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Quoting the article:

" "The first page is a real shocker and it's done on purpose. It's a bit of a slap of reality to longtime readers," said Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada. "

That really sums it all up, doesn't it. From the horses mouth, so to speak. Need we say more?

Kinda makes last years New York Time's article about Spider-man unmasking kind of redundant, eh?

I think it's funny that in the article Joey Q says the backlash against this story is exactly what he expected would happen when the story came out.You know maybe one day marvel will get back to the basics and start writting good stories again *fingers crossed*

I am still suprised nobody at Fox News has picked up on this and run with it. A superhero making a deal with the devil and eroding away the sanctity of marriage! OMG! That is a good 15 minute rant by Bill O'Rilley on the evils of the liberal media.

It's kind of like the "Ripple Effect," where you throw a stone into a pond and seeing the ripples moving outward from the splash.

For example, all the writers, the artists, the colorists, the letterers, who have toiled tears, sweats, and blood into years of Spider-man stories, have all been just flushed down the toilet.

As well as the "Domino Effect," where you knock over one domino and all the rest of the lined-up dominoes fall over in sequence.

For example, if the marriage never happened, then the past 20 years (or so) of Spider-man continuity didn't happen? If Harry Osborne is alive, then why not Gwen Stacy? Perhaps the Secret Wars never happened, or the Clone Saga. And so on.

Nice going, Joe Q., keep it up, and you might drive MARVEL back into bankrupty.

Nononono, the RELATIONSHIP happened. Just not the marriage. The Devil screwed around with everyone's memories so that every time Peter said, "My wife," they now remember hearing "my committed, long-term, live-in girlfriend."

So what The Devil did was to make a deal for Peter and MJ's marriage license.

Which makes me wonder what other weird little trinkets he's amassed over his long life. "Behold! HITLER'S BOTTLE-CAP COLLECTION!"

Wow. He just gave them the most immature quote he possibly could, didn't he?

Of course, this being the Post, they were probably quite grateful to him.

What's wrong with a simple old-fashioned divorce?

Insoasmuch as I like Aunt May, nobody (fictional or not) lives forever. Even for comics, it's just ridiculous.

I honestly don't know how Joe Q. could possibly believe that sales would benefit Marvel in the long run by this.

I honestly don’t know how Joe Q. could possibly believe that sales would benefit Marvel in the long run by this.

I don't think the long run entered into this at all. If they were thinking long-term, they wouldn't have had him unmask in the first place.

Or at least, wouldn't have said so adamantly that it wouldn't be undone by a magic memory wipe.

The talk of a ripple effect reminds me of Layla Miller, of House of M/X-Factor fame. Wouldn't it be nifty if she factored (pun not intended) into the plot somehow?

Ah, yes, the New York Post, that bastion of objective, responsible journalism

I haven't been following Spider-Man for about two years, and I didn't really know anything about this storyline other than Mary Jane was being pushed out of the picture.

I've defended Quesada on discussion boards in the past, but in this case, I'll take a pass.

After reading the article, I must say that this resolution sounds an awful lot like what they did on the TV show Dallas, where a year's worth of episodes were negated as simply being a dream in order to bring the Bobby Ewing character back to the show. The result of that hard to swallow plot twist was a drastic decline in ratings and cancellation.

If they had revealed Mary Jane to Ben Reilly, it would be no less contrived and stupid.

Next they'll bring the scarlet spider back.
And have HIM marry MJ.
Whatever.
Fuck the hell.
That's why I don't read Spidey anymore.

To everyone here:

Out of curiosity, since Peter and MJ have been married, what's the last really good "616" Spider-Man story you read?

I really liked the first part of Michelinie's run - before Bagley (funny, considering Bagley's awesomeness, when he's got a good story to draw). But what was that, 90-92?

How about the rest of you?

It's been about 1990-92 since I last read the "616" Spider-Man books myself, so yeah, it's been awhile since the books were consistantly good and didn't rely so much on "gimmick" stories. That said, my reason for leaving the titles was not the marriage, but the horrible writing and mediocre art that was all over the Spider books in the 90's. I liked the marriage, personally, and now feel alienated from ever reading a "616" Spider book after this latest car crash...

