Viewer Log: Voltron ep 15

We find our heroes working on repairing the Castle of Lions after their recent fight with the Pro-Beast. This is probably on ongoing chore, to be perfectly honest. There’s a slight self-destruct scare when Lance doesn’t understand Coran and Allura’s Altean technobabble, but Pidge is able to correct it pretty quick. Not sure why they didn’t just leave the shield fixing up to her in the first place, to be honest. The team is then bombarded with space debris. Squishy space debris. Shiro initially advises the group to be wary, but after Lance lobs one at him (Lance was aiming for Keith) they start having a space snowball fight. Good times had by all. The goo balls are revealed to be hyper-resilient spores. Pidge, using that wonderful brain of hers, notices that the spores’ bio-luminescence isn’t natural and seems to be flashing something in code.

Plant-Mech joyride, anyone?

After being decontaminated, Pidge runs off to try and decode the spore-signals. While that is going on, Keith inspects his dagger. The one that has the Blade of Marmora symbol on it. He asks Coran some subtle questions about the Gulra, and if they’d ever come to Earth before that one time they stopped by to grab the Blue Lion. Coran laughs that off and points out that if the Gulra had been to Earth before, Keith would probably know. Since they’d strip mine the place. Touché, Coran.

Pidge is able to decode the Spore’s message. Shockingly, it’s a distress call from a planet called Olkarion. Both Allura and Coran recognize the name, as in their time the Olkari were technological engineers without rival. Coran even has an old Olkari souvenir, it’s like a floating cube that can play back what he says. Cool? The Paladins fly to Olkarion, and find the once thriving capital city is more or less in ruins, with a lot of Gulra running around. They search the surrounding area, and are pulled out of the sky by some arrows. The Olkari have spent the last few years… adapting. They can use their techno-enhancing powers on plants. Like they can slide their hands into a flower and turn it into a blaster, or turn these giant nuts into wooden mech-suits. Insane? Yes. Do I still love it? You bet I do.  An Olkari spokesmen explains that they’ve lived in the forest since the Gulra took over. They have the Olkari king, Lubos, and are using him and an army of enslaved Olkari to build a super weapon. He offers the Paladins a deal, free Lubos and the slaves, and they’ll join the Voltron Alliance. Sounds like a plan.

Evil never looked so geometric... or generic.

The Olkari outfit the Paladins with some nature tech, and it’s noted that Pidge has a talent for using said nature-tech. How convenient. We flash over to the local Gulra commander, who is pretty much there to just say that they’ve nearly finished the weapon and that the non-slave Olkari are going to be blown to smithereens as a show of force. Using Green’s stealth tech, she’s so useful, the boys are dropped into the castle. They quickly scout the castle, using that really convenient scanner technology, and make it to Lubos’ cell. Well, cell is a little too harsh a world. It’s really a posh apartment. Yeah, it turns out Lubos willingly turned his people over for slave labor, in exchange for a bunch of creature comforts. Dumb Imbecilic Crazy Kook. I realize those were mostly redundant, but I needed a good D.I.C.K. acronym. They still take him, anyway, to fulfill their deal to the Olkari at large.

Unfortunately, the weapon was completed right then. The Gulra Commander sends the new weapon at them, but thankfully Green gets them out at the last second. Go Pidge. Back with the Olkari, while they’re depressed that their king is a colossal DICK, rally to save their lives. The Paladins form Voltron and blast the Cube with laser fire. The Cube absorbs the attack, and fires back. They up the ante, using Hunk’s mega-sized blaster, but again, it absorbs and fires back. As the fighting continues, the Cube adapts and seems to upgrade its weaponry. When blasters don’t work, they summon the Voltron Leo-Saber, and slash it into pieces. They’re excited for about 15 seconds before the Cube recovers. There are four of them now. They decide to divide and conquer, literally, and attack as the five individual lions. Lance’s Ice Beam stops them for a few seconds, but it burst free, knocking Pidge and Green into the forest. The Olkari quickly assemble, and use their mojo to repair Green. An encouraging speech from the Olkari help Pidge form a deeper connection with Green, unlocking Green’s personal weapon.

Green loves the upgrades, too.

Pidge and Green use their new weapon, a plant blaster, to disable the Cube. They’re consumed in vines, crushing them. After they kick the Gulra off Olkaria, there is much rejoicing, Pidge celebrates bonding with Green, and the Paladins hyperspeed off into deep space. The euphoria wears off a few moments later when Zarkon and the main Gulra fleet lightspeed in. Well… shoot.

This was kind of weird episode. Good, but weird. Something about the nature tech was just a little too odd for my admittedly odd brain. Like… are they inserting nano-bots into the trees and flowers and turning them into weapons? Or something? So odd. But, seeing Pidge bond with Green was pretty nice. Interesting how Blue got his weapon upgrade while he was submerged, and how Green got her upgrade while surrounded by trees, isn’t it? The elemental connection of the various Lions is fairly obvious, Red=Fire, Blue=Water, Green=Plants/Forests, and Yellow=Earth/Soil/Ground, so… what is Black’s element? Something that I hope the answer at some point. Destroying the Cube with plant life was a nice touch. Just saying. Next time, Episode 15, the chase begins… or continues.

Viewer Log: Voltron ep 14

Okay so the team is now back together, and Shiro is getting the emergency medical help that he so desperately needed. He’s overdue for a nice relaxing sleep after the fiasco that has been the last couple of in-universe days. Too bad he’s plagued by nightmares. Well, not nightmares, but plot crucial memories that he’s just recovered. How convenient. He flashes back to when he escaped the Gulra. One of the scientist experimenting on him, later named Ulaz, disabled the guards and freed Shiro from his restraints. Ulaz tells Shiro that he’d planted a bomb to cover up their individual escapes, and advices him to look for the Blade of Marmora. He also gives Shiro the tip that the Gulra top brass are going to Earth to find that Blue piece of Voltron hidden there. Groggy and weak from the year of experiments and torture, Shiro is just barely able to make it to an escape pod, and blast off towards home. He wakes up, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

Can kind of understand why someone might not trust him.
It's the lack of pupils.

