Seen In: Amazing Spider-Man #700 Doctor Octopus was one of Spider-Man's earliest and greatest foes. But when he discovered he was dying, his plans became far more daring, trying to discover a way to save himself, and building Octobots in the process. Over the course of many months, Spider-Man was forced to access the hive mind that controls the Octobots and this gave Doctor Octopus complete, unrestricted access to Spider-Man's mind. This allowed him to program an Octobot to perform a mind swap between them, with Doctor Octopus taking over Spider-Man's body and Peter Parker's mind being trapped in the deteriorating body of one of his arch-enemies. With only 700 minutes left to live, Peter tried desperately to reverse the process by confronting the new Spider-Man directly. Once this attempt failed, Peter tried to kill them both, but this, too, was thwarted by Doc Ock. However, in his final moments, Peter realised that the mindlink was still established between them and that he could imbue Doctor Octopus with all his memories and the values that drove him to become (and continue being) Spider-Man: the notion of with great power comes great responsibility. Peter died within the body of his greatest nemesis, but as a result of his final act, Doctor Octopus came to the same realisation as Peter did about power and responsibility. From that day forth, he made a vow to be a better Spider-Man than Peter ever was, a Superior Spider-Man. It was a criticised story, with writer Dan Slott even receiving death threats for it. But as anyone who has been reading comics for any length of time knows, there's no chance it would stay permanent. And sure enough, Peter Parker will soon take centre stage again.
Percival Constantine is the author of several novels and short stories, including the Vanguard superhero series, and regularly writes and comments on movies, comics, and other pop culture. More information can be found at his website, PercivalConstantine.com
