You’ve Never Read The Owl/Octopus War?!
Spiders & owls & octopuses, oh my!
Up to this point all of the comics I’ve covered under the “You’ve Never Read…?!” series have been comics I enjoyed as a kid growing up in the ‘90s that are no longer available in trades or digital releases. The story I’m covering this week is a little different. It takes place over the course of seven issues of Spectacular Spider-Man from 1982-83. I became aware of this story from the fine folks over at Amazing Spider-Talk, so it’s only fair that I pay it forward and spread the gospel to you fine folks as well!
Let’s set the table for this story. Roger Stern and John Romita, Jr. had just started their legendary run on Amazing Spider-Man earlier that year. Stern had been writing Spectacular Spider-Man prior to that with a lot of success, so Marvel moved him up to the flagship title. Basically he got called up to the big leagues after some success at the AAA level to use a baseball analogy. With Stern off the book, Marvel went to the writer who had been penning Spectacular Spider-Man prior to Stern’s arrival: Bill Mantlo. Art duties for the arc were handled mostly by Al Milgrom who had been handling inks on the book before taking over pencils as well, although Bob Hall filled in on the second issue of the storyline.
The story is told in Spectacular Spider-Man #73-79, and it kicks off with longtime Daredevil villain the Owl telling his lackeys to bring him the supervillain/hit man Boomerang. Boomerang is currently facing a grand jury for murdering an FBI informant at the behest of Kingpin. Mantlo and Milgrom attempt to pump up Boomerang’s threat level by having him take out several guards by bouncing a fountain pen off of several hard surfaces and hitting them with pinpoint accuracy. If this sounds more like something Bullseye would do instead of Boomerang, then Mantlo clearly agrees as he has Boomerang declare out loud to the courtroom that he’s “every bit as good as Bullseye” as he escapes. It makes me wonder if Mantlo wanted to use Bullseye but was turned down due to him being so heavily involved in Frank Miller’s Daredevil run that was happening simultaneously. Unfortunately for Boomerang, Spider-Man shows up and immediately defeats him and webs him up before he can get too far. Spidey tosses a tracer onto some suspicious looking goons who are present and tracks them to the bird room in the American Museum of Natural History which is serving as the Owl’s secret hideout because of course it is. The Owl does some classic supervillain monologuing and explains he wanted to use Boomerang’s knowledge of Kingpin’s operations to ultimately unseat him as the overlord of New York City’s criminal underworld.
At this point you would be forgiven for thinking this sounds more like an Owl/Kingpin War, but this is the exact moment that Doctor Octopus shows up to the Owl’s hideout. It turns out that the Owl had reached out to Doc Ock about joining forces to take out Kingpin, but Otto has other plans. He came just to reject Owlsley’s offer and declare that he’s going to destroy all of his enemies including the Owl. I suppose it was courteous to do so in person instead of by phone call? Regardless, the two martial their armies and start to square off when Spider-Man swings into action to stop them. This may not have been the most well thought out plan as both sides immediately turn their attention to trying to kill Spider-Man. As the Owl engages Spider-Man, Otto grabs his men and runs off hoping the two kill each other. Spider-Man gets the upper hand in the fight, so the Owl does what he does best and flies away.