Hm… you know what I’ve been wondering? How Commander Prorok is doing after the whole falling out with boss Emperor Zarkon. In two words, not great. Haggar, being a nutty ol’ gal, is using him in the creation of a new Robeast. Prorok is against the procedure, but we know how little Haggar cares about complaining. Hm… so Prorok is turned into a Pro-Beast. I like it. T-the name. Not turning people into Weapons of Mass Destruction without their consent. That’s no good.

After completely defrosting, Shiro tells his teammates about his recovered memory, and the set of coordinates that Ulaz gave him before parting ways. Pidge can’t seem to find anything using scanning tech, and Allura is rather against even a slim chance of working with Gulra. Shiro, though, is adamant that they find Ulaz and the Blade of Marmora. He’s also understandably upset that Allura didn’t mention the whole Zarkon being the former Black Paladin. Personally, I’ve never understood the whole “withholding information to protect them” thing. I mean, if Shiro and co had known that Zarkon had a previous connection with Voltron, they might not have done something suicidal like launching a full assault on Zarkon’s flagship. Just saying. Pidge is able to locate something at the coordinates given, and Shiro is able to convince the group that gaining allies is worth the risk of a trap.

They arrive at the coordinates, and find a giant floating belt of Zantorium Clusters. They’re like space icebergs. That are about the size of a football stadium, and blow up if you hit them.  So much much scarier. While the team waits to see if something will happen, Zarkon uses the druids to augment his connection to the Black Lion. Not good. Back with our heroes, they detect an intruder in the Castle of Lions. Also, probably not good. The team tracks down the intruder, an obvious Gulra in some pretty awesome armor. This Gulra pretty much rocks the team. He spanks them, hard. Like he throws Pidge around and hits Keith with her. He uses a fourteen-year-old as a mace. Enough said. The Gulra stops when Shiro confronts him, revealing himself to be Ulaz. What a twist!

I think he might like it better this way... Hard to tell, though.

Ulaz is put in chains and brought to the bridge. He reveals that he’s part of group of Gulra that realized that their boss is probably a psycho. They formed the Blade of Marmora, and have been resisting Zarkon as best they can. He offers to take them to his base, to discuss a future alliance. His secret base is located in the Zantorium Cluster field, in a weird space/time pocket. In his base, Ulaz offers to coordinate with team Voltron and even gives Pidge what little info he can scrounge up on Pidge’s missing bro and pops. The Pro-Beast arrives a moment later, kind of ruining the group coordination thing. Everyone is kind of freaking out that Zarkon was able to track them to a hidden base in the space boonies.    

Ulaz is able to give them the coordinates for the Blade of Marmora headquarters, and advices Shiro to figure out how Zarkon is tracking them before seeking the main group out. Pro-Beast shows off his new powers, namely sucking up tons of Zantorium clusters and firing off a huge explosion. How did Haggar know he’d need that power? Or did being a blowhard in life translate to his new super power as a bio-magic-tech monstrosity? Who knows? Team forms Voltron and gets a few good licks in, but this Robeast is tough. Also, Ulaz bails during the fight. Kind of reinforcing Allura’s negative prejudice, isn’t he?

What could it mean?

They hit him with their sword-and-board combo, the Castle’s laser barrage, and a few giant Zantorium clusters, but Pro-Beast survives with barely a scratch. Ulaz returns, and sacrifice himself to stop Pro-Beast. He gets sucked into Pro-Beast, and then opens his space-pocket. Bits of Pro-Beast get scattered across space. Hooray? The team agree that they’ll wait to seek out the Blade of Marmora until they figure out how Zarkon is tracking them. And, Keith reveals that he has a very ancient looking dagger, which has the same glowing symbol on its hilt that Ulaz had. The plot thickens.

This is a very good episode. It expands the lore of the Legendary Defender version of the Voltron universe, and gives us a decent Robeast fight. It’s been like five episodes since the last one, it’s been overdue. It’s good to see that the Gulra aren’t just going to be a Star Trek style of an evil species, like the Klingons, or the Romulans, or the Borg. Even while the majority of the species seems to follow at Zarkon’s beck and call, it’s good to know a few see their Emperor for the tyrant he clearly is. Really hard to rationalize literally killing planets, isn’t it? At least, God, I hope it is. The reveal that Keith has a Magmora blade is also rather interesting. As I said before, this season is about giving Keith the development that he quite frankly missed out on last time. A major character possibly being connected to the evil empire… what could it mean? Well, we’ll find out soon enough. Next time, number 15.

Viewer Log: Voltron ep 13

So… what DID happen to Lance and Hunk? Let’s find out, shall we?

A real confidence inspiring team...

After being flung from the weirdly distorted wormhole, our two heroes crash landed into a frozen ocean. Their Lions, being large and heavy, sank to the very depths of this alien ocean. Like Black, Red, and Green Lion before them, the Blue and Yellow Lions are without power. Plus the whole being miles below the surface just makes for a very crappy day. And that was before Hunk threw up all over his cockpit. It’s been a while since his last gastrointestinal episode, so I’ll give him this one. After being suck in the depths for a few minutes, Blue does get some power back. Enough to run his lights at least. Just in time to coincide with a Mermaid swimming by. Or so Lance believes. Hunk is of the opinion his friend is suffering from Ocean Madness, the Deep Down Crazies, or the Wet Willies, but does agree to swim after it to investigate. Once Lance gives him the option to follow Lance, or be left alone at the bottom of the sea.

