My Own Worst Enemy
First Aired: September 15th, 2019
Synopsis: After taking over Spider-Man's body from within the Living Brain, Doctor Octopus unmasks in his lair and discovers that he's Peter Parker. He gets a memory of Uncle Ben talking to Peter as he heads out, confusing him momentarily, then heads to the prison where Silver Sable is imprisoned. He tells her to continue Doctor Octopus' plan to steal from AIM and arm henchmen, and while she's sceptical at first that Spider-Man is really working for Ock, he eventually convinces her and breaks her out. Hammerhead also escapes in the process, and Ock is surprised at the guilt he feels as he gets another memory. Doctor Octopus then heads to an AIM base to steal from them and discovers some of Peter's powers in the process. As the fight continues he feels compelled to save some nearby civilians, but is angry at himself for doing so. Back at his lair, he starts to continue planning his scheme before realising that civilians will be injured in the process.
After a memory of Peter's origin, Doctor Octopus heads to Silver Sable in Central Park and tells her to call the plan off. She doesn't believe that Ock wants to call the plan off and she activates an octo-bot, which Ock disables easily. He defeats her but bombs that she placed around the park are about to go off. While civilians evacuate Spider-Man runs around and shoots them with his webbing, but is injured by one when saving a kid who runs too close to one. Ock is praised for his actions, and he later reflects on Peter's memories and realises that Uncle Ben was correct - with great power there must also come great responsibility. He vows to be a superior Spider-Man. Later, Hammerhead is celebrating escaping from jail and that Spider-Man busted him out when Spider-Man, in a new costume, appears and beats him up. Meanwhile, Max Modell takes the neuro-cortex from the damaged Living Brain, containing Peter's mind, and says that he'll find a new shell to house it in.
Review: I'll admit that it's been a while since I read Superior Spider-Man and Dying Wish (the Amazing Spider-Man arc that preceded it), but my memory is that Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man's body got overwhelmed by memories, asked by Peter in his dying body to continue doing good, and then he agreed to. This episode draws out the process of Doctor Octopus deciding to do good, and I think it's handled a bit better - Ock keeps getting flashbacks and getting guilty feelings, before slowly seeing what the right thing to do is. His change to being a good - albeit brutal - guy feels justified given what a one-eighty it is from his usual personality and goals.
Outside of that though, the episode's kind of average. There's some entertainment value to be gained from Ock discovering how Peter's web fluid and spider-sense works, but a lot of the stuff with AIM and the bombs that Silver Sable places isn't very exciting. Hell, the bombs themselves feel very lazily justified with the excuse that there's an AIM base below Central Park and that Sable needs to use them to break in. The flashbacks with Ben feel like things we've all seen before, too, with nothing particularly ground-breaking there.
The episode then, is overall mostly here out of necessity. We need Doctor Octopus to start being a hero in Peter's body, and we need to properly justify it and set it up, but it's hard to make it too exciting. It's a setup that'll hopefully pay off and be justified if the Superior Spider-Man arc ends up being great, but if it ends up being boring or bad then it's just wasting more time. Here's hoping the arc is the former rather than the latter.
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