Jackal enters the laboratory, Anna Maria reveals she knows how to stop the decaying process on the clones and the Jackal offers her the "Proto-Clone" body in exchange for the formula. Octavius takes offense to the Jackal's comments on Maria's dwarfism and attacks his boss. Then he pulls a switch which activates the Carrion Virus in all of the clones and causes them to start rapidly decaying. Doctor Octopus fights the Jackal to allow Peter and Anna Maria the time to transmit the frequency, Spider-Man correctly anticipating that Octavius would act to protect Anna regardless of their own history. The frequency has a huge effect on Doctor Octopus and the Jackal. Upon checking New U Technologies' Haven following the broadcast, Spider-Man and Anna Maria find that Ben Reilly, Doctor Octopus, and Gwen Stacy have been seemingly reduced to dust. It was later revealed that Doctor Octopus rendered Ben Reilly unconscious and escaped by transmitting his mind into the Proto-Clone (a perfect clone of Peter Parker) before Ben Reilly could. Becoming the Superior Octopus With his new body, Otto Octavius returns to one of his old bases only to find it is being occupied by HYDRA. He defeats the HYDRA soldiers, but is then recruited into HYDRA by Arnim Zola. Zola grants him the leadership of some HYDRA soldiers to work for him in arranging the destruction of Parker Industries. With HYDRA's help, he creates a new uniform for himself, becoming the Superior Octopus, intending to wait for Peter's actions to trigger the collapse of Parker Industries so that he can retake his position and prove himself superior once again. "Secret Empire" During the 2017 "Secret Empire" storyline, the Superior Octopus appears as a leader of HYDRA's Avengers. Outside of his work with HYDRA's Avengers, the Superior Octopus approached Spider-Man, where he wants him to transfer ownership of Parker Industries back to him. When Peter Parker declined this offer, the Superior Octopus had the HYDRA agents in Parker Industries' London branch blow up the building. As Peter flees to the Shanghai branch of Parker Industries, Octavius attempts to implement various security protocols he had added to all Parker Industries tech that allows him to retake control of anything developed by the company, but Peter turns the tables on Octavius by ordering his employees to literally destroy the company in order to hurt HYDRA, thwarting Octavius' attempt to shut down his new