When do you expect One More Day will be undone?

[WebLurker]

People more like to talk about how things were better back then than they do actually reading them. That’s why I’m skeptical about how important the marriage is. There was no golden era to begin with.

Frankly, I take it less as being about some "golden era" and more about what people prefer content to be made from. I mean, when you get down to it, a lot of the arguments from the Marvel staff who spearheaded and/or support the OMD retcon/status quo and fans who want the marriage brought back boil down to what's the best status quo for carrying the series forward, which fits what came before better, mixed in with a little personal preference.

Long story short, I'm not sure it's so much about marriage fans wanting the comics to go back to a better era, but just wanting more material based on the version of the character they prefer and the professionals keeping the retcon in check since that's what they want to write about.

I think Editorial thinks that stuff that came later doesn't count (i.e. marriage). I mean, the marriage was technically around for longer than Gwen's existence or Peter's high school years, but they see it as a "deviation" from the beginning foundation of Spidey (and so therefore it doesn't count).

Way I see it, the people (professionals and fans) who disagree and argue over the retcon have a different fixed point where the characters "solidified" into their evergreen status, e.g. the younger adult with on-again-off-again relationships with a few different girlfriends or the only sightly-older adult who did get married and is navigating life with his partner. (Probably doesn't help that Spider-Man is iconic as both a teen superhero and an adult one, so there's already not exactly a single, universal set up for the character that transcends the franchise as a whole.

The biggest problem with that argument is that there are tons of things that came later that are now important/valid to Spidey. Uncle Ben wasn't associated with WGPCGR until the mid 1980's. Venom only showed up after the marriage. Same with Kraven's Last Hunt (a marriage story too lol). The list goes on.

And what about with other IP's? Ra's Al Ghul and Arkham didn't show up in Batman comics until the 1970's. They're both considered "essential" now. As is Damian Wayne, who only debuted this century and will be in the next Batman film (or in the one after The Batman Part II, depending on which comes out first).

The professionals will have to speak for themselves, but I kinda get the impression that many of them see Peter and MJ being an on-again-off-again dating couple as the "valid" version of their relationship, not them being in a committed marriage (consider statements from professionals that the couple dating is allowed, but not marrying, and that them as a married couple is a great "what if...?" premise but cannot be "canon" to keep the character "on brand.")

[Vortex85]

That's a weak analogy. The Lord of the Rings was designed as a singular story, with a beginning, middle and end. Spider-Man was designed as a series of stories.

In The Lord of the Rings, the action doesn't begin until Frodo leaves the Shire. In Spider-Man, Peter has dozens of adventures as a high school student.

It's not a perfect argument, and yes Spider-man goes on forever, but that doesn't mean you should limit him to one stage of his life. It's reductive, and his appeal for the first few decades of his life is that it felt like he was actually progressing and making changes. Had I picked up that comic in the 90s and saw him in high school like he was in the 60s I would have lost interest in the character in a year or two with no interest to read his history. The appeal of reading older stories was going back and seeing how he got from point A to point B in his life.

Besides, I fell in love with the character as a young adult married man who was trying to balance his life between Spider-Man and his life as Peter, and the marriage only raised the stakes and drive for him to live a life as Peter outside of being Spider-Man. Without the need to care and love someone else, it won't be long before he just gives up on being Peter and instead is Spidey all the time as all he needs is to take care of himself.

[Vortex85]

Frankly, I take it less as being about some "golden era" and more about what people prefer content to be made from. I mean, when you get down to it, a lot of the arguments from the Marvel staff who spearheaded and/or support the OMD retcon/status quo and fans who want the marriage brought back boil down to what's the best status quo for carrying the series forward, which fits what came before better, mixed in with a little personal preference.

Long story short, I'm not sure it's so much about marriage fans wanting the comics to go back to a better era, but just wanting more material based on the version of the character they prefer and the professionals keeping the retcon in check since that's what they want to write about.



Way I see it, the people (professionals and fans) who disagree and argue over the retcon have a different fixed point where the characters "solidified" into their evergreen status, e.g. the younger adult with on-again-off-again relationships with a few different girlfriends or the only sightly-older adult who did get married and is navigating life with his partner. (Probably doesn't help that Spider-Man is iconic as both a teen superhero and an adult one, so there's already not exactly a single, universal set up for the character that transcends the franchise as a whole.



