Over and over on CBR and many other places I’ve seen the claims that the spider marriage was a rushed nonsensical gimmick that was just out of the blue.
Putting aside a debate about whether even being married makes sense for Peter’s character (spoilers it does) I wanna run down a few things about the build up to the marriage that a lot of people just get plain wrong.
First of all let’s make something clear as crystal.
YES the marriage was an editorial mandate and yes it was done as a gimmick.
You know what else was an editorial mandate though?
Jean Grey’s death in the Dark Phoenix Saga which made the whole story immensely more powerful than if she had lived as originally intended.
Editorial mandates are just tools at the end of the day and a tool isn’t inherently bad it can just be used badly depending upon the craftsman.
The same is true of ‘gimmicks’. The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special ‘The Day of the Doctor’ used the hardcore gimmick of 3D but it made sense within the grand context of the story. A gimmick can most definitely be bad and more often than not they are but it’s wrong to broadbrush treat them as terrible in every single instance. Sometimes particular gimmicks under particular circumstances make SENSE and this was the case for the Spider Marriage in 1987.
So with that out the way let’s talk history.
90% of the time whenever I hear people lambast the ‘rush job’ that the Spider Marriage was it becomes very obvious to me that they’ve made three mistakes in their interpretation:
a) They have ONLY paid attention to the events of ASM as opposed to the other two Spider-Man titles
b) As a consequence of that they’ve over focused upon ASM #289 which immediately precedes Peter’s proposal to MJ and in which he is clearly with Black Cat, ignoring events in satellite titles which take place in between
c) They’ve not even paid attention to the actual events taking place in ASM ALONE which clearly build up to the marriage.
To make some more things crystal clear you NEED to read the satellite titles as well to get the full picture of...actually everything involving the character ever.
Spectacular Spider-Man and Web of Spider-Man and any other satellite title might not be the iconic title for Spidey the way ASM is but in terms of how important and relevant the stories they contain are they are of EQUAL value to Spider-Man’s over all canon. Something in Web doesn’t count any less than something in ASM. Case in point events from Spectacular Spider-Man and Web of Spider-Man were VITALLY important to the original debut of VENOM in ASM #300.
If you’ve only paid attention to ASM then you are not in possession of the full details whatsoever so when you comment upon something like the proposal/wedding, etc you are literally giving a view ignorant of multiple critical details. In other words if your argument about the ‘rush job’ of the wedding is that he was dating Black Cat in the previous issue shut up and read Spectacular Spider-Man #128-129 which depicts them breaking up.
Now in fairness those issues did come out AFTER Peter proposed. But...so what? Even Dan Slott himself has said that you need to wait for a story arc to FINISH before you start figuring out how it fits in with other arcs. This was nothing new to the Spider-Man titles and continued to be a common practice long afterwards.
Whenever there are satellite titles occurring at the same time you can NEVER properly interpret the story or characters until the arc is finished and you’ve gotten around to figuring out where it happens in relation to other arcs because that is going to impact upon how you should read the characters.
But like I said even if you did only read ASM there was never any grounds for saying Peter and MJ’s marriage was ‘out of the blue’. In particular whenever guys like Quesada have stated stuff like MJ was reintroduced into the series for the sole purpose of abruptly marrying Peter or that ‘they weren’t even dating at the time’ they are either through misremembering, ignorance or just outright lying grossly misrepresenting the events of that era.
To put it simply Peter and MJ to all intents and purposes were dating. They were doing everything a young couple would do together short of physical intimacy (most of the time). But critically they were also pretending to one another and themselves and everyone else that they were purely platonic when they very obviously were not.
THAT was the lay of the land come the time for Peter to propose. He and MJ had been growing incredibly close, were clearly in love and had been effectively dating when he decided to ask her to marry him.
Which made total sense because Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz’s original intention for their ASM run was for Peter and MJ to get engaged but for MJ to leave him at the altar. The build up was ALWAYS there but it just happened to be for an end result that was different.
Nevertheless there are NUMEROUS examples of this build up throughout the era preceding the Wedding and I can’t possibly dive into all of them but just off the top of my head.
Spectacular Spider-Man #85, a recently returned to NYC Mary Jane and Peter are chill about walking arm in arm and discussing the LAST time Peter proposed to her with MJ throwing out a hint that maybe there could be something between them again later.
SpectacularSpider-Man085p09.jpg
ASM #259. MJ has just confessed her painful past to Peter and the two have become one another’s confidants but with both making it clear that there is to be no romance. Later though Peter in spite of dating Black Cat wonders if they could maybe hook back up.
Web of Spider-Man #3. Sometime after breaking up with Felicia Peter and MJ and Peter have a ‘date’ for a late lunch. During this lunch they discuss Peter and Aunt May and MJ throws out that Peter doesn’t know what it is like loving someone who risks their life. Yes she could just be speaking in the past tense, as in she used to love him and found it hard when he risked his life. However later in the issue Peter wants to talk about their relationship to which MJ says that that is over. But her rationale seems to have switched up with her now saying only her cowardice is keeping them apart which heavily implies she would be with him (ie is in love with him) but is too afraid to cope with him risking his life. Regardless Peter trying to initiate a conversation reveals HE at least clearly has feelings for her.
ASM Annual #19, written by the same author as Web #3. Despite what she said in Web #3 Spider-Man’s former girlfriend Mary Jane whom he asked to marry has dressed up and invited her former boyfriend/first man she was ever in love with and who proposed to her over to her apartment for a goddam candlelit home cooked dinner. She then clutches a photo of Peter that she still has for some reason and is very upset when he is late.
Amazing Spider-Man Annual 19-04.jpg
Can you see how there is obviously ZERO build up to their romantic relationship going on here?????
Later she is out with Aunt May and Aunt Anna and tries to call him so they can talk about what happened. Both Aunts oh so coincidentally make comments about how the pair are reminiscent of May and Ben shortly before they got married. At the end of the annual MJ has overcome her perceived cowardice to a large extent and though the two are not dating she does kiss him on the cheek. Peter though admits that whilst he was hoping they’d get back together the events of the annual have convinced him otherwise.
His attitude doesn’t last however because they continue seeing one another in a very similar way. In many consequent issues of all the titles.
Web of Spider-Man #6. MJ wakes up in the night feeling weary about her party girl lifestyle and ponders about how she wouldn’t mind a married life and how she almost had it with when Peter proposed. The (allegedly) only reason she refused was because she new he was Spider-Man and couldn’t cope with being married to someone who risked their life, saying that if he wasn’t out there doing that she WOULD have married him. Then she admits that if he wasn’t Spider-Man he wouldn’t have been the same person she fell in love with and says they are one and the same.
WebOfSpiderman06_03.jpg