Did anyone enjoy Spider-Man in spite of One More Day?

[WebLurker]

The comparison is a bit mixed. It'd be like if someone in 2000 tried to use Chapter One as an argument in favor of publishing Ultimate Spider-Man.

The cancellation of Renew Your Vows doesn't mean that the marriage is guaranteed to doom the book.

Sure. Heck, I would argue that the two decades it was in play would point to it being very viable, under whatever the right factors would be.

But it also means Renew Your Vows isn't evidence that a spider-family is better for the series as a long-term prospect.

Yeah, I think that gets into a lot of personal opinion of the people in question discussing it. I very much like the idea of the story going to family of some kind, others don't. I know a guy here who loved Spider-Man being a CEO like Iron Man, while I have loathe the very idea's existence (note, to be clear, the idea, not the creators who made it, not the readers who liked it, just that I do not like the premise in and of itself).

[boots]

Yeah, I think that gets into a lot of personal opinion of the people in question discussing it. I very much like the idea of the story going to family of some kind, others don't. I know a guy here who loved Spider-Man being a CEO like Iron Man, while I have loathe the very idea's existence (note, to be clear, the idea, not the creators who made it, not the readers who liked it, just that I do not like the premise in and of itself).

i think all it might show is that marriage/family alone isn’t enough to establish an au spider title

it doesn’t really prove how it would affect 616 sales if it became the status quo

[Celgress]

Post OMD Spider-man had some okay stories and it does make one wonder what would have occured in those stories if the Marriage remained as it was ???

I wrote a whole (still ongoing) series based around this idea. Here you go. Granted I took some things in a very AU direction as well as using the semi-canon video games for extra tales here and there -

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1281972...-The-Great-Web

[Mister Mets]

Sure. Heck, I would argue that the two decades it was in play would point to it being very viable, under whatever the right factors would be.



Yeah, I think that gets into a lot of personal opinion of the people in question discussing it. I very much like the idea of the story going to family of some kind, others don't. I know a guy here who loved Spider-Man being a CEO like Iron Man, while I have loathe the very idea's existence (note, to be clear, the idea, not the creators who made it, not the readers who liked it, just that I do not like the premise in and of itself).

A messy aspect is that when we're talking about the long-term prospects of the series it shouldn't be based on personal opinion or what we want to see as individuals. It's a more of an objective standard, and should be treated as such. There is typically overlap since many people believe that what they want to see also happens to be what makes the most financial sense, but it's possible to enjoy something that would be a poor decision from a business sense (something that brings changes that you'll like that is unpopular or brings a series to a satisfying conclusion killing the golden goose), or to be turned off by something that makes financial sense.

Post OMD Spider-man had some okay stories and it does make one wonder what would have occured in those stories if the Marriage remained as it was ???

The question of what the books would be like if the marriage had stuck around is an interesting counterfactual, because there would probably have been some kind of change in the status quo to shake things up and that would be different without Brand New Day functioning as that kind of change. Perhaps Marvel would have still opted to go forward with the unmasking (it did initially occur because they knew OMD was coming but you could imagine them reaching that approach anyway), and sticking around with it longer (Back in Black was immensely popular but it was a last-minute decision after they already started work on BND). In that case, their back to basics approach would have come a bit later, when some of the creative team might have been unavailable. And that's going to have all sorts of effects (IE- the germ of Superior Spider-Man occurred when Slott considered the implications of a scene from ASM 600; Perhaps he would have still been on the book and come up with the exact same idea but perhaps someone would have come up with a different change during the All New All Different Marvel reboot.) Without the end of the marriage, there might not the death of the Ultimate Peter Parker, which led to the creation of Miles Morales and the crossovers with Spider-Men from other dimensions. The one thing I'd bet for sure is that we wouldn't have a consistent status quo for over a decade, because that's never been the case. Change is the one constant.

[Aura Blaize]

I hate OMD. As a story, it was pretty bad and downright insulting. However I like what's come after it. I wasn't one of those people who stopped reading in protest and BND had some pretty amazing stories. And for as much as I hated OMD, I was one of those people who hoped they wouldn't restore everything with magic or whatever. They made this mess, now they should live with it. Now here we are over a decade later and I don't even think of OMD or what happened.