The professionals will have to speak for themselves, but I kinda get the impression that many of them see Peter and MJ being an on-again-off-again dating couple as the "valid" version of their relationship, not them being in a committed marriage (consider statements from professionals that the couple dating is allowed, but not marrying, and that them as a married couple is a great "what if...?" premise but cannot be "canon" to keep the character "on brand.")

These points were spot on analysis.

I'll add one more that I have dwelled on after a guy who loved the marriage and wanted it back, is currently sick of MJ and wants to move on from her:

The problem with maintain MJ as off again / on again forever, is people will get sick of it. It's rapidly destroying her character. Nobody wants to see Spidey constantly unable to make a relationship work. And what happens when they move on to Felicia? He is stuck in the same boat and it will ruin that too. Any "true love" pairing will start to feel like a joke than a respected pairing if they keep returning to the same love interest over and over just to see if fail. Eventually the only thing to do is cycle love interest like James Bond and abandon the true love angle and just go through an endless sea of failed relationships. In that case, forget about Spider-Man ever having a strong female lead.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Frankly, I take it less as being about some "golden era" and more about what people prefer content to be made from. I mean, when you get down to it, a lot of the arguments from the Marvel staff who spearheaded and/or support the OMD retcon/status quo and fans who want the marriage brought back boil down to what's the best status quo for carrying the series forward, which fits what came before better, mixed in with a little personal preference.

Long story short, I'm not sure it's so much about marriage fans wanting the comics to go back to a better era, but just wanting more material based on the version of the character they prefer and the professionals keeping the retcon in check since that's what they want to write about.



Way I see it, the people (professionals and fans) who disagree and argue over the retcon have a different fixed point where the characters "solidified" into their evergreen status, e.g. the younger adult with on-again-off-again relationships with a few different girlfriends or the only sightly-older adult who did get married and is navigating life with his partner. (Probably doesn't help that Spider-Man is iconic as both a teen superhero and an adult one, so there's already not exactly a single, universal set up for the character that transcends the franchise as a whole.



The professionals will have to speak for themselves, but I kinda get the impression that many of them see Peter and MJ being an on-again-off-again dating couple as the "valid" version of their relationship, not them being in a committed marriage (consider statements from professionals that the couple dating is allowed, but not marrying, and that them as a married couple is a great "what if...?" premise but cannot be "canon" to keep the character "on brand.")

That's what I think too.

[Lee]

It's not a perfect argument, and yes Spider-man goes on forever, but that doesn't mean you should limit him to one stage of his life. It's reductive, and his appeal for the first few decades of his life is that it felt like he was actually progressing and making changes. Had I picked up that comic in the 90s and saw him in high school like he was in the 60s I would have lost interest in the character in a year or two with not interest to read his histroy. The appeal of reading older stories was going back and seeing how he got from point A to point B in his life.

The movies start off in high school because that's where Spider-Man's story begins. If they start off with Peter in his mid-20s then they'd be skipping past his formative years and very quickly end up passing where he is in the comics.

The cartoons and kid/teen focused comics (Ultimate Spider-Man, Marvel Adventures, Marvel Action) use the high school setting because that's the version that's most relatable to the target demographic.

Without the need to care and love someone else, it won't be long before he just gives up on being Peter and instead is Spidey all the time as all he needs is to take care of himself.

Things only happen if the creative team make them happen. That scenario would only play out if that's what the creative team wanted. It has nothing to do with him being married or not. JMS's run was when Peter's supporting cast in ASM was reduced to just May and MJ, who both knew his secret identity, then they all began living with The Avengers. That was when ASM had the least amount of "ordinary life" drama. Brand New Day went in the opposite direction, with a big focus on Peter's ordinary life and supporting cast. In both cases it was what the creative teams wanted to focus on.

[Vortex85]

The movies start off in high school because that's where Spider-Man's story begins. If they start off with Peter in his mid-20s then they'd be skipping past his formative years and very quickly end up passing where he is in the comics.

The cartoons and kid/teen focused comics (Ultimate Spider-Man, Marvel Adventures, Marvel Action) use the high school setting because that's the version that's most relatable to the target demographic.

Understand they start young to show his early life in high school first and progress from there, just like the comics. However, what sucks is seeing that over and over. There were over 600 comics with 616 married Spidey and only 28 in high school. It's a tragedy we have not seen the marriage the time of day on film. So many iconic characters and storeis happened during it, and the fact that Spider-Man was married helped those stories be way more dramatic than if he was just a kid in high school.