As I have pointed out, when your editorial staff spends fifteen years saying, "Hey! We need to get rid of the marriage!", and writing a convoluted, insane editorial fiat called 'The Clone Saga' to get rid of the marriage, then changes course mid-stream, decides to bring back the marriage, then changes course again, and decides to kill off Mary Jane in a "plane crash", then changes course again, brings her back, and decides that she and Peter are "separated", then finally changes their mind again and decides to get them back together, only to have the new editorial staff say, "Hey! We need to get rid of the marriage!" and practically re-enact, step by step, the same bad editorial decisions that led to years of declining Spider-Man sales...

...then realistically speaking, it's a little unfair to say, "The marriage wrecked Spider-Man comics." The truth is, editorial in-fighting and poor managerial decisions wrecked Spider-Man comics. If they'd just kept their mouths shut, found editors and writers who were interested in writing about a married Spider-Man, and stopped trying to foist their mid-life crises onto their readership, the series would have been fine.

Heck, for a good five years of their "marriage", MJ wasn't even in the book. And for another few years, neither MJ nor Peter was in the book. Half of the period you're complaining about the marriage, and it didn't come up.

Your math is way off, John.

Mary Jane was "dead" for a little more than a year (March 2000 to May 2001).

Mary Jane and Peter were on a break from June 2001 to April 2003 (and that's not counting the fact that she appeared in the comics during that time period, but I'll count them as "no Mary Jane," even though she was in at least three issues over that time span).

And Mary Jane and Peter left the book for about nine months months after the Clone Saga finished (January 1996 to September 1996 - and even then, they came BACK for a story four months in!).

So it's a stretch to say she was out of the books for three years total out of their twenty year marriage.

I've never bought a Spider-Man comic, but was thinking of starting with Brand New Day when it was announced. Upon the preview pages greeting me with a "slap in the face", I've decided to spend my money on something else.

Yeah, I really can't believe Quesada used that term. That was quite silly on his part.

The end it's "It's just a story".
Yes... it's just a very bad story!

For my mental sanity I keep to think that it's all a smokescreen for something else... but now this story is everywhere... like the unmasking..

If not... wow it's the '80 again, I remember when I was reading ASM in the '80! I was young...
Hey Q. can you present me to Mephisto?

I wonder how many skeletons Aunt May has hidden in her closet to make the devil so interested in her...

I always thought the point of group editors was so that you would never publish stories that painted you into a wall. Daredevil's identity coming out could have been a disaster, but Bendis knew what he was doing and got several great years out of Matt Murdock now having to be Daredevil WHILE EVRYONE SUSPECTED HIM and still denying that he was.

I accept the argument that a married Spider-Man is nothing like the angsty teenager in the Ultimate book or on the big screen. And that breaking him and MJ up would youthify him. But maybe do a One Year Later and jump to the stories you WANT to tell, and once the public accepts that they're better then sneak in the poison pill of how it came to be. Alias did it. Hell, One Tree Hill is doing it.

[quote]Kinda makes last years New York Time’s article about Spider-man unmasking kind of redundant, eh? [\quote}

Yeah, I remember that article, I just don't remember who it was...

Last good 616 stuff?

There was a good Deb Whitman arc in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, which had some fun Betty Brant stuff.

Sacasa had a number of good stories in Sensational, which isn't surprising. I think my favorite might be when Aunt May faces off against the Chameleon.

I'd even argue that JMS' Amazing had one or two good arcs, the first one with Peter in Avengers Tower and the first one after Aunt May learned about Peter's secret identity would be the two that come to mind.

There's obviously the Fraction story from the annual in the last year.

Spider-Man: Breakout was an excellent mini-series from Bedard in the last few years, though that didn't focus much on the secret identity if I remember correctly.

Spider-Man/Human Torch spans years, so it probably doesn't count either.