They follow the Mermaid to Space Atlantis. I know it probably has another name, but it’s a highly advanced sunken city in space, like I’m going to call it anything other than Space Atlantis. The Mermaid they followed, Flurona, introduces Lance and Hunk to Laxia, Queen of Space Atlantis. Both encourage Lance and Hunk to stay, for all in Space Atlantis are “Safe and warm.” If SciFi has taught me anything, it’s that if a group of people chant a phrase repeatedly in a creepy manner, it’s probably a cult. A cult of space mermaids… not THE weirdest sentence I’ve ever written, but that’s definitely up there. They also talk about this place called the Baku Garden, which keeps the people of Space Atlantis safe and warm… nothing sinister about that.

To keep our heroes placid, Laxia plays to their vices. Lots of food for Hunk, lots of pretty ladies for Lance. They are simple creatures. After the meal, and a bizarre dance number from an octopus man, it’s pretty clear that Lance and Hunk have been brainwashed in some way. They have little memory, or desire of wanting to leave Space Atlantis, and would probably have lived and died there if not for some timely intervention. Some bizarre looking rebels cut a hole into the side of the Queen’s palace and rescue Lance. They tried to grab Hunk too, but unfortunately the husky Paladin was a little too big for the hole they’d made. Rookie mistake, you always make the escape hole big enough for the fat guy. Just saying. Queen Laxia is rather… annoyed that they’d lost Lance, when they discover him gone the next day.

Yeah, that's a real trustworthy face.
I'd trust her to keep me safe and warm.
That sounds dirty...

When Lance awakens, he meets three mer-people that make up the rebel group. They are also clearly insane. They believe that the Queen personally froze the surface of their ocean, keeps people in bondage, and trained her servants to move in a specific way to hypnotize people, which is why they wear live jellyfish on their heads to protect themselves. Very, very insane. Lance is still somehow convinced to believe them, and dons a jellyfish. His exact words “AH! It Burns!” “That means it’s working!”

We get a glimpse of Queen Laxia sending Flurona into the Baku Garden. Her punishment for allowing Lance to escape. She disappears into the Baku Garden. Nothing sinister about that. Lance and co come up with an insane plan to storm the caste, getting Lance to Blue Lion, and then trapping the Queen in a frozen prison. Lance is given a special fish that can release an ink cloud that restores hypnotized people’s minds. Said fish has only three doses. Lance does get to Blue, but is captured a few moments later.

Gotta love the upgrades!

Laxia orders a mind-controlled Hunk to the Baku Garden. Lance is able to wriggle free, and a large-scale fight ensues. He’s able to cure Hunk and some guards, with help from the crazy Mer-people. Lance and Hunk get to Blue and Yellow, and then easily capture the queen. Hard to fight giant mecha-lions with spears and swords. Once out of the water in Blue’s mouth, Laxia acts like she’s just coming out of something. It’s revealed that the actual mind controller was the Baku Garden. It cultivated the Mer-people through Laxia, to feed itself. Once it loses Laxia, the Baku wakes up, revealing it’s real form is that of a giant snake/eel. Blue and Yellow have a bit of difficulty fighting the Baku. It’s huge and in its in its element, kind of hard to take down. Lance is able to unlock Blue’s special weapon, a giant sonic cannon, which smooths things out. They’re finally able to crush and kill the Baku beneath a giant boulder. Mer-people are super grateful that the Baku is dead, and use their Mer-Technology to contact Team Voltron. Green flies in a few moments later. Hooray!

This was a good episode. Hunk and Lance had quite the adventure deep under the sea. Sure, I called the “Mermaid mind control cult” thing pretty much the first time Flurona opened her mouth, but it works. It was also kind of interesting to see two Lions take on the big bad without Voltron appearing. I don’t think that happened last season, and I’d be willing to bet that it never happened in the original show. I feel like show runners back in the day would have been like, “Something other than Voltron slaying the big bad? What madness is this?” Lance and Hunk, as per usual, are hilarious, even in this creepy setting. The whole “It burns!” “That means it’s working!” is one of my favorite from this episode. I got to say, I was worried that this whole “team separated” thing would be a several episodes long arc, and we’d have miss out on bunch of character interactions. But no, thankfully, it was only two episodes. Hooray. Again…Next time, episode 3.

Viewer Log: Voltron ep 12

Where did we last leave our heroes? Oh right, they were flying through a wormhole that had been disrupted by an evil space witch’s purple lightning. The Voltron writers are really good at cliffhanger endings. We continue just after the Gulra druid Haggar screwed up the portal. The Voltron Lions are flung from the castle, while the Castle of Lions continues hurtling through the portal. Shiro and Keith are thrown together, as are Hunk and Lance, while poor Pidge is thrown out on her own. On a scale of Bad from 1 to 10, this is a solid 9.

Shiro and Keith crash land on a rocky looking world. While they’re on the same planet, they hit the ground a few miles apart. The Black and Red Lions are without power, and, to make matters worse, Shiro has a major side wound from his fight with Haggar. Both exit their respective robot lion and tries to meet up. Keith has an easier time of it, obviously, since he’s lacking a major side wound.

Pidge emerges in what can only be described as a cosmic junkyard. And like Red and Black, Green Lion is without power. Being a smart young lady, she decides to stay put and wait for the others to find her. She’s actually initially happy with the solitude, since it gives her time away from her annoyances… I mean friends. This last for about 35 seconds before she figures out being alone is BBBBOOOOORRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGG.

Pidge is surprisingly cool with being lost in space.

Meanwhile, in the wormhole, Allura and Coran have a major issue. Namely, that the Wormhole has a definite end. Not an exit back into regular space, just a stopping point. They try to find some way out, but run out of time. They hit the end point… and things repeat. But not exactly. They’re sent back in time about five or six minutes, but Allura notices that Coran looks about ten years younger, and her pet alien mice are now squirrels. They try to avoid the End again, but once again, fail. Things repeat, again, with Coran being even younger and the mice are some sort of capybara/hippos. Oh my.