Things only happen if the creative team make them happen. That scenario would only play out if that's what the creative team wanted. It has nothing to do with him being married or not. JMS's run was when Peter's supporting cast in ASM was reduced to just May and MJ, who both knew his secret identity, then they all began living with The Avengers. That was when ASM had the least amount of "ordinary life" drama. Brand New Day went in the opposite direction, with a big focus on Peter's ordinary life and supporting cast. In both cases it was what the creative teams wanted to focus on.

Maybe it was just Slott then, but his run really made it feel that it's more of the Spider and less of the man. Perhaps another run I will see Peter more motivated to be Peter than during the marriage, but I have yet to see it since the marriage went away. The most I've ever seen Peter want to be Peter was when his wife was pregnant. I think the more you can give Peter to care about outside of Spdier-Man the more dramatic and soap opera the series will be.

[Lee]

I don't think they struggled for dramatic soap opera in the first 25 years.

The pregnancy was deep in the mire of the clone saga, where Peter's personal life came a distant second to outlandish super-hero plots.

[Vortex85]

I don't think they struggled for dramatic soap opera in the first 25 years.

It was ok, decent, but paled in comparison to the marriage. A lot of the early drama came from Aunt May depending on Peter. But they aren't doing that anymore. MJ as Peter's wife was a much better improvement over the drama that came from Aunt May. With his responsibility to his wife, it made the conflict of interest of being Spider-Man much stronger. This raised the stakes and created great dilemma's for the character. That's a big part of the reason I argue for the marriage... it enhanced the best selling point of the character, the strugglle between being Spider-Man and wanting to live a successful life as Peter. Peter needs to have a strong motivation for the latter and I feel that has been lacking severely since OMD.

The pregnancy was deep in the mire of the clone saga, where Peter's personal life came a distant second to outlandish super-hero plots.

That was only a couple dumb story arcs like Maxium Clonage to extend the era because it was SELLING SO WELL. You know why it sold so well? The Clone saga was dramatic through the roof! The stakes had never been higher for Peter Parker and I've never seen him so motiviated. If you ignore the dumpster arcs they got carried away with to extend it, the soap opera and drama of the clone saga is amazing. THAT is the kind of character Spider-Man should be. I don't know how anyone can look at the clone saga and say Peter's personal life came a distant second, all it was motivated on was getting his happily ever after with MJ. Peter has never had so much motivation to improve and even live a normal life as during that saga.

[WebLurker]

These points were spot on analysis.

Thanks.

I'll add one more that I have dwelled on after a guy who loved the marriage and wanted it back, is currently sick of MJ and wants to move on from her:

The problem with maintain MJ as off again / on again forever, is people will get sick of it. It's rapidly destroying her character. Nobody wants to see Spidey constantly unable to make a relationship work. And what happens when they move on to Felicia? He is stuck in the same boat and it will ruin that too. Any "true love" pairing will start to feel like a joke than a respected pairing if they keep returning to the same love interest over and over just to see if fail. Eventually the only thing to do is cycle love interest like James Bond and abandon the true love angle and just go through an endless sea of failed relationships. In that case, forget about Spider-Man ever having a strong female lead.

It doesn't help, but I guess I'm kinda able to ignore the in-universe problem with the on-again-off-again nature of things due to how much I know r.e. the behind-the-scenes nature of things. It's an enforced editorial mandate, so I don't really expect internal story logic where these things are concerned, continuity in long-running comics is loose at the best of times (esp. with "Depending on the Author" being in full effect), the sliding timescale means that realistic progression is more or less an illusion (like how there's no way that all the 616 canon Spidey stories fit in the timeframe that they're set in), and the indefinite duration of the series meaning that stuff will cycle and repeat even with the best of intentions. (Heck, all I can really see in post-OMD ASM is Peter and MJ as being subjected to the same thing Neo andTrinity were in The Matrix Resurrections rather than the internal story itself.)

All that said, I do kinda wonder if it's best to let 616 be a lost cause and just let Marvel have it to create their "perfect system" (to borrow a Tron quote); Peter/MJ is the status quo of practically everything else, anyways and, between Spider-Girl and Renew Your Vows, most of the pre-OMD stuff is is preserved as canon to those universes, anyways.

[marhawkman]

It was ok, decent, but paled in comparison to the marriage. A lot of the early drama came from Aunt May depending on Peter. But they aren't doing that anymore. MJ as Peter's wife was a much better improvement over the drama that came from Aunt May. With his responsibility to his wife, it made the conflict of interest of being Spider-Man much stronger. This raised the stakes and created great dilemma's for the character. That's a big part of the reason I argue for the marriage... it enhanced the best selling point of the character, the strugglle between being Spider-Man and wanting to live a successful life as Peter. Peter needs to have a strong motivation for the latter and I feel that has been lacking severely since OMD.



