Addressing the spandexed elephant in the room - Spencer and the Spider-Marriage

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

I hope you guys like walls of text, because this surely is a wall of text. But a sourced wall of text, so it's not like all of it just came out of nowhere and such.

This is a subject that is likely not going away anytime soon. With both sides remarkably silent on the matter, I just figured to compile as much info as possible and lay down the case as to what I think happened and how it probably was intended to play out. Yes, this isn't 100% factual or anything and I'm not going to claim it is, but I'll present all the data and you guys decide whether you agree with it, or think I'm full of crap.

If I am to start out this article keeping your attention, yes, I believe Marvel meant to at the very least adress One More Day with Spencer's run, and I'm going to expand on why I believe that was the case.

Maybe we should start right off the bat with the question on everybody's mouthes.

Did Spencer's run go through changes?
In a list of questions that are increasingly going to get less and less clear-cut answers, yes, Spencer's run did. It is not the "gotcha" you think it might be.



Ben Reilly was supposed to be in "Last Remains". Peter was also supposed to meet up with Matt Murdock in jail shortly after that arc concluded. All that remains of these intended plot threads are breakdowns by Mark Bagley. Spider-Man editor Nick Lowe referenced this, saying Ben "ALMOST" was in Last Remains in an editorial.

Why were these cut out?
There are a couple of likely explanations. "Last Remains" picked up after "Sins Rising", and "Sins Rising" was delayed due to the Covid pandemic breakout. During this time, Marvel even ordered a "pencils down" period as they - and the world at large - learned how to deal with the pandemic. Whether Marvel lost faith in extending "Last Remains" with a possible "Order of the Web" spin-off due to market uncertainty, or some other factor entirely, is mostly our guess.

"Some other factor entirely" might just be Substack
Spencer's interviews about the book seemed to always have the notion of a long run - in light of Slott's near decade long run, maybe something comparable, even if not the same length. He'd talk about how "the first year" of the series would change gears halfway through and whatnot. It seemed a little curious when he said "Sinister War" was the "home stretch of his run" in April 2021.

One way or another, it does seem like everyone at the time was surprised Spencer was leaving the title "early", to put it that way, according to insiders. Then, we found out Spencer was leaving Marvel altogether for Substack, not just leaving Amazing Spider-Man. This suggests Spencer's story was cut in scope overall, and the plot threads dealing with One More Day were reshuffled towards Sins Past at the very last minute.

This video has a comprehensive breakdown on what Substack is. As it so happens, Spencer reached out to Substack on what was likely the "pencils down" period of the pandemic, where anyone involved in the comic industry likely suffered heavy financial losses.

[Spencer] said he approached Chris Best, a Substack founder, with the idea last year, when the pandemic was keeping many fans out of the comic book shops and the creators were looking for new ways to connect with readers.

Spencer ended up becoming "liaison" between creatives like Johnathan Hickman and James Tynion IV to Substack itself.

If you're wondering "why hop over to Substack", in the words of Tynion himself:

"And then I received another contract. The best I’ve ever been given in a decade as a professional comic book writer."

The timing matches when Spencer's pacing became a bit more erratic, to put it that way, instead of allowing disparate subplots and Kindred to breathe more organically. Per Lowe's admission in a different editorial, Beyond was already being planned as far as late 2020, nearly a full year before Spencer's run actually concluded.

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

So what supports One More Day not being a red herring, and then taken away?
Let's split it into subtopics.

1. "Setting the Message"
Pop culture "news" sites are basically dictated by "access media". This isn't some damning backroom dealing I'm blowing the lid on by far - when Disney Star Wars was the internet's choice of $#!7storm a while ago, some sites literally admitted on camera sometimes "you have to look the other way" to keep your privileges of advance previews and whatnot. Part of the exchange is that the IP holders can expect the media coverage to not veer off-script too much, especially when dealing with previews and hype. Things like actual reviews and such are untouched more often than not.