[Miles To Go]

I hate OMD. As a story, it was pretty bad and downright insulting. However I like what's come after it. I wasn't one of those people who stopped reading in protest and BND had some pretty amazing stories. And for as much as I hated OMD, I was one of those people who hoped they wouldn't restore everything with magic or whatever

But this reality only came about through magic

Over a decade later, and the marriage stuck around in other mediums, and Peter and MJ are back together in the main book now, so OMD and all the crap afterwards didn't achieve much of anything.

[Noronha]

Occasionally.

There have been a couple of good stories but overall, personally, it has never been or felt the same thing.

It doesn't feel like the same story, same characters, same world.

The truth is, something broke and remains broken

[NC_Yankee]

Occasionally.

There have been a couple of good stories but overall, personally, it has never been your felt the same thing.

It doesn't feel like the same story, same characters, same world.

The truth is, something broke and remains broken

That is exactly right. There were some good stories post-OMD, but basically Spider-Man under Slott was like a broken clock: Correct twice a day. Spencer is "Fixing that clock." Does it mean it is as good as new ( like under Ditko, Lee & Romita)? No but it is a lot better.

[Miles To Go]

Occasionally.

There have been a couple of good stories but overall, personally, it has never been your felt the same thing.

It doesn't feel like the same story, same characters, same world.

The truth is, something broke and remains broken

No greater example than when Curt talks to Peter about kids in "Hunted", and Peter says he never had any.

Yes, you did. Your wife carried one inside of her for months before Norman took her from you. You felt it kick inside her womb, you gave up your costumed life to help her carry the baby to term. You do know everything about that responsibility. The greatest responsibility.

Whenever people say "everything still happened" and don't cite something like this, I get hot.

This isn't the same reality. It's in a better state than how it'd previously been, but the same continuity? No, and never will be for as long as this farce goes unchallenged where it counts...with a firm and final resolution.

[WebLurker]

i think all it might show is that marriage/family alone isn’t enough to establish an au spider title

Sure. I mean, RYV started strong, but it did seem to loose focus as the creative teams shifted and I really wonder if that's what killed it.

it doesn’t really prove how it would affect 616 sales if it became the status quo

Yeah, we really can't prove "what ifs."

A messy aspect is that when we're talking about the long-term prospects of the series it shouldn't be based on personal opinion or what we want to see as individuals. It's a more of an objective standard, and should be treated as such. There is typically overlap since many people believe that what they want to see also happens to be what makes the most financial sense, but it's possible to enjoy something that would be a poor decision from a business sense (something that brings changes that you'll like that is unpopular or brings a series to a satisfying conclusion killing the golden goose), or to be turned off by something that makes financial sense.

Can agree with that.

[Miles To Go]

Sure. I mean, RYV started strong, but it did seem to loose focus as the creative teams shifted and I really wonder if that's what killed it.

Devoted audiences don't grow overnight. It takes time, and RYV didn't have any because of the creative shift and the immediate new status quo, as well as the editorial meddling which drove Gerry off the book. Multiple factors contributed to that audience diminishing.

[phantom1592]

I liked it because I didn't tie my enjoyment of Spidey to his marriage. I am first and foremost a Peter fan regardless of MJ's presence, its almost as if some want to position MJ as the center or foundation of the Spider mythos. And I don't like how some seem to think he's somehow lesser or incomplete without her. No one would ever apply that to a female character, being lesser because she has no love interest. Wheather he's married or not should not matter, it does not define him and if MJ is in the picture or not should not matter. If her presence is a deal breaker then maybe its more about being MJ fans than Peter fans.

This.

There was always more media without a marriage then there was with. Betty Brant in the early Stan lee days... Then Gwen dominated his 'best of' stories... The amazing Friends cartoon, the 70's live action series/movies , the 90's cartoon had MJ but they weren't married. Spectacular cartoon, Ultimate comics and cartoon had MJ, but he dated other girls too (for some reason I REALLY liked PEter with Kitty Pryde) The Raimi movies were leading up to the wedding, and quit right when it happened, and the two reboots since had no MJ at all...

And honestly I loved MOST of those interpretations. I was reading in the 90's where they WERE married, and honestly it was a drag. She was constantly fretting about his danger... or if he was spending too much time with Black Cat... or whether Venom or some random stalker was going get her... He was constantly yelling about how he HAD to do this... and then complain about her smoking... It wasn't FUN. It is what it is... but I never once considered it MANDATORY to the Spider-franchise.

I hate OMD. As a story, it was pretty bad and downright insulting. However I like what's come after it. I wasn't one of those people who stopped reading in protest and BND had some pretty amazing stories. And for as much as I hated OMD, I was one of those people who hoped they wouldn't restore everything with magic or whatever. They made this mess, now they should live with it. Now here we are over a decade later and I don't even think of OMD or what happened.

