Superhero Smart by Paul Volponi

Author:Paul Volponi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2023-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Dr. Octopus

The character of Dr. Octopus (Dr. Otto Gunther Octavius), or Doc Ock for short, showed that comic books could be on the real-life cutting edge of scientific progress. Dr. Octavius was the inventor of a quartet of mechanical arms that he could control through a brain-computer interface. During a radiation-infused laboratory accident, which negatively affected his personality and all but eradicated his ability to distinguish right from wrong, the mechanical arms became fused to his body.

Yes, I know. An octopus has eight arms. Doc Ock, including his two natural limbs, has only six. But that’s literary license for you. The word “octopus” is derived from ancient Greek and it actually means “eight feet.” It seems that Stan Lee was in sync with the natural world by having Doc Ock’s extra arms controlled through an interface. Real octopus arms literally have a mind of their own. More than half of an octopus’s neurons (specialized cells for transmitting nerve impulses) are found outside of its main brain. Each arm of the creature has a cluster of nerve cells that independently controls its movements—giving it, in a sense, eight mini-brains.10

Today, the use of mechanical arms can be seen everywhere: in the manufacture of cars to medicine and as replacement limbs for humans. Brain-computer interfaces (BCI), often called neural control interfaces (NCI), are now widely used in researching and repairing human cognitive or sensory motor functions. In this area of scientific progress, Spider-Man storylines were about a half-century ahead of their time.

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