But the important bit here is how they're used as a PR arm to set the message. Just recently, we had the debut of "Chasm" in Amazing Spider-Man, and most of everybody didn't know what to make of it. Is he a villain? Is he an antihero? Is he getting his own ongoing?

Newsarama and CBR themselves had articles in short order using all the same words Marvel would go on to use on their own official article - "archenemy", "terrifying", "new member of the rogues gallery". If you go back and check, the track record is damn near pristine for any run or subject of your choice - another one is how after there was some outrage over a Spider-Woman variant cover, sites began running articles decrying the styles of designs figured in said magazine, and soon Spider-Woman debuted a new (now decommissioned) outfit.

If you're wondering why I'm bringing this up, it's because shortly before Spencer's run even started, articles such as these began to make the rounds.

Marvel Needs To Undo One More Day - Or Stop Trolling Spider-Man Fans
https://www.cbr.com/spider-man-one-m...op-trolling/1/

2. Previous signs
Running parallel to that, while he was still head writer on Amazing Spider-Man, Dan Slott spent a couple days arguing how the Spider-marriage would never ever return.

This is interesting to mention because, unlike popular belief, Slott was the one who started dropping breadcrumbs about Mephisto and MJ possibly rekindling her relationship with Peter, before Spencer. An often forgotten panel of "Go Down Swinging"'s prologue has Peter clearly reference Mephisto. Also interesting to mention is Slott's own -I guess you might call it "showmanship"- which some might recall from the Superior Spider-Man days; how Peter was ultimately, completely gone, and wouldn't come back. Or how after reiterating Ben Reilly was gone for good, he only replied to comment about "being lied to" with "Sorry you fell for my lie".



When you want to hype people for an upcoming storyline or catch them off-guard, there is no denying that's a valid tactic. If someone is in favor or against it naturally varies from person to person.

3. Upper Management woes?
A regular impediment people usually bring up in regards to the marriage making a return is "Quesada wouldn't allow it". This notion, whether backed up by reality or not, has been taken care of with the fact Quesada was positioned as literally the person telling Nick Spencer to get Peter and MJ back together.

Spencer, like many fans, assumed rules were in place to keep Peter Parker and Mary Jane apart. Quesada told him that was never Marvel’s intention when they decided to erase Spider-Man’s marriage to Mary Jane from continuity years ago, during the Spider-Man “One More Day” story.

It was really kind of a happy accident. I had already outlined the first issue, and we all felt really good about it, but I could not shake the feeling that something was missing. So I had dinner with Joe Quesada. We were just talking about the book in general, and in a roundabout way the subject of Peter and MJ came up. So we started talking about them and Joe threw out the idea of getting them back together.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear him suggest that, and as soon as he said it I could instantly see how bringing back that relationship would improve some story threads I had set up. So, once we saw how well that plugged into our long term plans we were off to the races.

Like when Marvel went all in with character replacements after Hickman's Secret Wars concluded, they could always say that was just "act two" of a story that "was always planned this way" and that now it's time for things to go full circle.

4. Bloody nose
Quesada's immediate reaction to the One More Day backlash was to try to establish that Mary Jane "found a loophole" in Mephisto's terms and so the deal never took place - despite the actual consequence of the deal, that is, single Spider-Man, remaining firmly in place.

“MJ unknowingly beat Mephisto at his own game. By agreeing to MJ’s terms, Mephisto has actually wiped himself from ever having been involved in their lives. In fact, looking at it linearly, those four issues never happened. Along with the wedding, “One More Day” and Mephisto have been wiped out of continuity and Peter and MJ never made that bargain.

Ooooooh, me hears something breaking.”

So, for a while, you really had no Mephisto storybeats in any Spider-verse whatsoever.



