Scans_Daily

I believe the difference between Otto -almost- being with Mary Jane, and going the distance with Anna Maria, boils down to something simple:

Mary Jane knew Peter intimately, before Otto took over. She knew and loved the real Peter Parker. So for Otto to pretend to be Peter and be with her, would indeed have been a gross violation on every level, since he'd have been taking advantage of pre-existing relationships and emotional baggage.

With Anna, she never knew the real Peter Parker. She knew the Peter Parker body housing the mind of Otto Octavius... Weird, yes. Dubious, very. But she had no pre-existing knowledge, emotional connection, conceptions or relationships. And during this time, Peter Parker was as good as dead, as far as everyone was concerned. I don't think even his ghost was around at that point. So as far as the thing between Otto and Anna was concerned, it was a fresh start for them both. Sure, he used the name and the body, but the mind and attitude and experiences were all his. The emotional connection that developed, the mutual respect, the chemistry, that was all genuine, inasmuch as Otto could be genuine while living a lie. But let's assume that it's okay in a superhero universe for one man to pretend to be another...

Yeah, Otto playing off of Peter's connection to former friends, to family, that was wrong and creepy. But Anna came in as a blank slate, and she fell in love with the Peter Parker she met... who, for all intents and purposes, was entirely different from the one other people knew.

You could make a VERY fascinating and detailed legal, psychological, sociological, and ethical case for identity theft in a superhero world, given the nature of brain swaps, mind control, and even dead people taking over new bodies... Walter Langowski in Snowbird's old body? Valkyrie merging with various humans? Valkyrie and the other dead Defenders possessing humans to come back to life? Pip and Gamora and Adam Warlock doing the same? Doctor Doom using mind transfer to cheat death?

Sticking with Marvel alone, there are a lot of examples of people who cheat death by taking over another person's body, and presumably using their identity, no few of them actual heroes, and the only reason we don't get into this same uproar over them is because most of the time they're much less prominent or the writers never have them get into relationships.

So while the Otto/Anna thing does have some dubious moments, I can accept that, for the period of time in which the real Peter Parker was dead and had no say in what happened to his body, it was okay for Otto to meet and romance a girl who only knew this version of Peter Parker. Which makes this all the more tragic when Otto goes away and the real Peter comes back, and Anna has to deal with an imposter wearing her boyfriend's face...

Oh, and how perfectly Otto is it that he had a multi-phase plan written out for a proposal.