The thing I have a bit of an issue with is assuming that the writers, especially olden time guys, have relationship issues because of how they write. I mean, a lot of people writing about comic books have talked about demographic shifts in comic audiences. Back in the days when it was twelve cents an issue, it seems like the audience was all kids who thought girls were yucky, you know? And when you come to today, the people writing have the burden of years of continuity hanging over their shoulders (nothing, NOTHING escapes the notice of the fanbase these days, which places an exceptional amount of importance on adherence to continuity), continuity that showed characters acting in the objectionable "icky girls" sort of way.

Making the argument that because writers write consistently in poorly when it comes to marriage seems to open the door to the argument that comic writers also cannot solve their problems without violence, since the preponderence of comic book stories end that way. Or that the writers take the law into their own hands.

Quesada's anti-Spider-Man's marriage crusade has brought me closer to dropping a book in the name of a bone-headed editorial mandates than anything in the 15+ years I've been reading comics. And there have been some pretty bone-headed mandates in that time...

I really hope One More Day doesn't end the way everyone is thinking it will.

And, to be honest, i don’t really buy that Joe Q thinks Spidey would be more relatable if he was single, and is just using the argument to force Peter to be the way he prefers personally. Likewise, i don’t believe he really thinks that less mutants were necessary to have the X-men be more popular (and both fan reaction and sales indicate that he was wrong), but that’s another discussion that shouldn’t be done here.

Nor did Wolverine need an origin story, but it sold.
All he's trying to do is generate hype and hopefully sales.
As Marvel doesn't make it's main cash from comics, as long as he's bringing in cash, Marvel's corporate arm won't complain.
You can argue that sales are actually slipping on the books after these events, but so far the events themselves have given enough of a spike that it doesn't matter.

It’s just another failure to recognize where the book has actually gone after all this time."

Yep. Anyone who is under the age of 30 (which is the target audience, after all) has never read a story with Spider-Man single. Unless if he or she read older stories, and in that case, said person only got those issues due to interest Spidey generated on the first stories this person read, which were all done with Peter Parker married. Is Spidey less popular than he was 30 years ago? Or do you see fans saying they can't relate to a married Pete?

And, to be honest, i don't really buy that Joe Q thinks Spidey would be more relatable if he was single, and is just using the argument to force Peter to be the way he prefers personally. Likewise, i don't believe he really thinks that less mutants were necessary to have the X-men be more popular (and both fan reaction and sales indicate that he was wrong), but that's another discussion that shouldn't be done here.

What people like Quesada don't seem to get is that Marvel's growth audience--young people--grew up with a married Spidey, & to them Peter & MJ are like Reed & Sue are to older fans of Joe's generation.

It's just another failure to recognize where the book has actually gone after all this time.

It's possible your point of view might depend on when you started reading. When I was a kid, one of my favourite comics was a reprint of ASM #259 (the one where MJ pretty much tells Peter her life story, straight after the black costume saga) because I found her story so believable, and such a logical extension of the older stories I'd read.

, Gwen would have been given a richer personality if she survived. But to judge her 1960s depiction by today’s standards is unfair, because all current female characters and many current male characters that existed back then would fail the “interesting” test if you chose to judge them by their 1960s depictions.

That's kind of shiftitng the goal posts a bit - before she was just plain better than MJ, now she could have been better.
The elves from Cassidy Keep in X-men could have been better if developed more - but they weren't.

Do you ever read accounts of how insanely irate fandom was over the death of Gwen Stacy when it occurred? If she was so boring, why would she cause such a hooplah?

Well either people were so shocked it happened, as it hadn't before, and nobody knew what the hell was going on, or they used her as a fantasy figure to fill in for their own lack of girlfriend.

"And if Gwen Stacy was inherently boring because she solely to pine after a man, than so is every single other female superhero love interest up until that point in time as well: Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Iris West, Carol Ferris…they ALL existed just to pine after the hero or try to discover his secret ID…it was the 60s!!! Women simply didn’t do that much in comics back then, Gwen and MJ included."

Except that this is, in fact, my point: MJ isn't included, because as a result of her not being Peter's love interest, she was free to do things other than pine after the hero or try to discover his secret ID. She could decide to drive her motorcycle off to catch a look at the Rhino, or try out for an off-off-off-Broadway play, or get a job singing at a nightclub. Sure, she played ditzy (although even that isn't strictly true--she played hedonistic party-girl, but she rarely acted dumb. There's a difference.) But she had a well-developed personality and an independent streak a mile wide, even before she developed additional maturity while helping Peter get over the death of Gwen (a perfectly natural character development, really.)

Whereas Gwen, as the Designated Love Interest, really did have nothing to do except pine over Peter and complain about that icky Spider-Man. (Heck, even Betty Brant had a more interesting life back then. So did Liz Allan, and she was a very minor character.)

We get Maryjane the sidekick.

Uh-huh. Thank you much for being kind enough to critique my ideas, but I think my amateur writing career can get along fine regardless.

Look, we're clearly having two different conversations here. The difference I'm trying to emphasise is in the emotional commitment, not the literal marriage vows themselves.

Really, how else do you distinguish a marriage from any other relationship? I'm having some real difficulty imagining Peter feeling the need to grant a random girlfriend the Power Cosmic, or she being brave enough to take that leap of faith without enormous faith in him.

However, YMMV. So I think it's best we end this here.

The difference is basically one of expectations. Single Peter doesn't intend to miss his girlfriend's birthday party, but he can't ignore the Rhino rampaging through downtown--and that's what we expect from the character, and he suffers an appropriate level of guilt and reproach for it, and he does his best to make up for it the next week. And the guilt and reproach are part of the formula, because Peter is acting against expectations for reasons the girlfriends aren't aware of.