However, after Kelly's Spider-Man/Deadpool run, Mephisto was firmly established as an influential figure in Peter Parker's life. "Mephisto was never there" was acknowledged as "Mephisto took something away from Peter". The denial (such as it were) became a bloody nose, because it's never a "good look" to have your company's flagship character having made a deal with the devil. Spencer's run didn't even say it concluded that story, as well: we had a Sins Past pivot, but the run literally ended with Mephisto clarifying why was he meddling with Spiders for a while now.

So, what happened?
Marvel and Spencer remain pretty tight-lipped about this whole affair. The closest thing to an "official" word is what Bleeding Cool posted, and that site is more about the clicks than anything else - though, naturally, they have a reasonable share of insiders themselves. Their article on the "supposed pivot" also contains weasel-wording, like implying addressing One More Day was never the goal, and then saying "if it was, it wasn't going to happen". Either it wasn't meant to be, or something changed along the way.

While it may have got to the ending quicker than planned, missing out much of the structural twists Nick Spencer had pitched, his using One More Day as red herring to deal with Sin's Past and then bring One More Day back again was always the plan. Kindred was always Sarah and Gabriel, the AI Harry Osborn was always the one in charge and they were always Mephisto's champions. Looks like he'll have to have someone else to play with now. So Nick Spencer may not have been allowed to reverse the events of One More Day as he might have wanted to, but that was always the case at Marvel rather than a sudden reversal of policy…

For what's worth, BC's article corroborates Spencer left much sooner than intended. The Substack deal is more than likely what happened.

So what do you suggest happened?

This is the part where we have to make the most conjecture, so it's definitely the one part I'll preface by saying as much. It is my belief Marvel had every last intention of letting Spencer acknowledge - maybe, but that's a whole lot of 'maybes' here, even retcon - One More Day at issue #900.

Comic milestones have become a go-to strategy for the company, and the renumberings and LGY numbering basically amount to having as many #1, #25, #50, #75s and higher counts as possible. It'd make sense for a story that has become so synonymous (and reviled) with the character would be addressed only at such intervals of times to maximize gains.

However, with Spencer setting up shop elsewhere at a would-be competitor, you might imagine how they wouldn't be too pleased with Spencer leaving as "the guy who fixed even Spider-Man's marriage".

It also would make sense for Spencer, coming off Secret Empire, which we will charitably regard as "mildly controversial", to "reposition" his image as a "pallate cleanser" as opposed to an "iconoclast" (for want of a better word), if he were to stick around writing super-heroes for a long while. You couldn't get any better than undoing One More Day for that, but, under this track of thought, it was a two-way street, and Marvel would require Spencer to stay until the big milestone.

As it is, it seems like Marvel trying to at least get the idea out that "OMD was never getting addressed anyway" is a measure to "save some face" overall, and try to come out better than "denying Spencer something" - though both parties denied each other something in the process, but I'll hardly begrudge Spencer for securing his financial future as opposed to Spider-Man bragging rights, to be honest.

If this is indeed the case, we can count on never getting an official word about it. Pop culture politics are often shrouded in either non-verbal agreements or actual NDAs.

Do you think Marvel is going to still try to address it in some capacity in #900? Drag it out to #1000? Address it at all?

[Matt Rat]

Do you think Marvel is going to still try to address it in some capacity in #900? Drag it out to #1000? Address it at all?

Marvel are releasing a Wedding Album hardcover trade in August, ASM#900 comes out in June. Not saying everything syncs up, but I'm expecting something to connect to that release.

Spencer was still allowed to reveal something about Mephisto's involvement with Peter, that in the future he is beaten either by him or by a red-headed Mayday. This sequence of events is not in the order one might believe could come from a successful deal. If Mayday were erased from canon, it would have just been Peter making the final stand against Mephisto in that future, but instead things change to Mayday.

The current volume of ASM, a book which was built off of the renewed relations between Peter and MJ, ends with the two deciding to move in together again at MJ's prompting, before they are swiftly interrupted by yet another supernatural being, who's prescence and purpose will test and strain their relationship in the relaunch just as they commit to it.

