Last Updated on August 3, 2021
Last week’s Face-Off column had a pair of Gary Oldman villains duking it out, and most of you agreed that his unhinged corrupt DEA agent from LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL was a better baddie than his ruthless and eccentric industrialist Jean-Baptiste Emanuel from THE FIFTH ELEMENT
This weekend brings back Marvel’s friendly neighborhood wall-crawler in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2, in which our webbed hero has to deal with a trio of super foes. Speaking of villains, lets take a look back to the original SPIDER-MAN trilogy by director Sam Raimi, and see what happens when the best of those bad guys face off.
(Please note: Face Off is an opinion column. We’re not using any actual science to prove or disprove anything. It’s just for fun.)
ALTER EGO
Norman Osborn, brilliant industrialist and head of weapons developer Oscorp, contracted by the military to create a new super-soldier
Otto Octavius, brilliant scientist dedicated to creating a safe, self-sustaining fusion-based energy source
equipment
-a high-tech glider armed with missiles and machineguns
-green armor (cybernetically linked to the glider) armed with knockout gas
-pumpkin bombs that can split into flying razors or completely atomize people
-trident
a harness (accidentally fused to his spine) with four artificially intelligent mechanical arms that are impervious to magnetism and heat, and can be used to scale buildings, snap necks and throw heavy objects
appearance
Goblin’s shiny green suit and helmet are neat and kind of spooky, but man… that original animatronic makeup would’ve been ten times cooler
Doctor Octopus may keep his eyes behind groovy Deal With It shades, but those clacking, lightning fast tentacles are incredibly powerful and all kinds of terrifying (Doc Ock’s exposed moobs are a different sort of scary…)
desires
– revenge on his corporate competition and the Oscorp board who forced him out of his own company
– trying to recruit Spider-Man into some weird super-powered partnership
– precious tritium
– completing his fusion experiment at any cost
peter parker relationship
Osborn seems to like ambitious science whiz Peter more than his own son Harry
Octavius develops a mentor-student bond with Peter, who idolizes him
nefarious deeds
Murdering military contractors, vaporizing Oscorp’s leadership, crashing J. Jonah Jameson’s office, disrupting the Unity Day fair, setting an apartment building on fire, sabotaging a suspended trolley car full of passengers, kidnapping Mary Jane
Brutally killing a team of surgeons, robbing a bank, scaling a building with Aunt May in the clutches of a tentacle, agreeing to trade Spider-Man’s life for precious tritium, chucking a car at Peter and Mary Jane in a coffee shop, sabotaging an elevated train full of passengers, insisting on completing his fusion reactor despite potential world-ending instability, kidnapping Mary Jane
level of crazy
Exposing himself to his unstable super-soldier formula transforms Osborn into a full-on split-personality arguing-with-his-own-reflection loon
With the tentacles inhibitor chip destroyed, Octavius has to struggle for control of his own mind against the will of the devious sentient appendages
demise
Impaled through the gut by his own glider after missing Spider-Man
Sacrifices himself by drowning to prevent the fusion experiment from destroying the city
actor
Willem Dafoe, probably best known (at the time) for PLATOON, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA, BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, WILD AT HEART, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, AMERICAN PSYCHO and SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE
Alfred Molina, probably best known (at the time) for BOOGIE NIGHTS, MAGNOLIA, FRIDA, CHOCOLAT, SPECIES, and trading an idol for a whip in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
DOCTOR OCTOPUS
Outside of perhaps Batman, Spider-Man has the greatest gallery of rogues in all of comicdom, and Sam Raimi’s first two SPIDER-MAN movies gave us a pair of the most iconic baddies. If we got more Dafoe than mask as the movie version of Green Goblin, this Face Off might have turned out differently. But as an adversary he’s more of a faceless destructive force as opposed to Doctor Octopus, who is helplessly obsessed with completing a project he believes will change the world for the better. Granted, Doc Ock did had the benefit of being in the better movie, but his screen version also ended up the more interesting and layered of the villains, with Molina giving a compelling portrayal of the driven but conflicted scientist.
Agree? Disagree? Which do you prefer?
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