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In our previous part, we explored Spider-man's journey through the Dark Age, including several attempts to change him, whether through the use of clones or killing off of his wife. In this, the final part, we see Spider-man's return as an evolving character, and then sadly see it all stripped away.
In 2004, Bill Jemas, Marvel President and the one who got Ultimate Spider-man going, was removed. There's no question that Jemas was a jerk towards the consumers of his own product (once commenting on many of their readers' idea of a good time was an evening alone masturbating to Elektra) and as someone who actually read all six grueling issues of Marville, he couldn't write if you put a gun to his head. Still, there are some who theorize that however awful a personality he had, that he was holding things in check, because at this same time was when Marvel began on the current reshaping that leads inevitably to One More Day.
The event begins with Secret War (no relation to the Secret Wars story), a short-run series that nevertheless took over a year to get out. It was a precurrsor to something down the line, and featured Spider-man teamed up with some other heroes invading Latveria. This caused Nick Fury to go underground, and control of SHIELD to pass to one Maria Hill, a woman chosen essentially to keep Fury's supporters from gaining control. On another front was Avengers: Disassembled, which involved the tearing down of the most prestigious Marvel team book. With the Avengers disassembled, it paved the way for the New Avengers to appear, formed in response to a breakout of supervillains and teamed up Iron Man, Captain America, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman, and most suprisingly, Wolverine and Spider-man. While there was some fan outcry at this, it was a good move. Spidey's wanted to join a team for years, and it's never worked out, but now it's happened. As I said, Peter Parker was always about growing and developing, and this was just another aspect of that. He's ready to be a positive member of a superhero team and face the larger issues that come with it. But what this also did was move the Avengers closer to being the Marvel equivalent of the JLA. While the latter headlined the biggest names of DC, the Avengers usually consisted of lots of low-tier characters. Now it had some of the big names, most having their own solo books and appearing in others as well. Mission accomplished there.
Next came House Of M, which was a follow-up to the Disassembled story. In that story, the Scarlet Witch had caused the Avengers to destroy themselves, before being taken away by her family. However, her brother manipulates her into using her powers to alter reality, so that mutants were dominant in society. This is reversed however, and it ends with her delivering the line that many quote whenever they refer to a quick, forced transformation of reality: "No more mutants." After this, the number of mutants falls to less than a hundred fifty, all the rest having lost their powers. It's been revealed that Joe Quesada (Marvel's current Editor-in-Chief) felt there were too many mutants running around. Mission accomplished there.
While House of M was finishing up, back in the "real" world Spider-man was facing his first major crossover in a long, long time. It was called The Other, and it was a commercial success, yet a critical failure. This was due to a number of factors. One was its drawn out nature, as is so often the case with major events. Two was, sadly, Reginald Hudlin, who had practically no experience writing Spider-man, and whose parts tended to drag down the rest of the story (in particular, Tony Stark doing "Vegas, baby! Vegas!" at Peter like some frat boy, not to mention offering a suite and the services of the ladies that came with it, even though he knew Peter was a devoted husband). Three was that it was the return of the spider totem storyline that hadn't been popular in the first place, and that Spider-man's death would come, not from someone like Norman Osborn, but a villain unlikely to ever be seen again. During the story, Spider-man died, but returned to life with his powers enhanced, including the presence of "stingers" in his wrists that would play a role throughout Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man.
Following this, it becomes clear why the move of Spider-man to join the New Avengers and move into Stark Tower was made. A second common complain by Quesada was of the heroes lacking opposition to each other, which is believed to be the motivator behind Civil War. During this story, the Mutant Registration Act that was always being threatened in the various X-Books was turned into the Superhuman Registration Act. After the New Warriors, in a search for ratings for their reality show, unwittingly cause Nitro to kill hundreds in an explosion (many of them children), it becomes clear that everyone, hero and villain, will have to register their identities with the government. This divides the superheroes in half, thanks in no small part to what many feel was a poorly-written Maria Hill (the new SHIELD head, remember?), whom she gives an essentially illegal order to and then, when he refuses, attempts to subdue by force. This sends Captain America underground and serves as a rallying point for those heroes opposed to the SRA. The result of this was the continuing conflict between heroes among the Marvel universe, so mission accomplished there, too.
