In an interview with Marvel.com, Dan Slott has talked more about the shocking (and controversial) events of Superior Spider-Man #9. In the issue, Otto Octavius emerged, well, "Superior" after destroying the last memory fragment left of Peter Parker. This means that he no longer has the hero watching over him or influencing his actions; instead, Doctor Octopus is now well and truly Spider-Man! He also no longer has Peter's memories, so this leaves Octavius in a very interesting position moving forward. Below are some excerpts from Slott's chat with the site, but be sure to click on the link at the bottom of the page for the full length version.
On Whether Superior Spider-Man Will Now Be A Peter Parker Free Book:
Peter's final hail Mary move when he was dying [in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #700] was to give Doc Ock the shared experience of all the lessons Peter needed to learn to know that with great power, comes great responsibility. And especially after SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #8, where Doc saves a young girl's life, he realizes that he's wasted his life on being a villain. He wants to give this hero thing a shot. In his mind, the thing he destroyed—when we saw the Uncle Ben memory die in #9, and the way he talked about Peter at the beginning of the issue—he thought of this as a Peter Parker memory fragment, as an echo. This wasn't murder. This was him giving New York and the world, in his mind, a Superior Spider-Man. In the ego of Doc Ock, it would be irresponsible of him to relinquish control back to Peter.
On Peter Parker's Final Moments:
To be fair, in Peter's defense, when Doc is walking away and leaving the mind-scape, one of the last things Peter says is, "It was only a moment. I would never." The thing that everyone forgets about Peter Parker is that Peter Parker is not a saint. When he let that burglar run by, he could have done anything to stop him and he didn't, and that burglar killed Uncle Ben. That's when he learned the lesson that with great power comes great responsibility. But that didn't magically baptize him and make him flawless.
Superior Spider-Man #9 page by Dan Slott, Ryan Stegman & Edgar Delgado
We've seen over the years, many times, that when Peter Parker really wants to do the wrong thing; he has that moment, and then he shuts it down. We've seen where he really wants to use his spider-powers to punch Flash Thompson, and he's imagining it, and he stops himself. And then Flash gets kidnapped by Doctor Doom, and Peter leans back and decides to do nothing about it. Two panels later, he's all, "Ah, fine, I'll save him!" It's that way for the history of Spider-Man.
On The Advantages Of Peter Parker No Longer Being In The Series:
Early on, when I was telling everyone [at Marvel] what I wanted to do with SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN, everyone was really cool about it, until we got up to it happening. Axel Alonso, our wonderful [Editor-in-Chief], said, "Wait a minute—there's going to be no Peter Parker in this?" And we argued about it, we discussed it. Mark Waid threw in some ideas and Matt Fraction threw in ideas. Something we all settled on and liked was the idea of Ghost Pete. I was a little against it at first, but once everyone got so crazy at the end of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #700—and I have never seen comics fans get so crazy about something I've written—I knew that having that twist ending in SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #1 with Ghost Pete, I was like, "Oh, thank God Axel wanted this! He was right!" We knew once we had Ghost Pete, that he would go away after eight or nine issues. And then it ramps up even more. In other words, the series so far has been on training wheels. Now that the wheels are off, we can do all kinds of crazy things with the bike. "Look, one wheel! Woo-hoo!" We have no hands on the bars. We can go a little crazy. Oh, I can't wait.
On Whether Otto Octavius Still Has Peter's Memories:
Nope. He originally set up a plan where he could have all of those memories, so that if someone came up to him saying, "Remember that time in Budapest?" He could answer, "Ah, yes, I remember, and here's the secret handshake!" Flash could go, "Hey, remember when you showed up for my 20th birthday?" Otto could answer, "Yes, I do! You were wearing a green shirt!" All of that is gone. That's going to create some new problems.
On Where Superior Spider-Man Goes From Here:
In SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #10, we are getting all of the fallout from #9. What is Peter Parker's life like now, now that it's just Otto? What's that like? We check in on all of these characters and people and relationships. And we're starting to get a feel for what the Green Goblin is up to. What's he doing now that he's back? Right now, Otto is in control of the moral compass of Spider-Man. That might not be a good thing. If you're looking for a road to redemption, you're probably better off having a Peter Parker moral compass, rather than an Otto Octavius one. That said, he does want to be a hero. Now more than ever, he's going to be that hero—in his own way. That's going to lead to some very interesting things. There will be a major, major status-quo shift by the end of SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #13. Right when you think you know where we're going, when you get to the end and everything's played out in this big, giant adventure yarn, it's going to be a big shift. And so much of that comes from the fact that Peter Parker is no longer there.