The story continues in Spectacular Spider-Man #74, although a large portion of the issue deals with the mental breakdown of Peter’s love interest at the time, Debra Whitman. For the purposes of this retrospective, I’ll be focusing on the primary plot of the war between the Owl and Doctor Octopus. Early in the issue, Spider-Man attempts to stop a break-in that is underway at the Oppenheimer Atomic Research Laboratory. When he arrives he realizes that the respective gangs of the Owl and Doc Ock are both present trying to steal the same MacGuffin. Spider-Man opines in his inner monologue that he has no idea what it is these two are fighting over as the Owl himself swoops in (quite literally) to snatch the object and fly off. Meanwhile, we see that Doctor Octopus is currently meeting with Kingpin at his tower headquarters. Otto had set up the meeting under false pretenses that he wanted to join forces with Fisk to take down the Owl, but in actuality he was there to steal some other mysterious MacGuffin from Kingpin’s wall safe. Otto appears to succeed, but Kingpin reveals that he had put a fake in the safe anticipating that Doc Ock would try to steal it. It’s a twist on the twist! No sooner does Fisk reveal that this object is still in his possession that the lights go out and someone else has snuck in and stolen it. It’s another twist! Later Doctor Octopus shows up at the Owl’s new hideout itching for a fight. We learn that the item Otto thinks he has is an activator for the device that the Owl had stolen. The two begin to fight, and the Owl manages to get the activator away from Doc Ock. The victory, however, is short lived as Doctor Octopus grabs the Owl in his tentacles and gets the items away from him. It’s at this point that the two villains realize that the activator is a fake and that Fisk has tricked Otto. Humiliated, Doctor Octopus flings the Owl aside and storms off apparently unaware that the Owl had regained possession of the device. The issue comes to an end when Spider-Man gets a surprise visit from the thief who had stolen the real activator from Kingpin: Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat!
The next chapter in this war takes place in a double-sized Spectacular Spider-Man #75, and Mantlo and Milgrom put those extra pages to good use. Peter had thought Black Cat was dead following their previous encounter, and he’s overjoyed to learn she’s still alive. That happiness is quickly interrupted when Doc Ock breaks through the wall Kool-Aid Man style and begins to fight the two in an attempt to get the activator. Otto eventually subdues Spider-Man and captures Black Cat as a hostage as he runs off with the activator in hand. Spider-Man has had enough of being in the dark about what the Owl and Doctor Octopus are up to, and he breaks into Fisk’s tower to get some answers. What Kingpin divulges is that the MacGuffin they’ve been fighting over is a neutron bomb. The Owl wants it as a way to blackmail Fisk into replacing him as New York City’s most powerful crime lord. Doctor Octopus wants it because he has apparently gone completely mad and wants to use it to kill every human being in New York. Yikes. Doc Ock and his gang have now declared all out war on the Owl and his minions, and they invade his headquarters with the intent to steal the neutron bomb from him. Also, Otto is still holding Black Cat in one of his tentacles this entire time. Spider-Man shows up as the battle is winding down to see the Owl bloodied and unconscious on the floor. Spider-Man manages to catch up to Doctor Octopus before he’s able to use the device, and he and Black Cat work together to get the device away from him. Otto is close to activating the bomb when Spider-Man manages to pull him away, and in a fit of rage tears Doc Ock’s mechanical arms off of him. With both villains incapacitated, Spider-Man and Black Cat embrace to celebrate their triumph.
The final score for the Owl/Octopus War: Mollusks 1, Birds 0, but that’s not the end of our story. Apparently Spider-Man and Black Cat forgot that both the Owl and Doctor Octopus each commanded heavily armed gangs who were still present. Realizing their bosses were both incapacitated, the two gangs turn their attention to our intrepid heroes. While Spider-Man is distracted, Doc Ock mentally controls his severed mechanical arms just enough to ensnare Black Cat. This provides the two gangs an opening to take their shot at Felicia, and boy do they. Black Cat is shot several times and speared through her left shoulder and right calf. It’s not a pretty sight. Spider-Man throws himself into the two gangs to defeat them, and he tears apart Doc Ock’s already severed arms for good measure before scooping up Black Cat and taking her to a hospital. Felicia is rushed into emergency surgery as Spider-Man sits in the waiting room all night. It’s pretty grim stuff. Felicia fortunately survives, and Spider-Man is by her side when she eventually regains consciousness. Meanwhile, Doctor Octopus goes through his own emergency surgery to reattach his mechanical arms. He insists on going through the procedure without anesthesia so he can use the pain to focus his rage on Spider-Man. Seems like Peter might be in for a rough time.
