Doctor Octopus' Arc Reactor Ending Pays Off A Cut Iron Man Crossover
The Alfred Molina iteration of Doctor Octopus returns in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and his heartwarming ending is a surprising payoff to a planned appearance in 2008’s Iron Man. Although Marvel Studios, the in-house film division of Marvel Comics, didn’t have the film right to all of its characters when initiating the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Otto Octavius of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man universe was, at one point, going to appear in Iron Man, tying the franchises together. While this plan, unfortunately, didn’t end up in the final film, Doc Ock’s new ending in No Way Home is a (perhaps unintentional) homage to it.
In his original ending in Spider-Man 2, Doctor Octopus regains control of his mechanical tentacles and his mind, sacrificing himself to destroy his fusion generator. In No Way Home, Doc Ock is sent back to his old timeline (thus creating a new branching timeline from the canonical Spider-Man trilogy) with his mind restored, albeit only a few minutes before he would have redeemed himself anyway, making his demise seemingly inevitable. Octavius brought a miniature Stark Industries arc reactor back with him, however, which not only means he’ll likely deactivate his reactor another way (allowing him to survive and perhaps use the arc reactor to benefit his universe), but also that his intended crossover with Iron Man was referenced in a way.
Related: Marvel Wanted Iron Man To Crossover With Spider-Man 2 (Using Doc Ock)
In Iron Man’s early development, Otto Octavius and Tony Stark would have collaborated on the former’s signature cephalopod-like tentacles, with Tony Stark making the arms themselves and Octavius developing the inhibitor chip to ensure he controls them instead of vice versa. This fascinating
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