Honestly, after two Doc Ock miniseries and two stories in the books where he was featured, I figured we had reached saturation point for the character, even with a movie coming up. Enough is enough, and lord knows I didn't think we needed a look at his early years. I still don't, but I'm forced to admit that Wells and Andrews are telling a pretty solidly crafted little story here, which gives some interesting insight into a Spidey foe I've always liked. Part of me thinks that the last thing we need is to soften these supervillains, make them more real and present them as victims of society rather than maniacal madmen, but the rest of me finds this to be a pretty well-written (and beautifully drawn) character piece with some unexpected creepiness as well.
I tend to be an old-fashioned guy when it comes to Marvel and DC's superheroes. I want my good guys good, my bad guys bad and both of them in costumes. I want Doc Ock to have plans that involve crazy nuclear blackmail or getting even with Spider-Man, and I want his motivating factor to be a megalomania that just makes him crazy and dangerous, rather than a deep-seated need for revenge rooted in unbelievable amounts of abuse in his home life. To me, it seems that if you make Doctor Octopus a victim who is now lashing out at the world, not only do you make Spider-Man look like a jerk for just beating on him instead of getting him help, you make Ock himself seem like more of a victim and less of a dangerous foe.
That said, though, Wells has created a pretty believable home life for Otto Octavius here. We see that the family's predilection for unusual first names began with his father at least (Torbert?) and we see that unfortunately all-too-real pattern of a blue collar father who doesn't like his smart and sensitive young boy, and the mother who gets the boy but is herself too sensitive to stand up to the father. And I'm guessing most comic-book readers don't really need to be told that being different leads to getting bullied in younger grades either. Wells leans a little bit toward the Stan Lee stereotypical bullies here, surprisingly unsophisticated giving the realism that he's otherwise adding to this comic-book character's backstory, but over-the-top bullying is a comic book standard, so I don't have huge problems with it.
Perhaps the most intriguing element of the story, and the one that resonates the most with me, is the notion that Otto was always a bit broken. Wells is giving him an "out" in terms of suffering from abuse and people not understanding him, but he's also building a case that the character was always somewhat arrogant and used his intelligence as a reason to believe himself superior to others. In addition, Wells presents the character as more than a little off in terms of his relationship with technology and nuclear energy, and his visions of nuclear devastation, not to mention the quiet thanks he offers up to the technology, are creeeeepy. Given that Doctor Octopus eventually got involved with nuclear blackmail of New York City, it wouldn't surprise me if Wells is planning on using this as a foundation to revisit that story with a darker undertone to it.
One of the big surprises of this issue, beyond how it hooked my interest, was seeing that Kaare Andrews has again modified his art style. I've always thought Andrews was exceptionally talented, but some of his stylistic shifts haven't been my cup of tea, even though I respected his ability to make so many changes in style. This time out, his work has an inky realism and stylized characters that reminds me of a cross between Adam Hughes, Sam Kieth, Eduardo Risso and Bill Sienkiewicz, and though that sounds like an impossible combination, every one of those talented artists is evoked in my mind when I read it, and the style really works. It's perfect for setting up the darker, more human tone of Well's script, and it might be my favorite Andrews work ever, excepting maybe his beautiful Hulk covers.