I think Marvel will still address OMD, but they're letting Wells tell an altogether different story for it. One unique to him. Spencer chose a hopeful route, with MJ holding Peter's hand through unrelenting personal strife, Wells is choosing to put Peter through more heartache and visceral pain, shaking MJ's faith in him, perhaps suggesting that she may have to go through further learning curves if she is to commit fully to Peter...does she really know his soul as well as she thinks she does?

[HypnoHustler]

Good write-up. You certainly did your homework. I’m not sure it’s such a terrible thing that Reilly was cut from LR. He probably would’ve been lost in the shuffle of the half-dozen other spider-themed sidekicks that appeared and probably wouldn’t have had any meaningful interactions with Peter. But who knows? I doubt Spencer cares to discuss what his role would’ve been. Maybe he was cut because Spencer felt the ‘Order’ was already too stuffed, or maybe they had the idea of bringing Ben back for Beyond as early as LR and wanted to keep their powder dry for that. Or maybe it’s as simple as him appearing in Cantwell’s Iron-Man around the same time and thought it would be confusing to have those appearances overlap… probably not as the end of him in IM then overlapped with the beginning of Beyond, but my point is there’s a lot of different possibilities.

Good write-up on the Mephisto mess too. I feel like I’ve said all I care to about that subject though. I thought that Kelly issue was pretty ballsy at the time. I miss that SM/DP series, the first year or so of it was quite decent. Then fell off a bit, from what I recall.

[Webhead]

Nice analysis. I'd also bring attention to the fact that Spencer's run was both all-encompassing with regards to continuity and a tribute to the Peter/MJ relationship right to the last page. The awkward handling of OMD on the last issue seems a contradiction both in terms of the previous messages and of the nature of a very continuity-dense journey. After all, Peter's "sin" ended up being forgetting about the twins... and the book leaning into the fourth wall frequently just forces you to acknowledge he forgot about something much more important.

[Grapeweasel]

I just came here to see the elephant.

[federicodettofred]

I made a similar topic some time ago and I completely agree with you. It's as clear as the sun that Spencer's plans were changed, especially in the last issues where Sarah and Gabriel come out of the blue and Peter's mysterious "sins" are never brought up again.

[Lunala]

Honest answer: I have no clue where he was going, but I also think he was preparing to undo OMD. Sins Past would have likely also been retconned, but (probably) differently.

Much of his work involved correcting canon he felt was broken, so...

Crack reply: The Mephisto gunning for the Parker marriage was Earth-982 Norman, who somehow managed to gain Mephisto's abilities. Mayday can't help Normie end the cycle of abuse if she gets wiped out of existence. Present Osborn was silver age Norman resurrected by fake Mephisto with a demonic taint on his already hateful soul. Ben is revealed to have also returned in this manner. It wasn't the torture that altered him. It was the devilish resurrection. Because Ben Reilly was a better person than Osborn ever was, the post-rebirth hellish energies didn't make him nearly as wicked. Harry Lyman was always a clone, but he would have lived. Eventually, Lyman and Liz would've reconciled what they know of themselves, their marriage, and their newly unveiled reality. The arc ends with imitation Mephisto defeated, the Parker marriage restored, OG Harry freed, and Sarah, Gabriel, current Osborn, and probably Ben, dead... until some future writer decided to use them.

[Lukmendes]

While I can't say for sure that Kindred was always planned to be Sarah and Gabriel, it is worth pointing out that since the earliest issues, Kindred's coats changed colors:

https://imgur.com/a/dvNr5aQ

There is a weird time there was a white colored coat too, which kinda makes me wonder if there's a third Kindred running around .

But yeah, this can line up with Bleeding Cool saying that Kindred was always an evil AI Harry controlling Sarah and Gabriel, plus, Kindred being two people can explain how Carlie got kidnapped despite it happening while the other Kindred was imprisoned.

