If the Marriage was so hated why did it take so long for Marvel to get rid of it

[WeirdSpider]

Quesada did rationalize it. He didn't want to tell a story where Peter and MJ gave up on their love in that way, that it had to be a heroic sacrifice. I don't think Marvel were ever going to be comfortable teaching kids divorce is a necessary answer to problems in life with an iconic hero they look up to.

Mind you, indoctrinating them with concepts of Satanism is far worse.

I also think that there was a concern that divorce would make Spider-Man seem too old.

[Mistah K88]

...Looking at all of the attempts to get rid of the marriage, I wonder if the problem isn't the ending of the marriage itself, but the continuously stupid ways that they go about doing it.

The clone thing was extremely dumb, (however they could have got away with a single Spider-Man had they not insisted that Peter was the clone all along)
Killing off Mary Jane wasn't a good idea in the slightest, as after that AND Gwen...how would you even justify him attempting to date again?
The Magic Marriage reversal has its own set of problems

To tell you the truth, a simple divorce would have been the cleanest way to end the marriage...

[Tuck]

To tell you the truth, a simple divorce would have been the cleanest way to end the marriage...

The irony is that this is the version that would have lead to the most natural role for Mary Jane in the book going forward, rather than turning her into this problem they have: she's the most popular civilian character they have, but the don't have anything to do with her.

[Miles To Go]

Even if they had divorced, other comic canons at the time were depicting them as being pretty healthy in their relationship, so it would have stuck out like a sore thumb even more with fans wondering how other universes could get it so right. If the last ten years are any hint, Stan's newspaper strip would have kept them married also as he's very much firmly in the camp of Peter being married, having been the one to pull the trigger on it in the first place. Maybe they wanted to appease Stan's vision for Peter and MJ as well.

[Knightsilver]

Well it was probably also done so they could have a big striking "good overcomes evil" story in case it did'nt work.

Unfortunately, they decided after a while it DID work so they never bothered giving us that story.

Though how they came to the conclusion it did work,I have no idea. A decade later,OMD is shorthand for character/continuity ruining storyline.

[Mister Mets]

Has Marvel ever given their rationale for why they had Spider-Man's marriage end by making a deal with Mephisto instead of simply getting a divorce. Surely having a divorced Spider-Man cant be seen as being less moral than Spider-Man making a deal with the devil. Being divorced cant be that much of a "stigma" for Spidey.

They've gone into it extensively.

http://www.cbr.com/the-one-more-day-...sada-the-fans/

First and foremost, I think Peter getting divorced to me says that they gave up on their love, that their life in love together was so awful, so stressful, so unfulfilling that they had to raise a red flag and walk away from it. They quit on their marriage and even more tragic, the quit on each other. In other words, Peter would rather be alone and single than to spend another moment with MJ. Plain and simple, that’s just a Spider-Man story I don’t want to tell and it’s not something that I would like to have associated with Peter Parker and MJ. You guys may feel differently, but I just think it’s the wrong thing to do with the character and the wrong message to send.

Now, there are those that say, “but he made a deal with the Mephisto, how is that better?” I would at least see something in that statement if it was Peter who conjured up Mephisto. If Peter had no options and then proceeded to perform some ritual in order to invoke Mephisto, or in essence reached out to him as a last ditch effort, then yes, I would agree because now you’re validating and saying it’s okay to seek out the Mephisto guy to fix a problem. But, that’s not what happened. It was Mephisto in this case, as he is prone to do, who comes to Peter at his weakest moment and uses this to his advantage. Why? Because he’s a villain. This is a very important distinction, Peter is used by the bad guy, taken advantage of, and let me add it’s not the first time a villain has taken advantage of him.

Now, as to how to explain this to your kids, well, I would suspect it’s the same as one would explain just about any of the classic happenings in the Marvel U or world of Spider-Man. I think it’s very easy to say that within the stories of the Marvel U, while there are fun, action adventures to be had, within so many of our stories, there are very complex and sophisticated metaphors and allegories. In short, comic books are morality plays acted out with brightly colored characters in spandex. So…

What would you say to your child if they came to you and asked, why Peter Parker let the bad guy go who eventually killed his Uncle and left his aunt a widow? Does this make Peter a bad guy, a villain, a dirt bag? I mean he certainly could be perceived that way. I think you would take the time to explain that it was a huge mistake, but that Peter took from it a life altering lesson and that lesson set him on the path to become a great hero and served as the chief motivational factor in his development as a hero.

What would you say to your child if they asked how it was possible for Spider-Man to lose a battle with the villain (which is something that was a breakthrough idea for super hero stories when Stan and Steve thought of it)? Super heroes don’t lose! Or how about when Peter hung it up and gave up being Spider-Man in “Amazing Spider-Man” #50? Does this make Spider-Man weak, a quitter, a coward or less of a super hero? I think you would tell your child that sometimes you don’t win all the time in life, but the lesson to learn from Peter Parker is that no matter how down you get, like Peter, dust yourself off and go out there and fight again.


What would you say to your child if they asked you if they should resolve disputes in school or amongst friends with fisticuffs because that’s what Spider-Man does? Does this make Spider-Man a bully? I think you would explain the difference and how not all disputes and disagreements can be resolved with ones fists.

So, how would you explain Mephisto? Quite simply I would say that sometimes there are bad people out there who want to take advantage of you and sometimes they show up and do so when you are at your weakest moment. You can also say that not all decisions in life are simple ones.

