The following article contains spoilers from Amazing Spider-Man #17, on sale now from Marvel Comics.

With his first attempt to break Peter Parker's spirit failing spectacularly, Chasm stepped up his game in Amazing Spider-Man #17 (by Zeb Wells, Ed McGuinness, Cliff Rathburn, Marcio Menyz, and VC's Joe Caramagna). He forces Spider-Man to face off against the Insidious Six, a team of demons modeled in the Sinister Six's image. While most members of the Insidious Six are essentially just demonic face-lifts of Spider-Man's deadliest foes, its version of Doctor Octopus bears an uncanny similarity to a famous Dungeons & Dragons monster.

As a floating head with a disproportionate amount of eyes, the Insidious Six's Doctor Octoball is a near-perfect match for the Beholder, one of D&D's most iconic and deadly monsters. With genius-level intelligence, an unhealthy obsession with control, and an assortment of powerful magical abilities tied to their trademark appendages, the Beholder is a perfect template for a monstrous incarnation of Otto Octavius.

RELATED: A Classic Spider-Man Villain Has a Confusing Nationality

The Beholder is the Archenemy of Dungeons & Dragons Players

Indigenous to the Underdark, the Beholder is a sphere of flesh with a large central eye, a gaping maw filled with razor-sharp teeth, and ten sensuous eye stalks. While the Beholder's unsettling appearance is usually enough to dissuade any party of would-be adventurers from marching into one's underground lair, the true horror of these aberrations lies in their powerful magical abilities. Not only can each of the Beholder's ten eye stalks shoot a unique magical ray capable of charming creatures into submission or turning them into ash, but their central eye casts a cone of "anti-magic" that renders all magic spells and magical items that fall within its line of sight useless.

On a more personal level, Beholders are driven only by their lust for power and all-consuming fear of losing it. Viewing every other living thing as either a potential servant or an active threat, Beholders spend every day of their lives thinking up convoluted schemes designed to expand their influence and undermine their rivals. Armed with both vast intellect and a natural intimidation factor, coercing creatures into serving them and manipulating events to facilitate their rise to power is second nature for most Beholders. This allows them to take command over legions of monsters and seize control of cities or even nations with little-to-no effort.

RELATED: Spider-Man: Gold Goblin is One Bad Day From Becoming Green With Evil

Doctor Octopus and Doctor Octoball are Both Similar to Beholders

Amazing Spider-Man Docotr Octoballs

While many non-human alternate versions of Doctor Octopus borrow traits from real-world cephalopods, the Beholder is the perfect inspiration for a more demonic version of the mad scientist. Otto Octavius has always been known for his massive ego and tendency to self-aggrandize, and the Beholder is essentially a floating head with a god complex. On top of that, although the Beholder's infamous eye stalks aren't nearly as physically strong as Otto's metal tentacles, their ability to hypnotize, terrorize, and even disintegrate foes makes them an appropriate match in terms of raw power.

While the Beholder's physical similarities to Doctor Octopus are more than enough to make it an obvious choice of form for his infernal counterpart, their shared obsession with establishing their supremacy over others is the factor that cements their connection. Having been bullied and belittled most of his childhood and adult life, Otto developed a massive inferiority complex that drives him to "prove" his superiority to everyone around him. To this end, the former nuclear scientist has committed heinous crimes that feel like they were pulled straight out of a D&D campaign. Doctor Octoball may not be a one-to-one translation of a Beholder, but his similarities to D&D's most infamous aberration are impossible to ignore. Spider-Man may be about to find out why so many D&D players fear Beholders.