That was only a couple dumb story arcs like Maxium Clonage to extend the era because it was SELLING SO WELL. You know why it sold so well? The Clone saga was dramatic through the roof! The stakes had never been higher for Peter Parker and I've never seen him so motiviated. If you ignore the dumpster arcs they got carried away with to extend it, the soap opera and drama of the clone saga is amazing. THAT is the kind of character Spider-Man should be. I don't know how anyone can look at the clone saga and say Peter's personal life came a distant second, all it was motivated on was getting his happily ever after with MJ. Peter has never had so much motivation to improve and even live a normal life as during that saga.

and then you throw in stuff like Carolyn Trainer and her incredibly personal motives to make it even more complicated!

[Spider-Tiger]

Frankly, I take it less as being about some "golden era" and more about what people prefer content to be made from. I mean, when you get down to it, a lot of the arguments from the Marvel staff who spearheaded and/or support the OMD retcon/status quo and fans who want the marriage brought back boil down to what's the best status quo for carrying the series forward, which fits what came before better, mixed in with a little personal preference.

Long story short, I'm not sure it's so much about marriage fans wanting the comics to go back to a better era, but just wanting more material based on the version of the character they prefer and the professionals keeping the retcon in check since that's what they want to write about.



Way I see it, the people (professionals and fans) who disagree and argue over the retcon have a different fixed point where the characters "solidified" into their evergreen status, e.g. the younger adult with on-again-off-again relationships with a few different girlfriends or the only sightly-older adult who did get married and is navigating life with his partner. (Probably doesn't help that Spider-Man is iconic as both a teen superhero and an adult one, so there's already not exactly a single, universal set up for the character that transcends the franchise as a whole.

I think it's silly to try to enforce an "evergreen" status quo to begin with. These are characters that are designed to exist for decades. They need the capacity to evolve with changing cultural attitudes and tastes, and changing demographics. (I think inevitably, if Marvel comics books even exist in the next 50 years, they'll have resort to reboots because there is only so long that you can keep stories from the 1960s canon.)

Perhaps there are some marriage fans that want the character frozen in a married status quo ad infinitum (I think its a bit foolish to think that could happen.) But I think a lot of the current anti-OMD sentiment stems more from editorial trying to keep 616 continuity perpetually frozen since BND. There's no illusion of anything anymore. The audience can see the man behind the curtain pulling the strings, and that for every 2 steps forward, the story is forced to take 5 steps back. The "better era" was when the 616 character/continuity was allowed to grow and the book wasn't so editorially hamstrung. The video critique that was posted earlier really explained it well.

The argument, as I see it, is between a story that is frozen and one that is unfrozen. The preference of married or unmarried is just an obfuscation of the central idea. (Because for years pro-OMD people have been spinning it that way.) Reboot the title and I doubt many would even care about *undoing* OMD anymore because there would be nothing to undo. But it's a solution that pro-OMD people don't seem to want because they want the title frozen as is (perpetually in the late 70s/early 80s.)

[Obeythemoderators]

Yeah, reading one of the comics where Ben Reilly has to fight Carolyn Trainer is exhilarating. Lady Octopus is not some rando who likes tentacles she's Otto's PUPIL who wants revenge on those who hurt Otto! and oh look, there's a Scarlet Spider in the path of her revenge!

The weirdest part? Reading the story.... I kinda wanted to see Ben FAIL! Well fail at stopping her from reviving Otto. In general I didn't want to see her win... but.... there's something about her enthusiasm and demeanor that made her... not a rando crazy person, but a driven, hard-working woman who genuinely cared about her goals, and was willing to do almost anything to see them achieved. Yes, she's a super-villain, but.... there are several ways in which she's actually a positive figure.

Really, REALLY bummed me out to see later comics completely forget she existed.

This is a great analogy, sure some people could try to argue that this is the best part... well... I think the best part was when Bilbo was hanging out with Smaug. Smaug had great dialog.

One opinion that might be a bit controversial I think the second time Dr. Octopus was supposed to die he should have stayed dead. The first time he ''died'' it was a bit more ambigious giving that we never saw a dead body and honestly there is some sweet irony in the fact that the last thing he did before dying was saving the life of his nemesis not killing him like he always wanted and the fact that it seemed like he was about to escape to try to repeat the endless cycle of him trying to accomplishing some criminal scheme only for Spider-Man to stop him, but instead he is killing of by the no-more-mister-nice-guy version of Spider-Man and giving that he was given an replacement in Carolin Trainer he should have stayed dead.

