Spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned.

If you haven’t been reading the excellent The Superior Spider-Man series by Christos Gage and Mike Hawthorne, you’re missing out. The ego on this Spider-Man with the mind of Doc Ock is quite entertaining. In the latest story arc, Otto is having trouble fighting Spider-Norman Osborn and his minion Spiders-Man from the 2099 universe. Otto is beaten and truly believes there is no way to win which infuriates him and pushes him to do something he’ll likely regret. Anna Maria, his true love, seems to think so, but he carries on anyway with the plan.



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That plan requires Mephisto.

Otto realizes he’s too good a man now to beat Osborn. He needs to be “unmerciful” and “unrelenting” like Osborn to beat him.

Of course as a sort of devil Mephisto will likely twist this so Otto isn’t just returned to his old self for a day…but we’ll see. An argument is made by Mephisto that Otto always assumed he had a mental disorder and that is why he was so evil. He promises to “cure” this disease…

He also promises to free Otto of any “taint” of Peter Parker. Sounds like an okay deal unless of course this will turn Otto full evil. Likely this is what will happen so Marvel can use the traditional Doctor Octopus going forward. And according to the next panel below they are doing just that.

Otto is returned mind and body to his old self!

It seems fitting Mephisto would be used to reset Otto Octavius since he reset Mary Jane and Peter Parker’s relationship, but how do you feel about this new change? Considering Superior Spider-Man is not in the December solicitations one might assume this is the end of the series especially if it has returned Otto Octavius to his original look and villainous nature.

That’s only part of the story however and I highly recommend you read the whole issue!