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"The One and Only Octopus"

"S01E14 "The One and Only Octopus""  starts a six-episode arc. Though this treatment follows "The Rise of Doc Ock, Part 1," this is where my alternate series starts to make a radical departure from the real-world series.

Flashback: I started this project because I wanted to write my own "Superior Spider-Man" arc, but when I watched the episodes leading up to it, I was struck by how abrupt and unmotivated so much of the lead-in was. The twist just sort of popped up out of nowhere. I also thought that Dr. Otto Octavius didn't get as much lead-in and development as he could have. In the real-world series, he's just an asshole who teaches at Horizon, and who is in an accident and so becomes a super-powered asshole. From there it's just a tiny step to supervillainy. Given that the "Superior Spider-Man" is in part about the redemption of Doc Ock, I thought that we needed more time to see how an asshole can turn into a supervillain without realizing it, because if he doesn't realize that's what he's turned into then it's much more plausible that he could change back.

So I spent time in the first dozen episodes showing Otto being a jerk, and now it's time to show him becoming a super-powered jerk.

This, by the way, is the arc that absolutely kicked my ass while I was trying to write it. It exhausted me, and when I was done with it I wrote up one more episode (another very close adaptation of an original) and then stuffed everything into a drawer.