But also, you do have to keep in mind that Mephisto is simply a construct of the magical spectrum of the Marvel Universe while divorce is a real and tragic fact of life that far too many kids are confronted with every day. Also, many people would argue that divorce has become far too casual and commonplace in our society. Anyway, I hope that helps in some way.

[farmernudie]

...Looking at all of the attempts to get rid of the marriage, I wonder if the problem isn't the ending of the marriage itself, but the continuously stupid ways that they go about doing it.

The clone thing was extremely dumb, (however they could have got away with a single Spider-Man had they not insisted that Peter was the clone all along)
Killing off Mary Jane wasn't a good idea in the slightest, as after that AND Gwen...how would you even justify him attempting to date again?
The Magic Marriage reversal has its own set of problems

To tell you the truth, a simple divorce would have been the cleanest way to end the marriage...

A lot of people, almost everyone, can or could relate to a well written divorce.

Seems like Marvel in hindsight spent a lot of time, years, summits, storylines etc working on bad stories to try and break the marriage up instead of trying to just tell good stories imo.

In the end they settled for a devil deal. Nuff said.

[boots]

A lot of people, almost everyone, can or could relate to a well written divorce.

ehhh, i think you're pitching the percentage a bit high there.

[DieHard200904]

Has Marvel ever given their rationale for why they had Spider-Man's marriage end by making a deal with Mephisto instead of simply getting a divorce. Surely having a divorced Spider-Man cant be seen as being less moral than Spider-Man making a deal with the devil. Being divorced cant be that much of a "stigma" for Spidey.

Divorce is how normal, relatable people deal with a situation. A number of superhero characters got divorced by this point. Sliding time scale would easily take care of age. The only thing in the narrative that would really demand a character to be older would be if there were children involved, in which case you would age the parents along with the children.

[WebLurker]

A lot of people, almost everyone, can or could relate to a well written divorce.

Divorce is how normal, relatable people deal with a situation. A number of superhero characters got divorced by this point. Sliding time scale would easily take care of age. The only thing in the narrative that would really demand a character to be older would be if there were children involved, in which case you would age the parents along with the children.

I doubt the mechanics would've changed much of the reception. People generally seem to base their opinion on whether OMD was "justified" primarily on whether they think that scrapping the marriage was a good idea or not and then reason through it from that point. (I can only speak for myself, but there no scenario that they could've come up with that I would've accepted since I utterly reject the basic premise that the idea is built on.)

[boots]

I doubt the mechanics would've changed much of the reception. People generally seem to base their opinion on whether OMD was "justified" primarily on whether they think that scrapping the marriage was a good idea or not and then reason through it from that point. (I can only speak for myself, but there no scenario that they could've come up with that I would've accepted since I utterly reject the basic premise that the idea is built on.)

good point. when we don't like something, we actively look for extra reasons to hate it (see peter parker the man slut/rapist bendy logic). it could have been written "perfectly" and reasons would still likely be squeezed from some dark corner

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

They've gone into it extensively.

http://www.cbr.com/the-one-more-day-...sada-the-fans/

First and foremost, I think Peter getting divorced to me says that they gave up on their love, that their life in love together was so awful, so stressful, so unfulfilling that they had to raise a red flag and walk away from it. They quit on their marriage and even more tragic, the quit on each other. In other words, Peter would rather be alone and single than to spend another moment with MJ. Plain and simple, that’s just a Spider-Man story I don’t want to tell and it’s not something that I would like to have associated with Peter Parker and MJ. You guys may feel differently, but I just think it’s the wrong thing to do with the character and the wrong message to send.

Yeesh, comic creators in the superhero genre in general seem to have a narrow and unhealthy view of divorce.

[Mia]

They tried on multiple occasions. The Clone Saga was the result of a summit where they couldn't come up with any other ideas for how to shake things up for Spider-Man besides killing off Mary Jane or having her and Peter divorce, so they attempted to have their cake and eat it, too, by saying that "the Peter Parker who married Mary Jane Watson wasn't the 'real' Peter Parker." That was just a big middle finger to people who grew up with Peter/MJ together or even people who followed Spider-Man over the twenty years between the original Clone Saga and the 90s Clone Saga, and when they realized it wasn't working out, they brought back the Peter Parker that was still married to Mary Jane Watson, but killed their baby so that Spider-Man wouldn't be "aged" by fatherhood.

.

My two cents.

I didn't have a problem with Ben as being SM or even classified as the real SM. I just read him as being a place holder or someone who took on the costume while Peter moved to the suburbs to focus on being a family. One of the reasons that I liked Ben was that in all he was written as a good guy and an adult male who (like Peter) tried juggling getting on with life and being a hero.

That's a marked difference and much preferable solution to what we have now and the manchild that Peter has been reduced to in the current book. It just boggles my mind how people support this book and consider this kind of character as a hero. I frankly find it repugnant.

[Frontier]

To tell you the truth, a simple divorce would have been the cleanest way to end the marriage...

Yeah, but after everything Peter and Mary Jane have been through it probably would have been very difficult to write a sensible break-up for them by that point in their lives (just look at how badly OMIT handled it).

[Miles To Go]

Yeah, but after everything Peter and Mary Jane have been through it probably would have been very difficult to write a sensible break-up for them by that point in their lives (just look at how badly OMIT handled it).

Precisely why they had to have MJ tell Peter Mephisto would likely play a hand in influencing how they acted