Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse found success by simultaneously being a love letter to and a fresh new take on Spider-Man's mythology. Although virtually every character featured is based on somebody from the comics, the story and world presented in the film isn't a precise adaptation of any pre-existing interpretation. This approach gave way to the film's boldest deviation from the canon: Olivia Octavius, the new Doctor Octopus. But the film's version of the perennial Spider-Man nemesis goes beyond being only a genderflip; Doctor Octopus has been reinvented here as a modernized, rational character who is obsessed purely with her scientific achievements, refocusing the character on being a mad scientist as opposed to the catch-all supervillain with vague definition that he has been for half a century in the comics.

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Every Spider-Man Movie Spin-Off in Development 15 IMAGES

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There have been female versions of Doctor Octopus before now, but Olivia (her friends call her “Liv”) is not based on any of them. This isn't Carolyn Trainer, a student of Otto's who took the mantle of Lady Octopus in the main comics universe, nor is she Serena Patel, the 2099 Doctor Octopus who appeared in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Liv is definitively “the” Doctor Octopus of her reality and not an offshoot of someone else, appearing in multiple flashbacks during the original Peter Parker's opening montage sequence, as well as in other contexts in her civilian guise prior to the reveal of her supervillain identity. These small moments establish the character's history before the audience even knows she's one of the principal villains.These are the best comics to learn more about the characters of Spider-Verse:Establishing this history is important because it provides Liv with a sense of specificity to this reality, and her modernized visual design and functionally realistic persona contribute to this as well. Liv isn't a stocky master criminal hiding in an underwater lair; she's a scientist with a slender build, hippie-esque clothes and a day job. Videos of her are used at the Visions Academy for educational purposes, meaning she likely has good standing in the scientific community and her secret identity as a supervillain hasn't been made public. All of these details coalesce to form a window into Liv's interior life as an everyday person, but they also serve the narrative function of setting her up as a subversion of expectations. We think we know who this person is because everything points to her not being a threat, until she shows her hand (and tentacles) with the reveal of her name.This reveal is punctuated by the unveiling of her costume, another modernized element that helps distinguish Liv from previous Doc Ocks. Gone are the clunky, metallic arms of yesteryear, instead replaced with vacuum air tentacles based on 21st century soft robotics, with the tentacles themselves even having visible suction cups on the underside. In fact, the whole look and texture of Liv's supervillain design takes advantage of her animal namesake. The dull green segments of her suit are translucent, like the skins of certain octopus species. Her wrapped up hair resembles an octopus's mantle. The tentacles have a far more fluid and writhing style of movement than ever before. Considering the character's name is Doctor Octopus, it's kind of stunning to only now have an Octavius who fully embraces becoming an octopus in the same way Spider-Man has embraced becoming a spider.Yet Doc Ock's reinvention here isn't only aesthetic. Although widely known as an example of a mad scientist, Otto Octavius in the comics is actually a difficult character to pin down from a motivation perspective because he's gone through several significant overhauls. Especially in the early years, he was far more invested in building his nebulously defined criminal empire than any scientific pursuits. Usually his obsessions revolved around personal material gain and eliminating Spider-Man for his constant interference, but the ways those obsessions would manifest varied widely. He's been a crime lord, an international terrorist, made a couple of bids to conquer the world, attempted to commit genocide against the human race during Ends of the Earth, and even became an anti-hero to prove he is the Superior Spider-Man. He's embodied many supervillain archetypes, but his aptitude for science is typically a means rather than an end.By contrast, for Liv, science is her end, to the point that her obsession with her scientific accomplishments is her defining characteristic. Her interest in the Spider-Gang is predicated on the fact that their presence in this dimension means her Super-Collider works. Her desire to see what the Super-Collider can even do seems to override her caution about the ramifications not just for the space-time continuum, but also her inevitable betrayal of her boss, the Kingpin. Why is it inevitable? Because she tells Peter B. Parker that staying in a different dimension will cause him to disintegrate, meaning she knows in advance that Kingpin's plan to reunite with his wife and son is doomed to fail, and clearly hasn't told him. This paints Liv as a sinister figure who nevertheless stays rational and focused on her goal.This element of rationality is her primary deviation from various other adaptations of the character. Spider-Man 2's Doctor Octopus was trying to recreate his tritium experiment, but his obsession was driven by grief and the tentacle AI controlling his mind. The Otto Octavius from Spider-Man PS4 was motivated by a desire for vengeance against Norman Osborn and had his mental state altered by the neural interface that gave him control of his arms. Olivia Octavius may be an evil mastermind, even more so than previous iterations, but her obsessions aren't rooted in mental instability, bloodthirst, or grandiose aspirations of world conquest. She's simply a woman who refuses to allow any ethical concerns to get in the way of her scientific achievements. In the end, even though Olivia Octavius is not based on any other version in the multiverse, she is actually the purest distillation of Doctor Octopus to date.Want to know what's next for Sony's Marvel films? Watch the video below.

Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on IGN and Twitter