[Alan2099]

Perhaps there are some marriage fans that want the character frozen in a married status quo ad infinitum (I think its a bit foolish to think that could happen.) But I think a lot of the current anti-OMD sentiment stems more from editorial trying to keep 616 continuity perpetually frozen since BND. There's no illusion of anything anymore. The audience can see the man behind the curtain pulling the strings, and that for every 2 steps forward, the story is forced to take 5 steps back. The "better era" was when the 616 character/continuity was allowed to grow and the book wasn't so editorially hamstrung. The video critique that was posted earlier really explained it well.

Allowed to grow? Are you forgetting how often Spider-man was reset even before OMD?

New job? Nope. New job. Fired from the DB? Nope. He's back again.
Respected by the hero community and/or the civilian community? Nope. Back to being an mistrusted outlaw.
New supporting cast members? Nah. They gotta go.
New costume? Got rid of that.
New powers? Let's never mention them again.
Peter has an award winning book? Nope. Not going to mention that ever again either.
MJ is rich and famous? They'll never have to worry about money again! Oops. Now she's not.
Peter Parker's parents have finally returned! Nope. Those were just robots that we'll never mention again.
Dr. Octopus died after making peace with Peter. Now he's back as a villain.
And Norman Osborn is back.
And Harry.

What's going on now isn't any different than what's been going on for decades.

[Spider-Tiger]

Allowed to grow? Are you forgetting how often Spider-man was reset even before OMD?

New job? Nope. New job. Fired from the DB? Nope. He's back again.
Respected by the hero community and/or the civilian community? Nope. Back to being an mistrusted outlaw.
New supporting cast members? Nah. They gotta go.
New costume? Got rid of that.
New powers? Let's never mention them again.
Peter has an award winning book? Nope. Not going to mention that ever again either.
MJ is rich and famous? They'll never have to worry about money again! Oops. Now she's not.
Peter Parker's parents have finally returned! Nope. Those were just robots that we'll never mention again.
Dr. Octopus died after making peace with Peter. Now he's back as a villain.
And Norman Osborn is back.
And Harry.

What's going on now isn't any different than what's been going on for decades.

For the first 3 decades or so Spider-man's continuity was one that largely progressed forward. Stories were additive. The character aged. The 90s was when most of those retcons you mention started to pop up because editorial was explicitly trying to regress and freeze the story. OMD/BND was the final nail in the coffin for any story progression in 616 (As that video was aptly titled "The Day Spider-man died.") Peter can never get older, he can never have a successful romantic relationship, he can't even appropriately mourn his relationship with MJ. And every death or major development (Aunt May dying or discovering Peter's identity, Harry Dying, Norman dying, etc.) is just quickly and nonsensically reversed. The character is completely stuck.

Also, the character getting a job and then losing a job is not the same as OMD. The former is an unfortunate set back that can be used as an opportunity for reflection and character growth. The latter is a retcon that magics away and ignores chunks of continuity. It's why many believe that divorce would have been a superior alternative to OMD. Because yes, theoretically, it returns the character to the single status that editorial prefers, but in a way that's additive and not reductive.

[Vortex85]

Marvel's stance on Spider-Man is funny, they are really dead set on keeping his greatest relationship of all time between 1987-2007, and that's it! Future generations you are out of luck as far as romance goes in the Spider-Man comics. If you want the best, you'll have to go back decades to see it. Sorry!

It's like here is an idea Marvel, show us Peter and MJ a relationship era even better and longer lasting than it was during marriage, then you will actually sort of prove that the marriage is not needed. But all they've done is have short/second rate relationships since OMD that go nowhere and fizzle out fast... they are not proving this status quo for Peter is going to be worthwhile considering readers are not able to get invested his relationships the way they are written.

I've thought of an idea recently as a loophole they could do - simply have Peter and MJ find out about the deal w/ Mephisto, realize there is nothing they can do as he will stop their marriage, and decide they do not need a marriage to be committed to each other ... they could even hold a FAKE WEDDING and put wedding rings on each others fingers as a middle finger to Mephisto and refer to each other as husband and wife, and then just be in a long lasting committed relationship. Kind of symbolize their commitment without the legal document in EVERY WAY POSSIBLE. This way they can show they are going to live their lives as if they were married anyway and Mephisto can't stop them!