Married Peter is already giving up some of his time with his wife to patrol every night, plus there's the special occasions he misses on top of that. The difference here (and I wasn't as clear on this as I might have been) is that, since MJ knows and presumably approves of what he's doing, she should have come to expect it. Therefore, if the writer tries to use the guilt, reproach, etc. to the same extent with married Peter as with single Peter, the relationship and those in it come off looking a whole lot worse. As I said, it's not a question of the ability to write entertaining stories, it's a question of losing tools the writer previously had access to.

See, you don’t have to look only at the possibilities of argument or breakup or ‘oh, my [female] loved ones are in jeopardy!’ That’s melodrama, not drama, and hackneyed at that. "

There isn't really anything in your example that requires the couple to be married. Yeah MJ needs to know Peter's secret identity, but that could just as easily been a gift for his girlfriend. The fact that they are married doesn't really add anything to that story.
The examples I gave were a direct result of being married and stories that are told about a married couple.
Also, I think throwing around the word hackneyed is misguided when your example of a great story is a non-story in and of itself.

"Assume instead that MJ’s an active, intelligent partner in the marriage. She wants to enter fully into Peter’s life; maybe help, maybe even participate. What happens when she tries? "
We get Maryjane the sidekick. Granted you aren't getting paid to come up with stories (and are probably not a writer) so I shouldn't focus on the quality of your ideas over the fact that they are ideas that would work for Peter and MJ in the context of being married.

Specifically, quit bitching that [Marriage] ends any possible interest in their lives.” Because that’s a teenage point of view.

In all fairness, it really is the viewpoint of a lot of married men as well!

The point wasn't so much "marriage is okay," the point was more, "If you want the credit for doing adult superheroes, then really DO it -- treat your characters and the concept of marriage in an adult manner. Specifically, quit bitching that it ends any possible interest in their lives." Because that's a teenage point of view.

Otherwise, own up to doing juvenile stories with a static premise and do THAT to the best of your ability. I'm just tired of creators doing comics with such a clearly adolescent, teenage view of matrimony talking like they're doing Serious Adult Literature when it's so... not.

Of course, this is revisionism. My revisionist tactic of “actually reading the first 122 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, then forming opinions based on what I read” completely ignores the established fan orthodoxy that has enshrined Gwen Stacy as Patron Saint of Characters Who Are Far More Interesting Dead Than Alive (Marvel Edition; Barry Allen is, of course, the DC Edition). My sincerest apologies to anyone who wishes to not have their worldview challenged by actual facts.

Do you ever read accounts of how insanely irate fandom was over the death of Gwen Stacy when it occurred? If she was so boring, why would she cause such a hooplah? And people use the Barry Allen analogy, but let's be honest, which of his Silver Age DC contemporaries had better personalities? They all had the exact same boring one! Barry, Hal, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, they all had interchangeable, boring identical personalities until Marvel Comics came around and pressure arose to retroactively give them personalities. If Barry Allen survived to the present day, he would have retroactively received his own individual, interesting personality just like Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Hal Jordan and Diana Prince.

And if Gwen Stacy was inherently boring because she solely to pine after a man, than so is every single other female superhero love interest up until that point in time as well: Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Iris West, Carol Ferris...they ALL existed just to pine after the hero or try to discover his secret ID...it was the 60s!!! Women simply didn't do that much in comics back then, Gwen and MJ included. Like Lois Lane, Lana Lang and other women created in the days before feminism, Gwen would have been given a richer personality if she survived. But to judge her 1960s depiction by today's standards is unfair, because all current female characters and many current male characters that existed back then would fail the "interesting" test if you chose to judge them by their 1960s depictions.

I gotta go with the stereotypical woman reader view here: I like reading about the relationships of the characters. I think its cool when a lot of the characters get married (or in the Dibny's case, just *are*). I find myself reading old Captain America comics, and being far more interested in what Steve Rogers is acting like towards Bernie Rosenthal, than the silly villain of the week, most of the time (though Batroc makes me giggle uncontrollably). I'm still easily amused by my old Generation X comics, and the silly drama between Chamber and Husk. I like the will they, wont they stuff, but I also like the "what happens after they're married" too. It seemed totally natural when Jean and Scott got married. Variety is the spice of life, right?

That being said, everyone aware of continuity that I know of is scratching their heads about the Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding.

So, I agree, a lot of marriages can work as great stories. When they're handled well.

"This is revisionism of the worst degree. Mary Jane had all of ONE THOUGHT BUBBLE in her whole existence prior to Gwen’s death if I remember correctly, and was an airhead that only cared about partying and had vague acting goals. How exactly does that equal more maturity,developed personality and ambition than Gwen?"

Because Gwen had all of ONE THOUGHT BUBBLE in her whole existence prior to her death, and was an airhead that only cared about Peter and had vague goals of being Peter's girlfriend. Oh, sure, she mentioned once that she was going for a science degree, but on the whole, she existed pretty much just to obsess over Peter Parker and that was it.

Of course, this is revisionism. My revisionist tactic of "actually reading the first 122 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, then forming opinions based on what I read" completely ignores the established fan orthodoxy that has enshrined Gwen Stacy as Patron Saint of Characters Who Are Far More Interesting Dead Than Alive (Marvel Edition; Barry Allen is, of course, the DC Edition). My sincerest apologies to anyone who wishes to not have their worldview challenged by actual facts.