Messages In The Past, To The Future, About The More Recent Past

I thought about including this in yesterday's review, but it isn't strictly about the game, so we'll handle it separately.

The third villain Miguel O'Hara faces (and the one responsible for the first two) is a new Doctor Octopus. A scientist from Alchemax' Shadow Division. When I first saw her silhouette, I thought she was going to be Carolyn Trainer (who was Doc Ock during Otto's time as a corpse, circa the Clone Saga), flung into the future somehow. Not quite. Dr. Serena Patel is, however, quite the fan of Otto Octavius, and designed her suit with his in mid.

Here's the bit that caught my attention. In her bio, when it mentions Otto's role as her inspiration, it also mentions that he may have destroyed the original Spider-Man in a climactic battle.

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions came out in 2010. It was written (at least partially), by Dan Slott. And this particular Doctor Octopus was created for the game. Which means Slott, presumably, added the backstory about Spidey's finally battle being with Octavius. Slott had already been writing Amazing Spider-Man sometimes for a couple of years at the time of the game's release, though I don't believe he started using Octavius heavily until he became sole writer (when they stopped rotating creative teams each arc), and that was late 2010.

Maybe this just means Slott's a believer in the idea that Octavius, not Norman Osborn, is Spider-Man's true arch-nemesis (in terms of being a true dark reflection/thematic opposite). Or it could be there are stories that a dozen different villains are the ones who destroyed Spider-Man. One thing about the 2099 timeline is that their records of the past were fairly sketchy. But it does, in light of recent events with Octavius and Spider-Man*, strike me as interesting. The Marvel Universe at large currently believes Ock died in his final battle with Spider-Man, but at some point, I have to think someone will piece it together. Surely not everyone in the Marvel Universe is that big of an idiot. And when that happens, it be considered to be the destruction of Spider-Man by Octopus, since he'll likely have flushed Parker's life down the tubes by then.

* I've chosen to ignore Superior Spider-Man as much as I can. I'm not really interested in being told the Spider-Man I enjoyed reading for decades actually sucked, and this villain who stole his life is much better at being the hero. And I've heard the argument Slott's doing a satire, but frankly, people use that as a defense for things so often now I'm not sure it has any meaning. Besides, Slott's also the guy who had Spidey torture the Sandman and treated that as a perfectly proper and heroic thing to do. I consider it to be as stupid and wrong-headed as Warren Ellis having Steve Rogers tell his teammates to torture people, so I'm doubtful this is actually satire. If you like it, great, but I'm giving it a pass.