Octopus' garden: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer looks at the comic-book life of Dr. Otto Octavius:

"This being the '60s, of course, radioactivity in a comic book led inevitably to one thing: superpowers. And so it went, as a convenient accident bonded the waldos to Ock's pudgy torso, and gave him telepathic control over them. It also made him a homicidal psychopath.

"Despite the haircut, Dr. Octopus had 'arch foe' written all over him. He was stronger than Spider-Man. He was smarter than Peter Parker (who might've been a science whiz, but wasn't a nuclear physicist). And he had four extra arms."