For anyone who knew the character of Spider-man, it's a no-brainer which side he should come down on. Spider-man was always the little guy, the icon of revolution. What's more, he remains the last famous Marvel character to have a secret identity, and has every reason to want to keep it - with so many enemies, his loved ones would certainly be at risk, and given the loss of Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacey, that's a risk he'd never want to take. It's for these reasons why it's obvious why he was made an Avenger. First, he was no longer a masked menace striking from darkness, he was legitimate. Second, for the first time Peter Parker was being given a real chance to prove himself in Stark's company. In other words, both his identities have been legitimized. Third, he owes Stark, who took him in and cared for his family, especially during the events of The Other. So when Tony Stark came to him and asked him to stand with him on the side of registration, it's natural to see why he eventually agreed, even when it included the biggest price tag for someone like him.
The price tag: he had to give up the secret identity.
This was a sticking point for many fans. However, like many, I accepted this as a reasonable move by Peter, especially given the long, drawn out discussion with his aunt and MJ. It was, again, further development and maturing on the path to hero-dom, which is central to his character. He'd reached the point where the mask wasn't needed any more - he had the support of the nation for himself, and the protection for his loved ones by an army of superheroes and SHIELD agents. In story terms, it also shook up things for Peter Parker and his previous relationships, such as with J. Jonah Jameson and Flash Thompson.
Unfortunately, Civil War was set up to cause Spider-man to fall. The Pro-SRA forces were bringing in registered supervillains to hunt down Anti-SRA heroes. Captured heroes were forced into a prison in the Negative Zone without trial. These, coupled with the fact that Captain America of all people led the Anti-SRA eventually led Peter to switch sides, a move that would unravel twenty years of character development.
With Peter switching sides, he became a fugitive, and Aunt May and Mary Jane were forced into hiding. With Peter's identity public knowledge, they weren't safe without the protection of the forces Peter had left behind. This led, inevitably, to a sniper hired by the Kingpin taking out Aunt May, who spent over a year of real world time dying in a hospital (that's one fiesty old lady). All efforts by Spider-man to save her failed, no matter who he turned to. Which brings us to One More Day.
The third bee in Quesada's bonnet was what's called the spider-marriage, that Peter is married to Mary Jane. Many of the arguments related to this are hollow. For instance, there's the "Spider-man became Billy Joel" concept (and really, for people arguing about being open for the young people, that sure is a goddamn old pop culture reference), because he's married to a supermodel. However, that's perhaps the easiest problem to fix; just one car accident and Mary Jane is no longer the drop-dead gorgeous woman she is. In fact, it would seriously shake up their relationship and offer some new storytelling options. That's part of the other argument: that Spider-man needs to be single so he can -and I can't believe I have to write this- be more like Archie. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any Archie movie has made a half billion dollars. There are, it is said, more storytelling options that can be told with a single Spider-man than a married one.
Is that true? Yes, but not by as much as you think, because there are some stories that can only really be told with a married character. If anyone doesn't see that, then they're either not married, or they're not terribly observant. Being married and being in love are not the same thing at all - if it was, then why do people just live together without being married? Being married raises the stakes of the game. For instance, after Gwen was killed by the Green Goblin, Spider-man went off planning to kill him, but stopped himself before he could finish it. When, at the conclusion of Marvel Knights Spider-man Mary Jane is put in similar jeopardy, there's a lingering question in the reader's mind: if she dies, would he finish it this time? Because it would be much more than just killing the love of his life, it would be taking away the only person who said she loved him in and out of the costume, who knew the risks and said he was worth the risk, who was by his side through all the worst times, whom he once lost and then found again. A marriage means you're playing for keeps.
An issue brought up much in the closing hours was that this was a necessary move for Spider-man's long term viability. This is a very hard argument to fight for or against, because it presumes one can predict future trends in a business that's been volatile over the years. However, one thing we do know for certain is that Spider-man sales have gone up, not down, over the last several years. Amazing Spider-man has remained far more successful than many other books, and this is even with the character appearing in two other solo books, another team book, an Ultimate title, and the solo book of his daughter in Spider-girl. In fact, over the past several years the number of Spider-man solo books increased - if management is uncertain of the character's future viability, it seems odd that they would put more time and many into giving him more books. None of this, of course, can definitively prove that the character can remain viable, but it is based on more concrete facts than the opposition.