There is also a scene in ASM#850 that shows purple Kindred in front of a grave, the next issue changes that to brown Kindred, and while it could look like a plot hole, ASM#60 shows purple Kindred in front of a grave again... In Sins Rising itself, the artists were consistent about which Kindred's colors are shown in flashbacks too.

There are goofs about which Kindred is where (Brown Kindred is the one imprisoned, that randomly changes to purple in ASM#64 and #65, then back to brown, the one who talked with Fisk when Fisk was trying to find a way to resurrect Richard is changed from brown to purple, Sinister War#1 shows brown Kindred as the one who threatened Quentin back in ASM#25 when those scenes only use purple Kindred, and the Kindred who got the Chameleon formula from Chameleon is brown in Chameleon Conspiracy and purple in ASM#72), but noticeably all of these goofs only happened after Last Remains.

[wleakr]

Assuming Spencer's goal was to "undo" OMD, he most likely knew and pitched that from the very beginning of his run and it would've been approved or not at that point. Maybe some minor changes occurred through his run, but I think trying to uncover his goal was a major change that was scuttled is just chasing for answers in an attempt to make his story sensible.

I also have a hard time making the leap that he cared much for a Peter/MJ relationship when most of his run dealt with Peter sharing an apartment with roommates and chumming with Boomerang almost til the end of the run.

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

I think Marvel will still address OMD, but they're letting Wells tell an altogether different story for it. One unique to him. Spencer chose a hopeful route, with MJ holding Peter's hand through unrelenting personal strife, Wells is choosing to put Peter through more heartache and visceral pain, shaking MJ's faith in him, perhaps suggesting that she may have to go through further learning curves if she is to commit fully to Peter...does she really know his soul as well as she thinks she does?

I think the "things we're not telling you" from the relaunch we've heard about in the solicits will be a continuation of Spencer's plot threads, too. If I had to guess, Sinister Adaptoid will be Harry's doing (since we know Norman is around deGoblinized, going "Harry is alive? Again?!" is bound to be more of a shock ending). But hey, watch my guess be completely wrong when it comes down to it - I'm sure used to that!

Good write-up. You certainly did your homework.

Nice analysis.

Thanks!

I just came here to see the elephant.

Glad you asked. It's a 74-issue run that had so many one shots and Giant Sizes, it's actually an over 100-issue behemoth available to you at your nearest retailer, true believer!

Crack reply: The Mephisto gunning for the Parker marriage was Earth-982 Norman, who somehow managed to gain Mephisto's abilities. Mayday can't help Normie end the cycle of abuse if she gets wiped out of existence. Present Osborn was silver age Norman resurrected by fake Mephisto with a demonic taint on his already hateful soul. Ben is revealed to have also returned in this manner. It wasn't the torture that altered him. It was the devilish resurrection. Because Ben Reilly was a better person than Osborn ever was, the post-rebirth hellish energies didn't make him nearly as wicked. Harry Lyman was always a clone, but he would have lived. Eventually, Lyman and Liz would've reconciled what they know of themselves, their marriage, and their newly unveiled reality. The arc ends with imitation Mephisto defeated, the Parker marriage restored, OG Harry freed, and Sarah, Gabriel, current Osborn, and probably Ben, dead... until some future writer decided to use them.

Y'know, I wouldn't mind seeing that being done at all, I think. More Ben death-and-returns excused,of course.

While I can't say for sure that Kindred was always planned to be Sarah and Gabriel, it is worth pointing out that since the earliest issues, Kindred's coats changed colors:

https://imgur.com/a/dvNr5aQ

There is a weird time there was a white colored coat too, which kinda makes me wonder if there's a third Kindred running around .

But yeah, this can line up with Bleeding Cool saying that Kindred was always an evil AI Harry controlling Sarah and Gabriel, plus, Kindred being two people can explain how Carlie got kidnapped despite it happening while the other Kindred was imprisoned.

