[Spoilers] Spiderman: One More Day...

[Klaus]

If Spiderman must be miserable, I'm sure there are dozens of ways to do it while keeping himmarried. People point to Mary Jane being a supermodel. Guess what, supermodels fall by the wayside as they get older and a newcome steals the spotlight. She's an actress? Maybe not a very good one, and she bows out of her biggest assignment when the producer tries to do a little "casting couching" with her. There you have it: not only one person struggling, but two.

But Peter must always endure through his tribulatons, and Spierman must always be taking his frustrations out on the villains by humorously mocking them. When he dons the costume, it's the one time the underdog gets to be the big dog. That's what made Spiderman so successful to begin with.

 

[Felon]

Right. And the editor-in-chief is now deciding that Spidey and MJ were not supposed to get married. So what's the problem?

I'm not saying that Quesada's decision is perfectly legitimate while Shooter's decision was totally illegitimate. I'm saying that the two decisions are actually very much alike. Fans who praise one while damning the other don't seem to know how alike the two situations really are.

Your post certainly did intimate that there was something inherently problematic and "inelegant" about Spidey being married. Your rationale was that it wasn't supposed to have happened and you described One More Day as a "solution".

I do not deride One More Day because it stemmed from an editorial decision. I deride it because it makes poor sense as a story. I deride because it devolves Spidey as a character, rather than developing him the way marriage did. I deride because The Clone Saga tried to do the same thing once and it is one of the famous lead balloons in comic history.

I liked Peter Parker as a teenager who had dating problems and couldn't rub two nickels together and who was considered by other heroes to be an outsider and a bit of an oddball. But that's over. Quesada signed off on him taking off his mask and joining the Avnegers. Why retcon now? Just part of the plan, or is he trying to do a takeback? It's so hard to think of anything to praise here.

 

[Felon]

It is indeed lazy writing and attributes far too much power to Mephisto.

Winter Soldier, how would you like to trade that freshly redeemed soul for me to bring back Captain America?

Cyclops, how would you like to trade your soul for your unknown brother to never have been ripped from the womb and you to actually grow up with your family?

etc.. etc... etc....

It's just bad writing.

Heck, consider the possibilities of making deals with scumbags. Mephisto isn't getting a pure soul out of this deal, after all. He's just sort of...being a jerk.

 

[Truth Seeker]

JQ said, that editors and writers almost felt hogged tied, with the marriage in the picture. They felt they couldin't explore other avenue with the charcter.

The marriage was honored as so, for a while, back from the Stan Lee's run in the newspapers comic section.

And last, keeping the 'immortal' look around, is the only way for them to make money.

And again lastily...yes, it was the cheapest to get out of it.

 

[Felon]

Well, I guess it's bonkers to suggest that a character can have an interesting, eventful life once they've tied the knot. That's it, marriage is the end. Cue the curtains.

.Instead, I will posit that marriages can dissolve without cosmic intervention. Heck, have Gwen Stacy show up as the Green Goblin Queen and throw MJ off a bridge. Or, just have'em get a divorce.

 

[Villano]

JoeQ...the reason I only collect a single Marvel title anymore.

But, seriously, don't worry about it. They can always fix it by having Aunt May put on Iron Man's old armor and invade Latveria and use Dr. Doom's time machine to...um...

Did I mention that I dropped nearly all of my Marvel titles since JoeQ took over...?

 

[Felon]

As I understand it, Joe Q did some good for Marvel after the Bankruptcy. He helped turn the trade paperback market into a thriving primary market, for instance.

I hold New Avengers to be the epitome of what I think is wrong with Marvel: there's no policing of anything. Writers are just allowed to go nuts, without regard for what's come before or what might come afterwards. If it sounds like it will generate a short-term sales boost, do it! But I have to acknowledge that New Avengers was a big, big success. For some reason, Spidey and Wolvie as Avengers clicked with a lot of readers. Go figure.

So I don't want to pick on Joe--not after groaning at all of the Shooter-bashing I've heard over the years--but this is just bad stuff.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

JQ said, that editors and writers almost felt hogged tied, with the marriage in the picture.

I’ve done enough writing of my own to appreciate the need to create obstacles and problems for characters to grapple with – that was not and is not my primary issue with this story arc.

First, it just points to how flakey the stories are in comic books. They’re here, they’re there, they’re everywhere – and next week it will be more of the same random assortment of situations calling itself a plot. If one writer likes something, then he rearranges the entire universe to suit himself. If another writer does not like it, then he rearranges the entire universe to suit himself. It makes the entire thing difficult to keep straight in my head.

Second, I respect good planning and departmental communication – all this twisting and turning sounds to me like poor planning, poor communications (between the people handling the different lines) and management by throwing things at the wall (on a month by month basis) and seeing what sticks.

Third, I’ve never understood why writers see marriages as such a burden. Plenty of bad things can happy to married people; it really is not protection against anything. The notion that it is some kind of (ahem) impregnable safe haven is an illusion. That is something anyone who is married can tell you.

He's just sort of...being a jerk.

Well, he is a devil-like entity. He’s hardly ever going to give people flowers and pink bunnies.

 

[JoeGKushner]

And I could be misremembering, but hey, they already killed MJ off only to have MJS bring her back.

 

[LightPhoenix]

CBR (www.comicbookresources.com) is running a five part interview with JQue about this very topic. Only one part if posted so far, but I figured some of you might be interested.