Alfred Molina is returning as Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man: No Way Home and the actor revealed that he is the same character from Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man trilogy. This begs the question of whether or not Doctor Octopus will return as a villain after his redemption at the end of Spider-Man 2.
In an interview with Variety, Molina spoke about his character’s return to the Spider-Man franchise and how the movie planned to bring back his character from Spider-Man 2. The Doctor Octopus actor explained that director Jon Watts told him that “no one really dies” in superhero movies. Watts also told him that his story in Spider-Man: No Way Home was going to start exactly where his story in Spider-Man 2 ended.
Click the button below to start this article in quick view.
Spider-Man: No Way Home will likely feature the multiverse. In his home universe, Doctor Octopus dealt with a very different Spider-Man, an older Peter Parker than the one currently in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It should also be noted that after battling Spider-Man, Otto Octavius realized the error of his ways and destroyed his dangerous nuclear reactor by sacrificing his own life, drowning in the process. How he escaped his death remains unknown, but with the inclusion of Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin and Jaime Foxx’s Electro, it seems they survived their fates as well. Perhaps the villains could end up being transported to the MCU’s Earth right before they died, saving their lives.
However, Octopus is very different from the other two villains. Doctor Octopus was the most sympathetic of the three, someone who lost his wife but still needed to complete the project that caused her death. His grief drove him to do bad things, and he regretted it by the end. With Octopus no longer a villain in his final moments, if he was somehow transported to a different Earth right before his death, he may no longer be a villain at all. This could make him the Baron Zemo of the Spider-Man world, a former antagonist who now helps the hero and moves past his history of misdeeds.
Doctor Octopus could be even more valuable than Baron Zemo. Before his reemergence in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo was a terrorist who murdered a world leader in Captain America: Civil War. He was already beyond complete redemption, even as he tried to help the heroes stop the Flag Smashers. In contrast, Doctor Octopus was not an outright villain and was redeemed when he sacrificed himself. If he keeps his role as a redeemed villain, he could help Spider-Man defeat the villains in the new movie and walk away as a free man. Even better, he could end up becoming the Superior Spider-Man, as he did in the comics. This could give the most popular villain in the original trilogy an ending he deserves.
In Amazing Spider-Man #700 by Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazaba, Edgar Delgado and Chris Eliopoulos, a dying Doctor Octopus battled Spider-Man and managed to switch bodies with Peter Parker. Shortly after, Otto’s body died with Peter’s consciousness still inside. This left Otto in Spider-Man’s body, and he became the Superior Spider-Man. Throughout his run, Doc Ock became a true, albeit arrogant and cunning, hero. After Peter Parker regained his body, Doctor Octopus eventually returned and decided he wanted to remain Superior Spider-Man, moving to the West Coast and continuing to work as a hero. It was a great turn of events that allowed the brilliant Spider-Man stories with Doc Ock to continue.
There is no telling what will happen after Spider-Man: No Way Home, but if Doctor Octopus maintains his redemptive arc from Spider-Man 2, he should be an ally to Peter Parker instead of a villain. He could easily become the Baron Zemo of the movie, but he could also get the one thing that Zemo never could. Zemo went to the Raft after he finished his work with Sam and Bucky, but Doctor Octopus could end up leaving Spider-Man: No Way Home as an actual hero.
About The Author
