SPIDER-MAN VS THE SINISTER SIX

Original story: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

Freely adapted by Phillip Carson

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

Prisoner #4756689

That was his name, now. As THEY would have it. The plebians. The bureaucrats, and the enforcers of so-called Law and Order. The little men who hid behind their little badges and their little guns. Men with minds small not only in intellect, but also in their capacity to imagine, little dreaming what could be accomplished by a single man with the IQ and the knowledge and the will to achieve!

Otto Octavius knew he was such a man. A man of destiny! And it was only a matter of time before-

"Not so tough now, are ya, 'Doc Ock'?"

Otto flinched.

He looked up from his spot in a dark cinderblock room, atop a simple spring mattress, to between the prison bars at the fresh faced young guard leering down at him from just the other side. Although Otto appeared to be wearing common sunglasses, he could see the overeager lad in perfect detail. Of course he could. The glasses were of his own design. A medical aid, made to help counteract the damage done to his eyes in the flash of the explosion that had fused his experimental set of mechanical arms to his torso. Unleashing his mind from the confines of everyday morality and transforming them both into an unstoppable force of nature. A one-man crime wave that had brought the greatest city on Earth to her knees!

Until recently, however….

"Yeah" the rookie guard continued "Ever since those eggheads figured out a way to take those things off of you, you're just some fat, old nobody, right?"

Otto remained silent, and repressed the sudden urge to reach up and touch his chest, the skin and muscle there under his shirt still ached and stung from the operation recently performed upon him without his consent.

"The great Doctor Octopus! Hey, I have a question. How come you called yerself that, eh? With the four metal arms, plus the two you already had, that only give you six arms, right? Not eight. Dumb."

Otto sighed.

"The legs," Otto said, unable or unwilling to pass up the chance to correct someone. "The legs make eight."

The young guard thought about it for a second, visible confusion on his face.

"Ehhh," he said, moving his hand in front of his face as if wiping his earlier comments from the record. "Whatever, Doctor… four-legs" he said as he started to walk away.

"No," he jumped back into view, "Four-eyes! That's what I shoulda said. Doctor Four-Eyes. You're just Doctor Four-Eyes now," the kid said laughing, as he walked away. "Thanks to Spider-Man."

Doc Ock. Doctor Octopus. Doctor Four-Eyes. Prisoner # blah blah blah.

So many names, thought Otto.

All thanks to that accursed Spider-Man!

Another brat with a big mouth and an undeserved sense of authority. Just like the guard.

Spider-Man was the reason he was here, that much was true. Spider-Man was the reason all his plans had failed, his good name dragged through the mud, and his precious metal arms taken from him.

Yes, they had indeed removed his metal appendages. Neutered him, so to speak. Taken his greatest power, and locked them away in another wing of the prison. Far from his reach. Or so they had thought.

Otto closed his eyes and returned to the task he had been attempting before the young guard had interrupted him….

Hard as it was to believe, only a year ago, the name Doctor Otto Octavius had been respected. The most respected, in fact, of all names associated with Nuclear Research. The brightest mind this side of the Iron Curtain It was more than learning, it was "understanding". Otto understood the nature of nuclear power in a way few others ever would or did. It was like he could see the wires behind reality, moving and puppeteering the visible universe around us. And Otto had found himself possessed of a great desire to reach out his hands, touch those wires, and follow them back to their source, that which a superstitious man might call God.

But Otto was no fool. And he knew that to do what he desired, to manipulate the cosmic and fundamental forces with his own hands, he would need new ones. Special hands, themselves forged in the fire of not only nuclear power, but also in the white hot furnace of his own brilliant mind.

To this end, Otto designed and constructed a set of four identical metal arms. Long, slender telescoping metal appendages, each one terminating in an ingenious claw capable of cradling an egg, or crushing a steel beam. All controlled by a harness worn under his natural arms and above his pelvis, enveloping his torso.

But the real act of genius was the manner in which Otto controlled them. Using his own brain's impulses and nervous system as the basis for the design, the arms themselves functioned as true extensions of his body. The design would have been award-winning all on its own, had Otto felt the need to disclose the specifications to the wider world. But no, robotics and cybernetics weren't his chosen fields. The arms were merely a tool, crafted by a tradesman who could find no other tools to do the job.

The open use of these tools, however, had earned him the nickname "Doctor Octopus" by the very lack-wits who dared to call themselves his peers.

But with these tools, he could perform awesome procedures and experiments in relative comfort and safety. That is, until the troubles…

The explosion. The crimes. Spider-man. Prison. Spider-man again. Prison again. And now, the most egregious affront, the surgical theft of his mechanical arms.

But that would soon be rectified. Like all the crimes against him.

Because unbeknownst to them, despite the distance, those arms, they were STILL a part of Otto Octavius.

Otto took a deep breath, and tried to reach his mind out, beyond the iron bars, past the brick and cement walls, to the other side of the prison, and from the depth of his prison cell, across the facility, tried to twitch one of his metal fingers, a quarter of a mile away.

He imagined it working. Imagined the arms breaking free of any meager restraints placed upon them. Pictured in his mind's eye the image of them tearing out of their cell, flinging away any and all guards who might try to stop them on their relentless, tireless pilgrimage back to their master and creator.

He had no way of knowing if he was having any success. That is, until he heard the screaming start.

Otto Octavius smiled.

A year. That was all it had taken for him to fall from being the nation's leading expert in nuclear power, to the butt of dumb jokes told by children. All thanks to Spider-Man.

But he wasn't alone. Because in that year, Spider-Man himself had made oh, so many enemies. Each more dangerous than the last. And what is it they always say?

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Otto said, as the wall of his cell tore away like wet tissue paper under the strength of his returning metal arms.

S-SHIELD'S NOTES

Welcome. Long time, no see. Haven't written in forever. Want to try to get back into it. Started working on this a month back and figured, Why Not Share It? Low stakes, even for fan fiction.

A novelization/expansion/commentary on/of Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1.