And You Thought Sins Past Was Bad…
The final chapter of One More Day, J. Michael Stracynski’s Spider-Man swan song, was finally released today, and only three months later than it was originally scheduled. While that may be a new personal best for artist Joe Quesada, this may have been a new personal worst for JMS.
Although to be fair to Stracynski, this was probably more of an editorial mandate than anyone at the House of Ideas would ever admit.
In the issue, Peter and MJ decide to take up Mephisto on his offer to restore Aunt May’s life in exchange for their marriage. As an added bonus, Mephisto decides to make everyone on Earth forget that Peter is Spider-Man, and even agrees to a super-secret caveat that MJ whispers into her ear. After they agree to the bargain, Mephisto reveals that the little red-headed girl he showed Peter last issue that was obviously the potential offspring of the Parkers was actually the potential offspring of the Parkers. Shocking! Then Peter wakes up, kisses a non-shot May on the cheek, stuffs a wheatcake in his mouth and heads off to the surprise party for…wait for it…Harry Osborn!
Wow, that was stupid.
This now means that everything that happened since Peter and MJ got married way back in 1987 didn’t actually happened (which equates to every Spider-Man comic that’s been published since yours truly began reading Spider-Man comics). While Mephisto claimed “all else will remain the same” once he removed their marriage from existence, obviously that’s not what happened. Unsurprisingly, the Prince of Lies lied, and the marriage no longer having existed has had a massive effect on Peter’s life.
Harry Osborn is alive, for frack’s sake. That little fact should have had an enormous impact on every storyline involving Norman Osborn since his return at the end of the Clone Saga, and that’s like 50% of Spider-Man stories from the last decade. And how will this affect Norman’s role in Thunderbolts? Certainly his son being around would have helped keep Norman’s somewhat “colorful” tendencies in check.
Would Spider-Man ever have joined the Avengers if it weren’t for his relationship with Mary Jane? He certainly wouldn’t have moved into Avengers Tower, at the very least. He was living in the apartment funded by MJ’s modeling career when it was destroyed by that pseudo-Molten Man, which prompted the move into the tower. If he didn’t live there, he never would have become so chummy with Iron Man, and he probably would have sided with Captain America during Civil War. Perhaps that would have turned the tide in Cap’s favor, and he never would have wound up on the wrong end of a bullet.
Marvel opened up quite possibly the biggest can of worms in the history of comics with this enormous ret-con. Spider-Man is one of only a few major tentpoles in the Marvel Universe. His past affects the past of pretty much every major character in the Marvel Universe, and the pasts of those characters affect the pasts of everyone else. This ret-con fundamentally changes the last twenty years of Marvel history. But what do you want to bet that not a single comic outside of Amazing Spider-Man will reflect any change that would have occurred due to Peter and MJ never getting married?
The only way I can see this working is if Marvel keeps Spider-Man segregated from the rest of it’s books while this storyline gets resolved in Amazing Spider-Man. It’s painfully obvious that whatever MJ whispered to Mephisto is the secret to undoing the undoing of the marriage, which is inevitable. The only question is how long Marvel decides to play this out.
Makes me wish I had been buying Spider-Man so that I could stop buying it.
What a crock of shit. Joe Quesada should be bitten by something radioactive and get the proportional powers of cancer.
According to a poll on Newsarama (http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=141208), about 62% of all poll respondents agree that this was one of the worst moves ever.
I agree with you, too. It seems like a major cop out and a slap in the collective face of everybody who has bothered to keep up to date with Spider-Man comics. Has anybody updated Spider-Man’s bio on wikipedia yet? They could just add a sentence after his character history section that reads, “Just kidding! None of that happened!”
Wow. This sounds really, really stupid.
I think I might actually agree with you 100% on something, FFD.
It’s a Christmas miracle!
The thing that gets me is that it doesn’t even seem like they’re going into a “new” era. The portion that takes place in the “Brand New Day” era has the feel of the college age books. It seems like Joe Q was only interested in taking Spidey back to his “Golden Age” instead of taking a chance on some new direction.
I am, quite honestly, sick of Spider-Man at this point. For the last few years, it seems like Peter has been mired in all of this event driven nonsense, and it’s prevented writers from telling stories that are truly any good. Sins Past, The Other, Civil War, Back in Black, and now this are all stories that suffered from an overt amount of (poor) editorial interference.
And, as you said, this fundamentally changes the status quo of the Marvel universe, but nobody is going to pay attention to that and it’s going to cause a shit-ton of continuity fuck ups.
Sigh. At least I still have the Essentials…
-M
As I’ve been saying for two years, let me know when Spider-Man is safe to read again.
This is what happens when personal feelings dominate editorial choices. Although I might be one of the few people that liked the Peter / MJ marriage. I thought it added a new level for a good writers to explore. (As would have a Parker baby, think of the potential…Every time he swings out that window, Peter could potentially turn MJ into a single mom).
Also, how would Aunt May feel about Peter and MJ’s choice? I think she would be deeply ashamed… Considering her desire for purity and her longing to see her long gone husband and soul mate. Also, if folks wanted angst back in Spidey’s life, what better way than yet ANOTHER choice that cost him the life of a parental figure.
Boo to you Joe Q. You lack vision beyond shock value. Just go back to penciling, when most folks liked you.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think you’re one of the “few people” that liked the marriage. I think the vast majority of the fans either liked the marriage or didn’t even consider it an issue. A character that’s been around for forty years has to grow and evolve or else no one will care about them. No one cares that Luke Cage or Cyclops or Superman or Mr. Fantastic are married…because that’s just a natural step that a lot of people take in their lives.
I find myself agreeing with you a lot more these days, FFD. It must mean I’m getting old and boring.
I don’t read Spider-Man, but my decision not to read his books had nothing to do with him being married, and now that he’s single again, I’m not going to start.
With Luke Cage, Cyclops, Superman and Mr. Fantastic, writers were able to take the change in status quo and do something new with it that no one before them was able to do.
I think the main thing Joe Q was doing here with this story was make some writers happy. It seems from all I ever read was that the people who would read Spider-man books in the 60’s to early 80’s loved MJ as a party girl and Peter having relationship problems and being a young single kid. Anyone over 35 or so hate their marriage and hate how MJ changed with it. But personally I started reading Spider-man in the late 80’s so I was always use to them being together and married and every time she was dead or they were separated the comics always seemed awkward to me like a lot was missing. But readers older than me always hated the marriage along with most the writers for Marvel.
The main problem here though is how many of those older people still read Spider-man? Barely any I’m sure. I’ve always believed MJ to be the best supporting character in comics and I always loved them together. But for many, many years now writers and editors and people at marvel have been trying to de-age Peter and break them up because it’s stuck in their heads that for Mary Jane, Peter Parker and Spider-man all their glory days were before the marriage. So that’s where they always try to take them back to.
This storyline completely pissed me off in many, many ways and I do consider it Marvels biggest cop out and mistake ever. Well about ever anyways.
Good point, Christian. Maybe this is Marvel’s version of having a Hall of Doom in a swamp and having the silver age Legion of Superheroes show up in every comic book.