One thing that's constantly brought into this is that Spider-man is supposed to be young, young, young! That's how he was created, and he shouldn't have been allowed to age. Being young goes back to the root of who he is. To this I have but one question: why has no effort been made to turn the X-Men back into teenagers? After all, that was how they were originally conceived - in fact, it was rather central to the entire premise, that they were there to learn because they were so young, young, young! Ask yourself, how well would the X-books do if next week it was announced that all the X-Men, except probably Wolverine and Xavier, were being de-aged to their late teens? Would you expect the fans to say, "Oh yes, this is in more keeping with their original intent. Please disregard everything that's happened since the original team left." Or would you expect to see X-fan riots?
Lastly, and most transparent, is the idea that being single is the core part of what makes Spider-man who he is. That's nonsense. Spider-man was single for twenty-five years, and married for twenty. That's like saying that the core of 24 was in Tony Almeida at CTU, or the core of Law & Order was in Chris Noth.
When One More Day came, we knew what it meant. We knew that Marvel had been vocal that they couldn't divorce them, and that trying to kill Mary Jane off again wouldn't work. We were waiting, waiting for the Scarlet Witch to say "No more marriage." However, I have to admit to being fooled three quarters of the way through the story. It seemed that there was no way this was going to come out the way we thought. You see, having exhausted all possibilities, Peter is approached by Mephisto (that's right, the same Mephisto that was rejected as a way out for the Clone Saga a decade before), who says that he can save Aunt May in return for Peter's marriage.
Now, this is why I was fooled. I mean, seriously, is Marvel going to take their flagship character, a character they put on cereal boxes and little kids' underpants, and have him throw away his devoted life partner by making a deal with Satan? For crying out loud, even Ghost Rider has been revealed to be an angel, not a demon. Are we going to say that Peter won't work with Iron Man or Reed Richards or SHIELD, but he'll work with the prince of darkness himself, Old Gooseberry, the lord of the flies? And for what, so that his aunt can live out her golden year? To paraphrase Dr. Cox: "The lady's a thousand. What's she going to do, move to Florida and settle down with that nine hundred year old guy of her dreams?" Would Marvel seriously do something so goddamn stupid?
Of course. And hey, mission accomplished.
When I first heard about Brand New Day (the follow-up to One More Day), I made a decision. When I first started reading back in the early Dark Age, comic books sold for a whopping seventy-five cents. Today, they usually go for two-fifty to four bucks, and Marvel announced that all the other Spider-man books were being canceled, and that Amazing Spider-man was going to three times a month. I didn't get all the Spider-man books, so I was left with a decision: pay more, or give up, there just wasn't a third option. It wasn't an easy choice, so I decided to let One More Day decide for me: if the marriage stayed, I'd pay the extra to support Marvel doing the right thing, even though I'd probably have to stop getting some other book. If the marriage went, so would I. It wasn't an ultimatum, it wasn't "Do what I want or I quit!" If they hadn't decided on this Brand New Day thing, I would have still likely continued even if the marriage ended. I still liked the character, and I'd still get him in New Avengers, which I'd only have to pay for once a month.
With this move, however, I'm now done with Spider-man, much like I was with the Clone Saga, and for the same reasons (actually, this is even more eggregious). First, the act itself was simply the worst choice possible. How can I possibly read this and say, "Hmm, good job, Spider-man, you stopped a mugger. Obviously, that's much worse than making a deal with Satan!" Second, the decision was completely out of character for Peter (and remember, this is from a guy who supported joining the Avengers, understands the reasons for his choice in Civil War, and agreed with the de-masking). I made a tongue-in-cheek comment on this that I caught flack for, saying that he'd chosen his aunt over his "buxom redheaded model/actress wife." What I had been trying to emphasize then and emphasizing now is that, first, she was his wife, and a devoted one, a one committed fully to him. That's a very rare thing. Most of us guys, when looking for a spouse, would want someone who would be as committed to us as MJ is to Peter. That he not only got that, but that she also happens to be drop-dead gorgeous means that Peter has, to quote the good lady, hit the jackpot. Any rational husband would never give up a wife who loved him as much as MJ did. In case of husbands who do in real life, it's usually because they're looking for someone better looking. So the point is, Mary Jane covers this coming and going; she is the perfect wife, and Peter must know that.