Agree with all of this. I used to tell people BND was TONS of fun and I was loving everything about it... but still HATED the road they took to get there. It was a bad, terrible, stupid setup... but when the dust cleared, I did like the new status quo. Though I also hated how they had to mess with the whole foundation and nobody knew WHAT happened or HOW anymore... Not enough written in stone, but it was still Spider-man to me.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

This. There was always more media without a marriage then there was with.

You're forgetting the video games, almost every Spider-Man video game from the end of the '80s to just before the Raimi trilogy tie-ins, and even then after that you had a couple of games showing them married. There's more video games with Peter and MJ married then with Aunt May appearing or Peter being in high school. And you are forgetting the Oscar winning movie ITSV which features two, not one but two, married Spider-Man.

Until Weisman's Spectacular Spider-Man there had never been one cartoon showing Peter as a high schooler. All the Spider-Man cartoons since 1967 to the MTV Cartoon showed Peter in college as an adult. Since Spectacular, and since the Disney buyout, Spider-Man appears exclusively as a teenager in cartoons put out by Disney. So just because the media showed things a certain way doesn't indicate or mean that it should or could always be that way since now Marvel and others are trying to push that "Spider-Man should always be a high-schooler and it was a mistake to send him to college". "More media without a marriage" is true of Lois Lane and Superman too. But a lot of people want them married but don't want Spider-Man and MJ married. So that kind of argument doesn't make sense.

[

]Betty Brant in the early Stan lee days... Then Gwen dominated his 'best of' stories...[

]

Even back in the Betty Brant days, MJ was set-up and first mentioned in ASM#15 as the girl Peter should marry. That's there in the Lee-Ditko days. MJ was far more popular than Gwen in that period to the point that MJ first appeared in the 1967 cartoon while Gwen was a no-show, and this when Gwen was alive. MJ appeared alongside Peter and Jameson opposite Superman, Clark, and Morgan Edge in Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man the first inter-company crossover, a best-seller, and a classic. The story ends with a double date as Peter, MJ, Clark and Lois walk out like Guys and Dolls, which basically equates MJ to Lois. More than any other love interest, Mary Jane appeared consistently and cameo'd numerous times in other non-marvel titles. Even when Gwen was alive.

[phantom1592]

You're forgetting the video games, almost every Spider-Man video game from the end of the '80s to just before the Raimi trilogy tie-ins, and even then after that you had a couple of games showing them married. There's more video games with Peter and MJ married then with Aunt May appearing or Peter being in high school. And you are forgetting the Oscar winning movie ITSV which features two, not one but two, married Spider-Man.

Wasn't one of those spider-men divorced? Not sure that's a very good point.

I didn't play a LOT of the video games and I actually beat fewer of them. There was the first Genesis one that I really liked. The playstation one then the Raimi movie tie ins.. The SNES version with the X-Men that SUCKED... but no MJ there I'm pretty sure. If MJ was in any of those games she wasn't very integral to the story and certainly not focused on the marriage. (MAYBE Maximum Carnage... that story took place during the married years, but I never got that far in it.)

Until Weisman's Spectacular Spider-Man there had never been one cartoon showing Peter as a high schooler. All the Spider-Man cartoons since 1967 to the MTV Cartoon showed Peter in college as an adult. Since Spectacular, and since the Disney buyout, Spider-Man appears exclusively as a teenager in cartoons put out by Disney. So just because the media showed things a certain way doesn't indicate or mean that it should or could always be that way since now Marvel and others are trying to push that "Spider-Man should always be a high-schooler and it was a mistake to send him to college". "More media without a marriage" is true of Lois Lane and Superman too. But a lot of people want them married but don't want Spider-Man and MJ married. So that kind of argument doesn't make sense.

I hear ya... I'm sick to death of high school Pete. MY Spider-man was always the college age version. Still dating and going to parties... Still dealing with responsibility of taking care of May and classes and a job... but not a case of criminal child negligence if he sneaks out to fight crime. My core Spider-man came from Amazing Friends and the 90's cartoon. So yeah, I can live with him being married.. and I can live with him being not-married.

For that matter I also preferred a Lois who was constantly trying to prove clark was superman as opposed to happily married and raising a kid. No hypocrisy here. I actually prefer Superman single.