Keith hurries to Shiro, but not before some of the local wildlife start sniffing around the Black lion. These raptor/cat aliens start chasing the lone pilot. He’s able to outrun the creatures, but gets buried in a minor cave in. At the same time, Keith’s trek across the landscape is slowed down by a geyser field, which then turns into a giant canyon after Keith hesitates a moment too long on a specific patch of ground.

Pidge decides to look around the junkyard. In just a few minutes she meets a colony of some sort of space-caterpillars. After that, Pidge decides to be constructive and creates a bunch of dummy versions of her friends. She also hits their personalities spot on. Just saying. After entering her bug buddies for a few minutes, notices that Green Lion has finally powered back up. In her excitement to reach Green, Pidge yanks on a wire that reveals a large old satellite. Deciding that waiting patiently is for suckers, Pidge uses her big beautiful brain to MacGyver a locater beacon.

Things are also getting more desperate for Allura. She’s for some reason unaffected by the time repeat, but, Coran has hit his teenage years and the mice keep changing forms. Either they’re morphing into completely different animals like snails, squirrels, hippos etc. or they too are getting younger and then I can safely say that Altean mice have the most bizarre lifecycle ever. She tries to hone in on any of the Voltron Lion’s signals, but they’re too far apart to get a clear signal. They hit the end, again, and Coran is now a child… with a mustache. Huh.

Well, crap.

Keith and Shiro reminisce a little while Keith tries to figure out how to cross the canyon. Apparently, Shiro really changed Keith’s life in some way… but they don’t show how. Weird. Keith slashes some of the planet’s crust, which causes a geyser to go off. It launches him about half way across the canyon, and his jetpack gets the rest of the way. At the same time, Shiro is dug up by the predators. He’s able to hold them off, even slicing off one of the creature’s horns, but he could really use an assist. Especially given his glowing purple wound in his side. Keith arrives on the scene, but it’s like five monsters vs. two dudes, not going to end well. Keith does the insane thing and asks Black Lion to help him out. The giant mecha-cat lets him in, and the two save Shiro.

Pidge completes her satellite uplink. After two tries and Green’s roar, it powers up. The uplink is able to help the Castle of Lions can pick up. Which is really good timing, since Coran has hit his baby phase. Can’t go much farther back than that. Allura locks on to the signal and is finally able to leave the looping wormhole. Once outside the loop, Coran and the mice return to normal. They pick Pidge up and go to find the others.

Keith and Shiro bond a little more beside a campfire. Shiro tells Keith that, should his wound prove too severe to be treated or they aren’t found until it’s too late, he wants Keith to take his place as head of Team Voltron. Thankfully, Green Lion pops out of a wormhole a moment later. Hooray!

Father figure turned into a baby... I think Allura will need a
therapist after all this.

Back with the villains, Zarkon is… annoyed that he lost Voltron when he almost had his claws around these cats. Commander Prorok does his best to save his own skin, promising to capture Voltron and to find out how the Solar Barrier failed at the last moment. Zarkon, though, has had enough with Prorok’s screw ups. He orders the commander taken away, and Haggar makes it clear she has plans for Prorok. A Gulra lieutenant, Thace, is promoted to take Prorok’s place and his first order is to find out who sabotaged the Solar Barrier. Which is funny, given that Thace was the one who turned it off.

Has it really only been six months since last season? It’s felt like it’s been over a year. And, yeah, it was worth the wait. Like I thought, if the last episode hadn’t been the season finale, it would have flowed perfectly into this one. Each of the three stories are good, but I am really glad they didn’t try to stretch these stories into three separate episodes. Pidge’s space Castaway scenes would have started wearing thin after twenty straight minutes. Same with Keith and Shiro’s, and Allura and Coran’s story. It is also nice to see Keith starting to get some character development. He was the least developed of the cast in the last season, which is kind of ironic since he was the main character in the original version of Voltron. We’re given just a few tidbits here, but Keith's development is something of a season long story arc this time. Also, not sure yet what to make of Keith piloting Black. This iteration of Voltron has really been playing up the bonds between the Paladins and their Lions, so the idea that Keith COULD pilot Black is rather odd. But, in the original series, Keith did end up being the Black Paladin after Shiro’s original series counterpart’s death. BUT, the show runners have said that while they’re trying to honor the original show, they’re really only using it as the source material and are going to do what they like plot wise. See changes like Shiro being Asian and Pidge losing a Y to get an X. Is a chromosome joke too weird even for me? So… yeah, not sure what to make of it yet. Zarkon, who seemed very content with waiting for Voltron to come to him last time, is switching into overdrive. Probably because he was foiled mere seconds before victory. Wetting a beast’s appetite just makes it hungrier. Now, the only question left is… what about Lance and Hunk?

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Villain Profile: Doctor Octopus

Okay, so we’ve covered two of Spider-Man’s Big Three. The twisted alien parasite bonded to various foes and friends, Venom. And the insane industrialist, father figure turned girlfriend murder Norman Osborn aka Green Goblin. They have dogged Spider-Man for decades now, but they are actually more recent foes. Today we’re going to talk about the oldest villain of this trio, the original greatest foe of Spider-Man, Doctor Otto Octavius, aka Doc Ock. Let’ get to it.

Looks good, but didn't play out as well as I'd hoped.

Otto Octavius grew up in a home where his parents were… diametrically opposed on their parenting techniques. Torbert Octavius, a blue-collar factory worker with anger management issues, tried to whip his ‘wussy’ son into shape. Side note, I swear to whatever cosmic being that may or may not watch over creation that I will find a villain that didn’t have an abusive parent. Torbert was a big believer in the might makes right, eye for an eye tooth for a tooth philosophies. He would smack Otto around while screaming at Otto to do the same to his tormentors. Mary Octavius, on the other hand, did her best to protect her sweet little Otto, insisting that he’d use his brain to solve his problems. You know those moms that aren’t technically abusive but do massive psychological harm by babying their kids and doting on them, and never let them develop emotionally? Yeah, that’s Mary Octavius.