The next issue is a bit of a one off focusing mostly on Spider-Man dealing with the Daredevil villain known as Gladiator. I can’t help but notice that there sure are a lot of Daredevil villains popping up in this story. I have to wonder if this stems from the popularity of the Frank Miller and Klaus Janson run on Daredevil that was happening at the same time. Regardless, Doc Ock does make an early appearance when he ambushes a napping Spider-Man in the hospital with Felicia (seems like a bad idea to take naps in the costume, but what do I know?). Otto threatens the two of them and says he’ll kill them both tomorrow after they’ve had a day to agonize about their fates. The remainder of the issue deals with the Gladiator subplot. It isn’t terribly relevant to the main Doctor Octopus storyline, so I’ll skip over it for now. The following issue has some fun bits as we see Boomerang get locked up in state prison as a resolution to the events at the very beginning of this arc. For some reason he’s locked up while wearing his ridiculous costume. I assume that was part of the punishment. Speaking of punishment, Boomerang’s cell ends up being directly across from a cell holding the Punisher. That is definitely not an enviable position. Peter Parker spends the rest of the issue spending time with friends and family just in case Doc Ock should succeed in killing him the next day. Again, this is some grim stuff and not something you typically saw in a Bronze Age Spider-Man story. The issue closes with Spider-Man in Felicia's hospital room as he senses Doctor Octopus approaching. He hops out the window and squares up for one more fight.
The final issue of the arc absolutely delivers on the promise of a titanic battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. The entire issue is a no holds barred, knock down, drag out slobber knocker that is billed as the final battle between the two. The fight starts outside the hospital before moving inside as Otto also wants to kill Black Cat. At one point Doc Ock attempts to murder an elevator full of patients and hospital staff just to get under Peter’s skin and distract him. Otto has never been more bloodthirsty than he is in this story. Eventually things move out into the streets of New York City as Doc Ock pursues an ambulance transporting Black Cat away from the scene. The fight spills over into a rail yard as Spider-Man continues to try to keep Otto away from Felicia. Doctor Octopus ends up on some train tracks as a train is barreling towards him. Completely undeterred, Otto tears the train apart in a terrifying display of his power.
The two continue to fight as they end up in a construction zone for a new building being erected. While fighting, Otto brings the entire building down and Spider-Man is forced to get them both out of the way of the falling debris. Being saved by Spider-Man during what was supposed to be his greatest triumph is a humiliation too much to handle for Doc Ock. Spider-Man webs him up and then does something you never really see him do: he intimidates Otto by standing over him, fist raised, telling him he will never be able to beat him no matter how hard he tries. Spider-Man’s parting shot as he swings away is to tell Otto to never challenge him anymore and that he won’t warn him again. This last bit seems to have truly broken Otto’s spirit, and it would be decades before he would try to fight Spider-Man one on one again.
Thus concludes the Owl/Octopus War! While there is certainly plenty of lighthearted fun in this story, its real legacy is how it defines the relationship between Peter and Otto. Doctor Octopus had been one of Spider-Man’s most dangerous foes during the early days of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, but he had been replaced by the Green Goblin and other more “serious” villains throughout the late-1960s and 1970s. The Owl/Octopus War firmly reestablishes Doc Ock as a truly fearsome villain who commands the respect not just of Spider-Man but of other villains as well. The story also serves as a showcase for what Bill Mantlo and Al Milgrom were able to do as writers and artists respectively. They do an excellent job of juggling multiple characters and subplots while allowing for the huge action set pieces to shine. I struggle to understand why Marvel doesn’t make this available in trade or digitally on sites like ComiXology. A case could easily be made that it is the defining story for one of Spider-Man’s most notorious and recognizable villains. If you like what you have read in my retelling, then I’d recommend hitting up your local comic shop and flipping through back issues to try and find some copies for yourself. It’s well worth your time.