Christ, I hope not...

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Will

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.

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

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?

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.

...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.