Spurred on by his mother and hellbent on not being his father, Otto excelled in school and even earned a university scholarship. He also developed an intense hatred for anyone that he deemed less intelligent then himself. Which is, in fact, most people. Interestingly enough, Otto did owe his dad for something. Torbert was killed in an industrial accident during Otto’s freshmen year. This death led to Otto’s obsession in the physical sciences, and engineering. He became a brilliant mind in the field of nuclear science. He became a highly-respected scientist, research consultant, lecturer and inventor. His biggest claim to fame was a harness. Said harness allowed him to control four robotic arms via a brain-computer interface. These arms were resistant to radiation, capable of moving incredibly heavy loads, and incredibly precise movements.

His success in his various fields increased his already large ego to near titanic proportions. Imagine the Hindenburg. That’s Otto’s ego in a nutshell, enormous, full of hot air and all it’ll take is a spark to make it go up in flames. But more on that in a sec. Otto’s personal life took a turn for the best, when he met a woman named Mary Alice. She was a fellow researcher, so she’s comparable to him in intellect, and the two had good chemistry. Despite the latter’s general… terrible attitude. I’m going to harp on this a lot, but seriously, he’s a donkey’s backside. He and Mary Alice got engaged, but it didn’t end well. You see, Mary Octavius was the sort of mother that felt that no woman was ever going to be good enough for her perfect baby boy. Otto, being a major mama’s boy, broke up with Mary Alice. A few weeks later, he was infuriated to learn that his mother was secretly dating a librarian. Same mindset as Mary’s had been, ‘why are you seeing someone beneath you’ sort of thing. The two got into an incredibly heated argument, which ended with his mother having a major heart attack. So… no girlfriend, and his overbearing mother is dead… not a great week for Otto.

Following the loss of both major women in his life, Otto’s personal life took a nosedive. Where he used to at least tolerate the ‘lesser’ minds he worked with, now everyone was an insect not worth his notice. Said colleagues took to calling him Doctor Octopus behind his back to belittle him. He knew about this little taunt, obviously, but he barely cared.

All it took was one bad day to turn a worm into an Octopus.
Feels like a lateral move if I'm being honest.

Things took a turn for the worst during an experiment. There was a minor radiation leak that led to a massive explosion. Said explosion caused his harness to fuse with Otto’s spine and torso. Upon waking up in the hospital, he flipped out and took the hospital hostage. Our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man was swinging by, and stepped in. Despite being an overweight, nearly blind scientist, Doc Ock’s tentacles proved to be a physical match for Spider-Man. He actually defenestrated Spider-Man, and caused ol Spidey to consider retiring from hero work. But, he rallied after chatting with the Human Torch and gave Otto what-for.

Not one to be deterred, Otto Octavius is one of Spider-Man’s persistent foes. He’s engaged Spider-Man in combat countless times, both alone, and with is pet project, the Sinister Six. He’s very proud of founding that group, and has been known to take serious offense to anyone else using the name. Kind of shocked that the super anti-social Ock is continually allying himself with others. He actually has a very long time partnership, something akin to a friendship, with the Vulture. Cephalopod and bird of prey, how strange. Doctor Octopus, despite his numerous failures, is actually credited with being the one to beat Spider-Man. But I’ll get back to that whenever I cover the Superior Spider-Man.

Doctor Otto Octavius is one of the most intelligent men in the Marvel Universe. He’s got a Ph. D. in nuclear science, and is a gifted engineer and inventor. He’s an expert in the field of radiation, one of the best examples of this is when Mr. Fantastic sought his help when his wife the Invisible Woman was having radiation complications during pregnancy. Cosmic rays really mess with things. He’s developed several amazingly advanced pieces of technology like his tentacle harness, his legion of Octo-bots, and various upgrades for some of his villainous allies. Despite his… personality, he’s proven to be a very charismatic leader and cunning strategist with his various incarnations of the Sinister Six. He uses this group to perform his more elaborate schemes, and the group at large is typically instrumental in his closest attempts at finally finishing off Spider-Man.

Just an unsettling look.

His most iconic feature is his special harness. Said harness allows him to mentally control four robotic tentacles. These arms are incredibly strong which allow him to lift several tons but dexterous enough to perform delicate tasks like wiring machinery or stirring tea. He’s fought incredibly strong, and agile foes like Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Captain America. The arms are able to easily lift his body weight, and allow him to scale walls. Upgraded versions of the tentacles also possess retractable tools that help Otto in his schemes. Over the years, he’s gotten so good at multitasking that he can perform a complex task like constructing one of his machines while two of his tentacles fight his opponents in the background. Experimentation, constant use, and sudden brain mutations have allowed Otto to control these arms at a distance as well.

His tentacles could also be seen as his greatest weakness. Well, his reliance on them is his weakness. His arms are super, in terms of strength, speed, dexterity and so on. Otto, on the other hand, is an older, overweight, nerdy, and so nearsighted that he’s basically blind scientist. If you can just get passed the four metal arms, he’s cake. But, those arms are pretty hard to avoid.  He also has the ability to control a legion of flying Octo-bots with his thoughts. Because why not?

Like Green Goblin and Venom, Otto has appeared in some form or another in nearly every Spider-Man franchise to date. Even in series that he didn’t appear physically, there have been homages. Like in Amazing Spider-Man 2 where we see his tentacles/harness, and Vulture’s wings in a Oscorp vault. Granted, he WOULD have appeared if they’d gotten the third movie and/or the Sinister Six movie, but… the Amazing Spider-Man series didn’t really play out as they’d hoped. Given his prolific nature, I’ll only cover the series I know reasonably well. Just know that if it’s a Spider-Man series, and it lasts long enough, he’s in it.

Five costume changes to just get to an upgraded version
of his look from the 90s cartoon. Just saying.

