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Spider-Man’s Sinister War just took a major turn when one of his greatest villains was able to hijack the abilities of an Avenger for his own cause.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Sinister War #4, on sale now
Kindred has done his best to bring about the end of Spider-Man, genuinely despising the Wall-Crawler and doing everything he can to bring about his inglorious ending. This built to the events of the Sinister War, where many of Spider-Man’s greatest enemies have come close to finally killing the hero. But there’s one villain who stands out above the rest, and more or less the victory away from Kindred in the process.
In Sinister War #4 (by Ed Brisson, Nick Spencer, Mark Bagley, Dio Neves, Marcelo Ferreira, Andrew Hennessy, Andy Owens, Brian Reber, Andrew Crossley, & VC’s Joe Caramagna), Doctor Octopus proves himself the better villain than Kindred — and does it by hacking into a classic Avenger’s technology.
The Sinister War has quickly proven to be one of the most dangerous encounters Spider-Man has suffered in a long time. What was supposed to be a fun night out with Mary-Jane at her film premiere was interrupted by the intervention of multiple villain teams. It turns out that over thirty of Spider-Man’s most consistent foes had been captured by the demonic Kindred and infected with his mysterious centipedes. Kindred promises the assembled villains that he can kill any of them at his command — and that whoever actually succeeds in killing Spider-Man will receive his blessings and less suffering in hell after he inevitably slaughters them all. With few other choices, the villains all scrambled to kill Spider-Man.
Although the Wall-Crawler has survived the assault, it’s only been by the skin of his teeth — with Peter Parker seriously wounded by more than one of the attacks. In Sinister War #4, the battle becomes even more intense as Spider-Man starts losing steam. He’s even overwhelmed and almost murdered by Morlun — only surviving thanks to the intervention (and sacrifice) of Boomerang, and prompting his former teammates in the Superior Foes of Spider-Man to turn on their fellow villains. But while everyone is paying attention to Spider-Man (including Kindred), Doctor Octopus moves in the background and gets to work on his plan. Harvesting one of the centipedes from the zombie-like Sin-Eater, Doctor Octopus is revealed to have stolen some of Black Ant’s suit technology.
A recreation of the Ant-Man suit designed by Avenger found Hank Pym, Black Ant’s technology has made him a dangerous mercenary. Since that device includes a machine that can control and communicate with ants, and since ants and centipedes are from the same corner of the animal kingdom, Doctor Octopus just needed to adjust the frequencies created by Black Ant’s tech to give him control over the centipedes — and to kill them all in a single stroke. Doctor Octopus is able to deftly and quickly rework the device and send out a wave that targets each centipede in every villain. All of them collapse in pain — unaware that Doctor Octopus just saved all their lives and single-handily thrown off Kindred’s plans.
He did this not necessarily to save Spider-Man (although he allows his perpetual nemesis the chance to escape before the rest of the villains regain consciousness) but because he decided he didn’t want to be at the service of someone like Kindred. Doctor Octopus has always been a remarkable genius — threatening the world countless times and occasionally earning the grudging respect of noted figures like Reed Richards. It’s not surprising that he was able to modify Ant-Man technology for his own goals — only that he was able to do it so quickly and so seemingly easily.
With this single act, Doctor Octopus proved himself the ultimate wild card in the Sinister War, and was able to inflict some serious damage on Kindred’s plans. There’s even a shred of the heroism he developed years earlier in his attempts to be Spider-Man — forgotten in his deal with Mephisto, but seemingly still part of his core as he allows Spider-Man to live for no apparent reason. It’s a good reminder that no matter how many villains Spider-Man has or how powerful they become, Doctor Octopus will always be one step ahead.
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