Honestly, I don't know what to say. I mentioned previously that I knew that Otto becomes Peter and, thus, Spider-Man before reading this arc. As such, I know that the emotional impact of this issue was limited for me since I went into it knowing the end result. With that caveat, I'll try to lay out my thoughts here as coherently as I can.
When you strip away everything else, the story that Slott wants us to accept revolves around whether you believe that Otto would be so inspired by the adversity and challenges that Peter has faced and overcome in his life that he would commit to upholding his legacy and memory.
In the end, I really just don't buy it.
I mean, we're dealing with the man who a few issues ago aspired to be more deadly than Genghis Khan, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Slott would have us believe that Otto will leave behind his murderous ways because he now understand how precious life is, a lesson he learned by experiencing the various tragedies that have befallen Peter over the course of his career. (I'm not even going to address whether I think that it's possible for the memory transfer to happen. I'm willing to concede that point to Slott.) In fact, Slott seems to poison the well for Peter's eventual return as Spider-Man by claiming that Peter valued life so much that he had come to the conclusion that he could never again be Spider-Man, even if he managed to get back his body, because he intended on killing Otto by hurling them out the building. (Honestly, this part didn't make that much sense to me, since Peter seemed to have a variety of options other than hurling them out the window. But, again, I'm just willing to give Slott the mulligan and focus on the issue at hand.)
However, I just don't really believe that Otto would come to this conclusion. Peter may have come to the conclusion that life was precious based on his life experiences, but I think Slott is significantly oversimplifying matters by saying that Otto would. Sure, maybe he would be inspired to do so in the first few days after Peter's death. But, Otto still also has his memories and his personality in there. At the end of the day, Slott seems to be arguing that the only influence that Otto will have over "Spider-Man" is that he'll be more aggressive. Otherwise, it'll be the same Spider-Man. In essence, he's arguing that Peter's moral code is stronger than Otto's villainous impulses. I think that it's this part that I specifically don't buy. After all, most comics depict it being much more difficult to be good when given super-powers than it is to be evil. It's why we're supposed to idolize heroes, because they manage to suppress humanity's darkest impulses and display our idealized selves. If it were easy being a hero, we wouldn't have them.
Given Otto's predisposition to evil, I really don't think that Peter's lecture about great responsibility is going to inspire him to overcome his entire persona. You don't go from trying to destroy the entire population of the world (except enough people to make your greatest enemy feel guilty for failing to defeat you) to feeling so overcome with emotion when you realize how awesome your greatest enemy really was that you're willing to give up who you are. After all, we've seen glimpses of the difficulties that Otto faced in his life. Don't they matter? Don't his tragedies matter? Don't his failings help make him who he is?
To sum, in this issue, Dan Slott turns Peter into a murderer (at least in his own mind) and then has his body and soul replaced by a man who aspired to be Hitler. You can see where I'm not exactly in the mood to celebrate this change.
Where does that leave me? I mean, I don't buy that Otto Octavius is Spider-Man. Do I buy (literally) "Superior Spider-Man?" The good news is that I also don't buy that he's going to be Spider-Man for long. I mean, I'm not going to go hysterical here. My greatest hope is that Slott, when he inevitably has to undo this change, is going to do a reverse "Brand New Day" with MJ. Whereas, in "One More Day," MJ was the one who gave the green light to wiping out her marriage to Peter, I have to hope that she will be the one to usher Peter back into existence once again. (Maybe Carlie will mention what "Doc Ock" told her and she'll intuitively know that it's true.) After all, with comments like, "Not now, woman," you have to assume that MJ is going to realize at some point that she's not dealing with Peter. At least, you hope she does. Because, after all, Otto's commitment to a relationship with MJ is perhaps the most troubling aspect of this change. In fact, I cringe at the thought of reading "Superior Spider-Man" and watching Otto Octavius kissing Mary Jane Parker. Do I buy it?
The answer is that I'm giving it three issues. Three. It's actually more charitable than I feel. If Joker were to wind up replacing Batman at the end of the "Death of the Family," I'd drop that series like a hot potato. But, it's Spider-Man. I'll give Slott one issue for every decade that I've read "Amazing Spider-Man." If he doesn't convince me that Otto Octavius provides something unique to Spider-Man that Peter Parker didn't, I'm done until Peter really returns. The good news is that probably won't take very long.
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