He appeared in The Spectacular Spider-Man. For the first seven episodes, he’s largely a background character, being a friend of Adrian Toomes that erroneously advised Toomes to show CEO Norman Osborn his flight harness, (Osborn stole the design) and the scientist behind the creation of Sandman and Rhino. He and boss Norman Osborn are secretly working for ‘The Big Man,’ aka Tombstone, aka L. Thompson Lincoln, to create supervillains to keep Spider-Man busy. The thought process is that if Spider-Man is busy battling super criminals, he is too busy to notice the petty crimes of Tombstone’s other goons. He’s an incredibly weak, spineless man. This changes in “Reaction” when, while cleaning out the machines that he used to make the villains, he gets stuck in the pod. Green Goblin, Norman’s alter ego, had locked him in the pod and powered it up. Otto fights hard to break the door open, but it’s too late. He shrieks, “No this isn’t right. No, not right. I’ve been good!” as he’s hit by an intense radiation. The radiation fuses the tentacles to his back. Afterwards, he’s done being good. He sets out to steal an experimental battery pack to power his arms indefinitely. Peter and Otto throw down, with Spider-Man coming out on top. He returns in “Group Therapy” where he forms the Sinister Six with Electro, Vulture, Sandman, Rhino, and Shocker. The group is able to overpower Spider-Man, once, but he escapes. In “Intervention,” they’re actually defeated by, not Spider-Man, but the evil alien Symbiote that controlled him while Peter slept. The Symbiote is more violent and less concerned with collateral damage, so it’s able to overpower the villainous group with relative ease. He returns in “Shear Strength” “Accomplices” and “Gangland.” Not many episodes, but hey, the show only had 26 in total, so those six plus the four or five pre-Ock episodes, that’s nearly half the series. Good on yeah, Ock.

He is the most recurring villain in Ultimate Spider-Man. In this version, he’s got rather long scraggly hair, his harness also works like an artificial lung, and he’s completely paralyzed from the neck down. So he’s more reliant on his arms than ever. He and Norman Osborn are behind most of the villains that attack Spider-Man in season one. In the season 1 finale, he, fed up with being Norman’s lapdog, injects him with a chemical cocktail that turns Norman Osborn into the Goblin. From then on, he’s a free agent. He appears pretty regularly in seasons 2 and 3, creating the Sinister Six, recreating the Goblin whenever he’s cured, and even goes so far to team with Loki in a failed Asgard invasion. Obviously, none of these schemes really panned out. In season 4, he teams with HYDRA and gets a nanobot upgrade. He goes from looking gross to looking like straight nightmare fuel. He looks like a casket with a creepy Bane from Dark Knight Rises mask on. He keeps dogging for the rest of the series, but thankfully gets another upgrade that makes him look less terrifying. He’s also voiced by Tom Kenny, so if you ever want to hear what Spongebob would sound like as a supervillain, there you go.

Pretty intimidating for a fat scientist,
isn't he?

He is the main antagonist of Spider-Man 2 in the Sam Raimi film trilogy. He’s portrayed by Alfred Molina. He’s initially a good scientist, married man, and a mentor to a youngish Peter Parker. Otto runs an experiment for Oscorp, directed by Harry Osborn. The experiment, using tritium to make a mini-sun, goes well until a radiation spike. The spike draws in all metallic objects in the room, causing a window to shatter and kill Otto’s wife via shattered glass. Peter, who’d been invited to observe, changes into costume and is able to shut the experiment down. While he disables the machinery, Otto is hit with electricity that fries a chip that kept the AI of his artificial arms from messing with his brain. He’s taken to an OR, where they try to remove the arms, but the arms flip out and murder the doctors. Otto initially tries to commit suicide upon walking, but the arms’ AI convince him to try to rebuild the machine. He battles Peter several times in his bid to rebuild his work, and ultimately kidnaps Mary Jane in a bid to kill Spider-Man. Honestly, while I like Alfred Molina, I do not care for this interpretation of Otto Octavius. He’s not a sympathetic character, he’s not one to recite poetry, or give advice about love. He’s a narcissist, confident in his intelligence, super prideful, and just a colossal Delusional Idiotic Callous Killer. I’m not supposed to like him. I can’t like him. I at best feel sorry that he uses his supreme intellect so selfishly. I also hate that in this version the tentacles are the actual bad guys. They might influence his actions, but they don’t dominate them. You know what motivation Otto would need to rebuild his machine in the comics? That Spider-Man interrupted the experiment. No other reason needed.

Doc Ock is one of Spider-Man’s longest running, and dangerous foes. He’s supremely intelligent, incredibly dangerous, and oddly charismatic. They’ve made a bit of a thing about how his tentacles are superpowerful, but he himself is as normal as your average research scientist. So, not really super at all, really. Of Spider-Man’s Big Three, he’s the most similar to Spider-Man when you think about it. Both are incredibly intelligent men with a form of super strength, they’re both themed after an eight-legged invertebrate, dressed mainly in primary colors, and have inspired a surprising number of their fellows to follow them. Spider-Man has the Avengers, and Doc Ock has the Sinister Six. He’s also one of the most visually distinctive villains in comics. How many slightly overweight, multiarmed villains dressed in green and yellow, can you think of? Honestly, I’ve been trying to think if he’s got an equivalent counterpart in DC comics, but all that I can think of is a minor gangster that Killer Croc killed that went by the Squid. Otherwise, Doc Ock is really the only cephalopod themed villain I can think of. He’s the sinister schemer, the malevolent mechanist, the darkly dreaming Doc Ock. Next time, Voltron season 2 V-Logs. Have a good one.

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Villain Profile: Hush

Batman has a lot of villains that are oddly similar to him. Two-Face has his duality, Riddler his intellect, Scarecrow his obsession with fear, but, who is the true reflection of Batman?

That’s easy, ME!

Joker, you’re his opposite. He’s order, you’re chaos. He’s up, you’re down. He’s right, you’re left. I’m asking who is his reflection, similar background, similar life, but went down a completely different path. So, no, not you.