There is also a scene in ASM#850 that shows purple Kindred in front of a grave, the next issue changes that to brown Kindred, and while it could look like a plot hole, ASM#60 shows purple Kindred in front of a grave again... In Sins Rising itself, the artists were consistent about which Kindred's colors are shown in flashbacks too.

There are goofs about which Kindred is where (Brown Kindred is the one imprisoned, that randomly changes to purple in ASM#64 and #65, then back to brown, the one who talked with Fisk when Fisk was trying to find a way to resurrect Richard is changed from brown to purple, Sinister War#1 shows brown Kindred as the one who threatened Quentin back in ASM#25 when those scenes only use purple Kindred, and the Kindred who got the Chameleon formula from Chameleon is brown in Chameleon Conspiracy and purple in ASM#72), but noticeably all of these goofs only happened after Last Remains.

Fun fact: when I finished writing this behemoth of an article which required 2 posts because of word count alone, this was my original ending.

I may have found a nicer way to wrap this up in a bow or something, but typing this so much already wore me out and work is giving me the stink eye. And work gives me the stink eye, it is very likely my bank account is to suffer in the short term.

I was basically thinking something is amiss, but I had to get this out of my system and get on with my life. I forgot to include another item entirely which was "the case for Spencer wanting to do this all along", and how with his Kindred-centric storylines he decided to go all out in the whole "subverting expectations" thing (I once summarized it in a different language, and boy oh boy, that was a doozy). So if he had that mindset from the beginning of his run, sure, that could count.

But I also forgot to include that I didn't think he never wanted to address Sins Past, too. I meant that the point of his entire run being Sins Past felt like the swerve (or, just maybe, the "subverted expectation" mentioned above if he wanted it this way). But he had already dropped some very explicit callbacks what with Norman's creeping on Spider-Gwen, as well as Kindred literally blurting out "Sins still remembered" in one issue before he made the move on Peter, since that was the title to Sarah's follow-up story. I think if he stayed all the way up to #900, which is what it looks like would have been the case, he would have addressed both stories. Sins Past would be a fix, granted, and OMD, maybe, just acknowledged.

Also also, my personal gut feeling is that at the start he may not have intended for two Kindreds, but after realizing there were two designs, he felt like he could get extra Sin mileage out of addressing Sins Past this way. But this is just a gut feeling with zilch to back it up, so I'll never file it under a "reasonable suspicion" like the rest of the guesses here.

I also have a hard time making the leap that he cared much for a Peter/MJ relationship when most of his run dealt with Peter sharing an apartment with roommates and chumming with Boomerang almost til the end of the run.

To be perfectly honest, I also don't view it that way. I see it more of him possibly being fond of the gesture as something that would be a 'people pleaser' (like most of his run seemed to be doing "house cleaning" with stuff fans disliked) rather than "I feel so strongly about Peter and MJ, I need to build my run around them". After all, it's Spencer himself who said Quesada was the one who suggested MJ entering the picture.

[Lukmendes]

Fun fact: when I finished writing this behemoth of an article which required 2 posts because of word count alone, this was my original ending.

I was basically thinking something is amiss, but I had to get this out of my system and get on with my life. I forgot to include another item entirely which was "the case for Spencer wanting to do this all along", and how with his Kindred-centric storylines he decided to go all out in the whole "subverting expectations" thing (I once summarized it in a different language, and boy oh boy, that was a doozy). So if he had that mindset from the beginning of his run, sure, that could count.

But I also forgot to include that I didn't think he never wanted to address Sins Past, too. I meant that the point of his entire run being Sins Past felt like the swerve (or, just maybe, the "subverted expectation" mentioned above if he wanted it this way). But he had already dropped some very explicit callbacks what with Norman's creeping on Spider-Gwen, as well as Kindred literally blurting out "Sins still remembered" in one issue before he made the move on Peter, since that was the title to Sarah's follow-up story. I think if he stayed all the way up to #900, which is what it looks like would have been the case, he would have addressed both stories. Sins Past would be a fix, granted, and OMD, maybe, just acknowledged.