For that matter, there are a few characters that I DO feel that a marriage is part of their core. Black Bolt and Medusa... Reed Richards and Sue Storm. We may see them dating... but their core iconic characters have always been together.

Even back in the Betty Brant days, MJ was set-up and first mentioned in ASM#15 as the girl Peter should marry. That's there in the Lee-Ditko days. MJ was far more popular than Gwen in that period to the point that MJ first appeared in the 1967 cartoon while Gwen was a no-show, and this when Gwen was alive. MJ appeared alongside Peter and Jameson opposite Superman, Clark, and Morgan Edge in Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man the first inter-company crossover, a best-seller, and a classic. The story ends with a double date as Peter, MJ, Clark and Lois walk out like Guys and Dolls, which basically equates MJ to Lois. More than any other love interest, Mary Jane appeared consistently and cameo'd numerous times in other non-marvel titles. Even when Gwen was alive.

Yeah, she was around a lot in the comics and stuff... but she was also NOT around a lot too. I just checked a 'top 25 Spider-Man stories' list https://www.cbr.com/greatest-spider-man-stories/ and Kraven's last Hunt was the only one in the top 10 that she was there for. Maximum Carnage and Venom's first appearance show up deeper in the list. But there are SOOO many like Hobgoblin Saga and Nothing can stop Juggernaut and kid who collects Spider-man that really dig deep into who Peter is and What Spider-man is all about... and the marriage isn't there.

Superman and Reed Richards can't say that. Superman had a lot of girlfriends too... but Lois was there from the beginning and never REALLY had any competition. Most of the Lori lemarus or Lana Lang stuff was always in the past of an imaginary tale. It was always Lois and Clark forever... But I do think the journey was a lot more fun than the destination.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Wasn't one of those spider-men divorced? Not sure that's a very good point.

A divorce he made over his wife's objections and became a worse person for it as everyone in-universe from Miles to Aunt May acknowledges. It's a good point that a married Spider-Man fits the character more than a divorced or single one does.

For that matter, there are a few characters that I DO feel that a marriage is part of their core. Black Bolt and Medusa... Reed Richards and Sue Storm. We may see them dating... but their core iconic characters have always been together.

In the case of Reed and Sue, not all the cartoons had them married. The three live-action films -- the Tim Story FF and the Josh Trank one -- had them as broken-up exes at the start of FF1, while the wedding is something we see at the end of FF2:Rise of Silver Surfer. The Josh Trank one had teenage versions of the FF. But you know, a superhero-superheroine marriage is pretty conventional for Marvel.

Spider-Man and MJ are the only superhero/civilian marriage in Marvel, which is more common in DC, so that makes it more unique and exceptional, and so worthy to maintain.

Yeah, she was around a lot in the comics and stuff... but she was also NOT around a lot too. I just checked a 'top 25 Spider-Man stories' list https://www.cbr.com/greatest-spider-man-stories/ and Kraven's last Hunt was the only one in the top 10 that she was there for.

I think you are confusing or at least not separating, appearances by Mary Jane and stories with the marriage. In that list of 25 [which by the way is separate from an earlier CBR list with (https://www.cbr.com/50-greatest-spid...-stories-10-6/) stories] MJ is there in The Night Gwen Stacy Died, KLH, Spider-Man No More. She appears in those stories in top 10.

Across the entire 25 in that list you put out, the following stories takes place during the marriage (KLH, Coming Home, The Conversation, Back in Black, Marvel Knights: Spider-Man, Venom, Maximum Carnage, Spider-Man Blue, Best of Enemies). That's 9. Spider-Verse is an ambiguous example since as a crossover with different AU Spider-Man, some of the Spiders we see did marry MJ. If you add in just MJ's appearances without marriage you have stories like (Night Gwen Stacy Died, Spider-Man No More, Spider-Island, The Hobgoblin Saga) from 616, with the one USM story (Death of Spider-Man) also featuring an AU version of her. So some 15 stories in that list feature MJ (both single and married). The stories that figure high in that list without her are mostly stuff that was written before her first real appearance (AF#15, ASM Annual #1, If this be my destiny).

Across all of Spider-Man's publication history in 616, Spider-Man's most common recurring characters are Jameson and Mary Jane. That was true before the marriage as well. So yeah randomly you can find Spider-Man stories without MJ, but it's not the case that random is representative. Randomly you can find the Superman comic where he travelled back in time in the Silver Age and tricked the Natives into selling the land that became Metropolis.