Simple, and yet complex.

You’re no fun.

So sue me. Of all the characters I’ve covered up to this point, Black Mask is the best contender. Both are wealthy sons of Gotham’s upper crust, that use their family’s wealth to fund some… unusual hobbies. But I have one today that is slightly better. His name? Hush. Let’s get to it.

Hush was born Thomas “Tommy” Elliot, son of the wealthy Elliot family of Gotham City. He and Bruce were friends from a young age. They met at their private elementary school, and bonded over the fact they were both wealthy, and had a pair of first names for first and last names. They were near intellectual equals, and Tommy was one of the first people to encourage Bruce to think like his opponent and use their abilities against them. This mostly came about through playing chess and other games of strategy, but Bruce learned to utilize this mindset in other facets of life as he grew older. Despite the good times with Bruce, Tommy’s personal life was pretty awful. His father was abusive, physically and verbally, and his mother was no help whatsoever. Why? She came from poverty, and loved the lavish lifestyle of being Mrs. Elliot, so she submissively took everything that Elliot Sr. dished out to both her and her son. Side note, could we have just one villain that didn’t grow up with abusive parents? Seriously, they seem to be getting rarer and rarer. Someone can be a villain without having the “bad parents” crutch. Just saying. But back on task. Despite his father’s abuse, he did encourage Tommy to excel in school. He had a particular fixation with Aristotle, often quoting the ancient Greek philosopher. So… Mr. Elliot gets points for encouraging education, I guess.

Tommy finally had enough of his father’s abuse, and decided to do something about it. What did he do? Call social services? Tell Bruce? No, he went to the extreme and cut the break lines of his father’s car. Not going to lie, going for the Juglar in this instance is a little… extreme. But, since Tommy could be described as a control freak, he also insisted that his parent’s driver remain home that night, and waited until an incredibly serious storm to act. His parents crashed, obviously, but things didn’t end as Tommy would hope. The Elliot’s were rushed to the hospital, where they were attended by surgeon Thomas Wayne. Despite his best efforts, Thomas couldn’t save Mr. Elliot, but he saved Mrs. Elliot. And this is where Tommy’s hatred for Bruce and the Wayne’s began. Why? Because his mother living kept Tommy from his family inheritance. In his slowly twisting psyche, Dr. Thomas Wayne had deliberately denied Tommy what was rightfully his. Twisted logic, but just rational enough for a crazy person to believe. A short time later, while at summer camp with Bruce, Tommy snapped for the first time and attacked another boy. He was sent to a psychiatric ward for evaluation but was soon released on the word of an intern. Who was this intern? Jonathan Crane. Aka Scarecrow, if the real name doesn’t ring a bell. Guy was screwing crazy people up worse even before he put on that creepy mask.

Pretty much the only way this fight could end, by falling.

This hatred intensified and shifted completely to Bruce after the elder Wayne’s murder. Again, in Tommy’s twisted mind, he saw it as Bruce getting his inheritance scot free, while Tommy was forced to take care of his frail mother. Tommy did find a small respite in the following years, while Bruce was away learning on how to be a Batman, when he met woman. Peyton Riley was her name. She came from a poorer background, which Tommy’s mother never approved of. Wow, total pot/kettle situation there, isn’t it? Tommy didn’t let his mother’s disapproval stop him from seeing Peyton though, well, for a while. After Mrs. Elliot’s health began to improve, she’d been suffering from cancer for years but it was in remission, she decided to punish Tommy for going against her wishes. She cut him off, completely, and had her lawyer change her will so Tommy wouldn’t inherit anything upon her death. Enraged at once again being screwed over by his less than ideal parent, Tommy smothered her with a pillow. At the same time, Peyton killed the lawyer and burned Mrs. Elliot’s new will. Tommy and Peyton covered their tracks incredibly well, so as far as Gotham was concerned, Mrs. Elliot died in a household accident. And Thomas Elliot was now the toast of the town. Finally having everything he could want, Tommy broke up with Peyton and started traveling the world. Kind of like Bruce. He went to Harvard, and became a successful surgeon. He still held a grudge against Bruce, which only intensified as Bruce returned to Gotham and became the new new toast of the town.

Skip forward a few years, Batman is now a thing, Riddler is dying of cancer, and Tommy is still kind of a dick. The Riddler broke into a Lazarus Pits, bathed in the pits, and had an insanity induced epiphany about Batman = Bruce Wayne. WHY he needed an insanity induced epiphany to figure this out is anyone’s guess. He tried to sell this information to several individuals with grudges against Batman or Bruce Wayne, which included Tommy, but he wasn’t interested. In the information, anyway, as he already knew the Batman/Wayne connection. Instead, he offered The Riddler a deal of his own, kill Bruce Wayne. The two decided to work together to destroy their mutual enemy. To this end, they created a new identity for Tommy. He started going by Hush, this was initially an in joke that just kind of stuck.

The villains formed an incredibly elaborate plan to ruin Batman, using a combination of their own intellect, funds, and other manipulated villains to keep Bruce Wayne/Batman off balance. Things begin subtly. Tommy, as Hush, cut’s Batman’s line as the Dark Knight swung through Gotham chasing Catwoman. This led to Bruce cracking his skull, and needing expert medical attention. Using an intense amount of subconscious programing, Hush makes it so the only surgeon on his mind was Doctor Thomas Elliot. So, Tommy gets the call to operate on Bruce after a “car accident.” While he’s digging around in Bruce’s skull, he also takes the liberty of installing a tracking device. Not sure how that got passed the other doctors in the OR. After this, things get immensely more complicated. They did things like having Poison Ivy manipulating Killer Croc and Catwoman to steal 100 million dollars, later getting Poison Ivy some Kryptonite lipstick so she can control even Superman, have Harley and Joker perform a high stakes opera robbery, and later had a surgically repaired Two-Face spring Joker. During the Joker/Harley robbery, they also staged Tommy’s murder. Try to follow me on this one, they had Harley steal a personal memento from Tommy that Bruce knew he’d kill to protect. Then, when separated, Two-Face shot Clayface in the shape of Tommy, and made it look like Joker performed the hit. The plan was, Bruce, while in a blind fury would Kill Joker and thus ruin his reputation and sanity. The plan might have worked if former Commissioner Gordon hadn’t arrived to talk him down.   

