Makes sense. But why does he have to let him think that Spider Man was the one who killed him, thus putting their freindship on the rocks since it seems he values Spider Man and his job more than Harry's feelings. The Green Goblin is dead, so why not just pull an Obi-Wan and do the "Certain point of view" bit and just tell him that his dad was killed by the Goblin? I mean, the Goblin killed the whole board of directors of Oscorp. It wouldn't be a huge stretch to think that he might go after the company leader.
  • It could be that he doesn't feel comfortable straight up lying to his best friend. If he had gone with that story, Harry probably would have pressed him on the details, and would either have to come clean or lie.
  • For that matter, why honor the last request of a madman who tried to kill him, his crush and his aunt, as well as endangering an untold amount of civilians? Specially when it is so harmful to his best friend and their relationship?
    • He doesn’t want his friend to know that the father whose affection he desperately craved became a villain. Harry thought the world of Norman ("I'll be lucky if I grow up to be half the man he is" and all that) and at the end of the first movie, Harry was visibly broken up about Norman's death. Peter probably didn't want to bring it up out of respect.

• When Peter quits being Spider-Man, we get a montage showing him getting his life together. However, we don't see him with any form of job. He can't be taking pictures for the Bugle, Jonah makes it clear that he's keeping Peter around because he's the only who gets Spider-Man pictures. What's Peter doing for money?
  • Jonah also said Peter was his only society photographer, so chances are he's kept him around to snap pictures of John or someone high-level like the mayor.

• What was Doc Ock trying to achieve with his upgraded fusion reactor? Or rather, what was his 'tentacles' trying to achieve? Doc Ock, after failing miserably with his first fusion reactor which endangered dozens of people, caused large amount of property damage, and killed at least one person (his wife). During his escape, his tentacles killed the doctors in the Midtown Hospital gruesomely. These two events will definitely put him on the top of NYPD's most wanted list and discredited him as a scientist entirely. Even if his upgraded fusion reactor succeeds, nobody would take it into consideration given the infamous reputation of the man himself. Sure, one could argue that it's not really Doc Ock's actual motivation and he was driven to do it by his tentacles AI that manipulated him, but then it raises another question: why would the tentacles want to build the fusion reactor in the first place? What was the AI trying to achieve with this?
  • The AI was just following it's programming; when Doc Ock first reveals them, he states that they were programmed for the sole purpose of creating successful fusion.
  • Also, Otto threatened to throw himself and his arms into the river because "My Rosie's dead, my dream is dead". The arms likely have some sense of self-preservation, and thus wouldn't want that to happen. They can't revive Rosie, but they can revive his dream by persuading him to rebuild the machine, giving him a reason not to jump and kill them all.

• Where exactly does that tentacle of Doctor Octopus drag the female doctor?
  • To a dark part of the room where she is presumably killed or at least knocked out.

• If Peter Parker sells pictures of himself for cash, is he really that above making money off his own image that he can't use other methods of supporting himself like selling merchandise or holding corporate events?
  • Licensing merchandise or making public appearances would require him to sign some documents and shake some hands, which is out of the question for someone who needs to maintain a secret identity. The photos are a different matter, since it’s possible for him to pass himself off as a separate person from Spider-Man.

• Why can't Doc Ock steal the parts he needs rather than steal cash for his parts?
  • Some of the parts are probably too large, heavy, and/or well-protected for him to be able to steal, whereas banks are easily accessible and get robbed all the time by people without four strong metal arms attached to their back.
  • The parts may come from multiple different locations or buyers, so if he robs a bank, he'll only have to successfully pull off one heist and not several.

• Doc Ock has a blade in his tentacles. Why doesn't he just put one of his arm hands onto Spider-Man, extend it out and stab him?
  • Spidey-sense.
  • Spider-Man is so agile, he could easily dodge it. Plus, if Doc misses he could get himself stuck in a wall or electrocuted, so he should aim it and time his shots carefully.