Also also, my personal gut feeling is that at the start he may not have intended for two Kindreds, but after realizing there were two designs, he felt like he could get extra Sin mileage out of addressing Sins Past this way. But this is just a gut feeling with zilch to back it up, so I'll never file it under a "reasonable suspicion" like the rest of the guesses here.

Another thing that can hint at Sins Past being planned that far back was ASM#25.

In it, it's revealed that Quentin hypnotized someone else into thinking he's Mysterio, and that was used as an attempt to trick Kindred, while the intention at the time looked like it was just Mysterio being really crafty, but then this same bullshit is used to explain how MJ and Norman thought that Norman fucked Gwen.

It is possible that this was just a random moment that Spencer decided to use later though, but I doubt that, it's so specific, and this run has so many callbacks.

I think you're right that this story was supposed to solve Sins Past and, do whatever with OMD, 'cause at the end of the day, Mephisto is still the reason everything happened here, and while we get a reason for Mephisto to go after Spidey, that's, nothing new, Mephisto has given reasons to torment Spidey before, in OMD itself (Wanting to torture a hero for losing something precious, and the bullshit of "once in a lifetime love"), and in Spider-Man/Deadpool (Just the "want to torture a hero for losing something precious", which we get to see the results), so giving another reason is kinda whatever, maybe this story was gonna get rid of Kindred and have Spidey still have to do something about Mephisto, or maybe it'd just reveal what's up with Kindred and then address the deal in some other way.

I wonder if the original plan was for Harry to have been Kindred all along without the AI bullshit, but after Spencer decided to leave earlier, he made it be the AI so Harry gets that death and has his soul saved in Mephisto's game with Strange, which might've been done to "justify" Mephisto's presence to do more than just info dumps.

We might never know, I doubt Marvel is saying anything, and Spencer might be under an Non-Disclosure Agreement, so yeah...

[bob.schoonover]

My guess, and it's only a guess, as to what happened is the following: Spencer intended to undo OMD as well, with either a "maybe, let's see how it plays out" or a "yes" from editorial, and he continued on that path until Last Remains (at which point the pandemic changed something - either Spencer's willingness to stay at Marvel or editorial's willingness to follow through). In the original plan, I think the Sins Past reveal would have been the seed that started the OMD reveal - that is, upon finding out about Norman's deal with Mephisto, Peter would find out about his own (or at least that he had something wrong with his soul). Pieces of this can clearly be seen in both Last Remains and the final arc, so I think it makes too much sense not to be true (Strange and Mephisto betting on Harry's soul is entirely nonsensical in universe).

Events (other than Sinister War, which seemed more like a last item on a bucket list kind of story than an integral part of the Kindred arc) would have continued more or less as they did through issue 74, but now Peter and MJ start ASM 75 trying to figure out what happened to their souls/marriage and start a new quest to fix things (if they can). We'd then have some sort of resolution in 99 (900) with a new piece following in 100 (for example, they remember the Deal but don't undo it in 99, then get engaged in 100).

[PanicPixieDreamGirl]

I think the "things we're not telling you" from the relaunch we've heard about in the solicits will be a continuation of Spencer's plot threads, too. If I had to guess, Sinister Adaptoid will be Harry's doing (since we know Norman is around deGoblinized, going "Harry is alive? Again?!" is bound to be more of a shock ending). But hey, watch my guess be completely wrong when it comes down to it - I'm sure used to that!

Maaaaan... If that happens, I think all I'll even be able to muster up is a "Post-redemption Harry as a villain again? Groundbreaking." (tm Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada.)

[Crazyspideyfan]

Loved how put together this was, hope the discussion on this topic continues, although I loved Spencer’s run, it’s obvious something was changed towards the end. Hope Pete and MJ remember OMD soon, even if they don’t immediately get married. Everyone just wants them to have the missing parts of their memories back.