Who is Hush? It totally isn't the old friend of Bruce's that
he never spoke of before this story. <Wink>

Hush and Co went for the Juglar at the site of the grave of Jason Todd. Using Clayface, again, and knowledge gleaned from a resurrected, vindictive Jason Todd, they attacked Batman’s greatest weakness. Specifically, the guilt of failing and inadvertently causing the death of his unofficially adoptive son. Not going to lie, seeing a physical ghost of a dead loved one would screw me up pretty bad, too. It’d be worse when said ghost attacks. The façade keeps Bruce off balance, for a bit. But as the fight goes on he notices inconsistencies with what is happening. Namely, “Jason” not using his or Bruce’s real names, and that he appears to be significantly more athletic and acrobatic then Todd had been in life. Realizing the ruse, he takes down Clayface. Batman, after chatting with Ra’s al Ghul, Robin (Tim Drake), and checking out the Batcomputer, realizes he’s had a major breach in security and that there is only one person that could have messed with his gear. Namely a man known as Harold. Harold was a mute and deformed hunchback, but he was also a wizard with electronics. Harold was the only person aside from Batman to work on his tech. Batman tracks Harold down and finds out he’d received several surgeries and somehow been able to regain the ability to speak. Harold ask for forgiveness and admits that the only reason he did any of it was he was sure Batman was good enough to stop Hush even with these handicaps. Hush then kills Harold in front of Batman. Snapping, the two throw down.

Hush’s combination of intelligence, skill, and training leave Batman at a loss as to who he’s actually fighting. Hush’s love of Aristotle makes Batman wonder if he’s fighting old foe Maxie Zeus, and his two-pistol fighting style made Batman wonder if he was Deadshot, too, and the repeated one-two one-two shots seem more akin to Two-Face’s psychosis. A few minutes later later, worn out and severely beaten, Batman learns the truth, when he found Tommy’s necklace around Hush’s neck. Imagine his horror when he discovered one of his oldest friends absolutely despised him. Their fight would have continued, had Gordon and Harvey Dent not arrived. Dent opened fire on Hush, knocking him into Gotham River. I’m sure he’ll never be seen again. Just kidding, he appears again, and often, in Gotham, always attempting to destroy Bruce.

Dr. Thomas Elliot is a skilled surgeon, strategic mastermind, and incredibly wealthy. Much like Bruce, he’s undergone rigorous training to push his body to the absolute limit of human potential, making himself as strong and fast as he is intelligent. Tommy is also a master of disguise, having gone so far as to perform plastic surgery on himself to complete his disguise. His current face is that of old pal, Bruce Wayne. It’s the practical reason for why his costume includes a bandage mask. He uses a special formula of makeup comprised of Clayface’s clay to hide the scars on his face.

Hush has had only minor appearances outside of the comics. Mostly as an unlockable character in video games. Not too surprising, given that he was only created a little over 15 years ago. Don’t give me that look, it’s taken character twice as long to get name recognition.

Yeah, pretty much sums them up.

To date, Hush has only appeared in any real capacity in the Arkham games by Rocksteady studios. He first appeared in a side quest in Batman: Arkham City. Shortly after arriving in the titular Arkham City, Batman learns that someone known as the ‘Identity Thief,” is going around murdering inmates and stealing parts of their faces. What do the victims have in common? They could pass for Bruce Wayne look alikes. As the story progresses, we learn how Tommy got to this point. He initially was sent into Arkham City to give medical help to the inmates. He was eventually accused of stealing medical supplies, at which point he snapped, slides up his own face, and disappeared into the night. When Batman confronts Hush in a crude surgery theater in a AC slum, Tommy reveals that he’s made himself into a perfect Bruce Wayne look alike. He escapes, swearing vengeance against Bruce.

He reappears briefly in Batman: Arkham Knight. Using his newish Bruce face and the chaos of Scarecrows attack on Gotham, he breaks into Wayne tower and tries to steal Bruce’s assets. Imagine his frustration to discover Bruce’s tech uses retinal scans, the one thing he couldn’t alter. He kidnaps and forces Bruce’s friend, confidant, and CEO of Wayne Enterprises, Lucius Fox to unlock said computer. Batman later busts in to stop the party. Realizing that Lucius’ life is in danger, Bruce reveals himself as Batman to Tommy. In the confusion, Batman disarms him, and Lucius breaks a glass jar on his face for good measure. They agree to keep him locked in Wayne Tower until the craziness dies down.

It’s only been teased, but long time Batman voice acting veterans Kevin Conroy (Batman) and Mark Hamill (Joker) have hinted at the idea of doing a Hush animated movie. Let’s hope it turns out better than the Killing Joke adaptation.  

Overall, I do like Hush. Batman has a lot of foes that match him in athletic ability, but only a handful that match or surpass his intellect. It takes an unbelievable amount of cunning to manipulate THE Batman. His backstory, while on the more generic end of things, is still interesting. A child murdering his parents to get their fortune? Sign me up to read more. The abusive Dad angle ruins it just a little. Can’t he just be a rampaging sociopath? You can be completely amoral and still an interesting character. Just ask Joker, Lex Luthor, Doctor Doom or Ultron. I’m mainly talking about their comic incarnations, obviously. His costume is also really cool looking. It takes a lot to make a bandaged face look intimidating, just saying. So yeah, he’s the cold, calculating, hateful harbinger of headaches, Hush. 

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