As much as I don't like it as a whole, there were one or two good issues in the Jenkins run of Peter Parker. More than I'll say for the MK Spider-Man run by either Millar or Hudlin though. Ugh.

The last good 616 Spidey I read was JMS's run. He got me back into Spider-Man, and I absolutely loved all of his work up to Sins Past. which time I quit the book, and never looked back.

Will

[quote]I wonder how many skeletons Aunt May has hidden in her closet to make the devil so interested in her…[/quote]

Wasn't there an entire miniseries that was basically about the young May slutting around and in reality being Peter's mother?

I like the new direction that they are headed towards and think that it could result in better stories then what has come out recently, but I hate how it was done. Every alternative would have been better. Why not just have the divorce, with over half of all marriages ending in divorce its stupid to think that this would cause some sort of front page backlash against the character. Or why not just kill off Mary Jane, again its just stupid to assume that a widower Peter makes him old, he already lost one love of his life and that made him a better character not old. Or just have some villan like Dr. Doom have a cure for May that they offer to Mary Jane only if she promises to leave Peter forever. So many options that are much better then the horrible road they have gone down.

If they want to make SpiderMan timeless and get back to the roots thats fine then get rid of the marriage angle, but why did they have to mess around with the identity reveal. That was still a new storyline with a lot of potential and stories to come out of it all of which has been killed. Also it cheapens Civil War, people hate big events that we are promised will change everything and then right when its over, boom some stupid retcon and things are right back to the way they were before. And finally the whole gee people don't remember thing which is so stupid, what about guys like Mysterio or Kingpin who actually took action when they heard about the identity, do they not remember whole months of their lives now or do they remember trying to kill someone but just not who or where and now don't care ARGHH.

james said "I wonder how many skeletons Aunt May has hidden in her closet to make the devil so interested in her…"

That is a story worth reading. May's torrid past, betrayals and murder, worldly attitudes towards men (and women?), trials, escapes. Sex, drugs and Rock'n'roll: The May Parker Story.

You never read Millar's _Trouble_?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble_%28comics%29

Did Mephisto erase that from continuity too?

If you'd believe some recent edits to Joe Q's wikipedia entry, yes.

How many "good" Spider-Man stories do I remember from the 616 continuity that are post-marriage?

Honestly, I loved everything up until Maximum Carnage. I bought multiple copies of Web #1 and Adjectiveless #1, and gave them away to friends.

After Maximum Carnage, I still found that I liked more stories than I didn't. I liked the story arc where he had a huge bounty on his head and disguised himself as four separate people, depening on which title he was in. It took the Clone Saga for me to finally give in and only buy story arcs recommended to me.

I think that this is trite, and an insult to the fans. Even the author of this article claims that fans "don't care" whether or not Peter and MJ are married. I suggest that if you do care, and if do prefer them married, then send that message with your dollars.

And, I'm not even suggesting to stop buying Spider-Man until the retcon is retconned. I fully expect that to happen eventually anyway. I'm suggesting to stop buying Spider-Man until they start producing *good* Spider-Man stories. Not stories that get the editors to the next level of whatever master plan they have. But, stories that are enjoyable and entertaining.

Back in Shooter and DeFalco's day, they could do both entertain and build toward a goal. I don't think that it is too much to request that level of storytelling out of Quesada.

Theno

I meant "they don't care" in a GOOD way. In that there is not some big "Oh, please get rid of the marriage!" sentiment out there. Fans mostly didn't care.

I disagree that fans didn't care. I remember that one of the big outcries (among many) of the MJ statue last year was that she wasn't wearing her wedding ring.

They might not care enough to spontaenously do a letter writing campaign either for or against it. But, I think that most of them do care.

Where do you think the marriage would fall in a Top 10 Comic Book Marriages? Compared to ones like Clark/Lois, Hank/Jan, Wally/Linda, Bruce/Betty, Ralph/Sue, Scott/Jean, etc.?

Theno

"Wasn’t there an entire miniseries that was basically about the young May slutting around and in reality being Peter’s mother? "

Christ, I hope not...