But finally, the biggest factor was that the marriage was not only undone, but so was all of Peter's development for X number of years (decades? too soon to tell). We see him living with his aunt again, his powers are back to before The Other, his identity is secret again, in short, we're back to the Bronze Age again. Now, I said earlier that I don't read Ultimate Spider-man, and I want to clarify that now. Ultimate Spider-man isn't a bad book at all; I've read some of it. But I can't stick with it because, in the end, that's not Spider-man, it's just some kid in a Spider-man costume. What Spider-man is to me was defined by my early experiences with the character; no one can dictate to me what he really is. Ultimate Spider-man is an interesting kid, but he's not Spider-man. This guy we see after Lucifer himself alters reality, he's not Spider-man either, he's a loser that needs to get his act together. I don't want to read "This issue - Peter tries to smoke weed without his aunt catching him."
Joe Quesada has tried to damage control this, saying that it's not a change to history, it's just a mind re-write of the entire world. First, a mind re-write doesn't raise the dead, transform Peter's powers, or change all recorded events. Second, even if we ignore that, if everyone in the world, if all the records and memories have been changed so the past events didn't happen, then there's no difference between that and those events never happening in the first place.
In the final pages of One More Day, I was bothered by what I saw. Mary Jane tells of just how strong her love is for Peter, and how she'll take this chance because she believes it's stronger than Mephisto. And what do we have in the post-Mephisto world? Peter lusting after the hot girl that Harry shows up with. You can't blame Peter since he doesn't remember, but it doesn't change what we know to be true, and to put it in the same book? This feels no different than when Eric O'Grady made out with his best friends girlfriend literally on that best friend's grave, except at least then we knew Eric was a creep. The irony of this situation is that despite my dollars Eric's book, Irredeemable Ant-Man, was canceled, while even without my dollars I'm sure this new status quo for Peter is going to continue. Anyway, this poorly-timed sight is what made me realize this couldn't work for me. Seeing Peter chasing after someone besides MJ after twenty years and in the very book where she's left behind is like Alfred dying and Batman gleefully looking over resumes in the same issue.
I've heard many say this was just the latest event, that next summer it'll all be reversed. I don't buy it. I'm going to keep this here, unedited, to show just how certain I am of this; if it's all an elaborate trick, then consider me fooled. They carefully orchestrated this event, just like what was done during the Clone Saga, but unlike that event they didn't veer aside at the last minute. The opinion then was that they just get it done and go on telling stories about the new Spider-man, let the fallout diminish. They're doing that here. After the baby from Clone Saga was "taken away," the plan was to just keep hope alive that she'd come back, but never, ever do it. That's the case here, again. Any hope is false hope, designed to get you to remain with the book until you accept the new status quo. Even a change in editorial leadership isn't going to undo this, because it wasn't just Joe Quesada's opinion.
What about diminishing sales? I don't think it'll happen in numbers enough to cause action. Remember, because Amazing Spider-man is going to three times a month, the book's sales are going to naturally increase (it'll be so easy to compare the 2008 sale of 36 books to the 2007 sale of 10). It's being billed as a new jumping on point for readers (though I suppose the same was said with John Byrne's reboot). The bottom line is, Quesada may be doing something I don't like, hold opinions I don't agree with, but that doesn't make him stupid. Unlike the Clone Saga, this was developed subtly, over years. He's hedged his bets. The outcry isn't going to be enough. Unless serious, serious campaigning is done to orchestrate a boycott, I mean like nothing anyone has ever pulled before for comics, Brand New Day is safe. I made the mistake of hoping briefly, and I learned that there was nothing so stupid or offensive Marvel wouldn't pull. For me, that's all she wrote, just one thing left.
It's the Scarlet Witch, telling me, "No more Spider-man."
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