Does Spider-Man need a soft-reboot at this point?

[KurtW95]

I don't think his world should be rebooted. But I do think he should go back to baseline and have Harry and the Stacies return. Peter should work at the Daily Bugle, taking photos of Spider-Man, and JJJ shouldn't know that he's Spider-Man. And Peter's age should not be specified. He is a college grad, but let the readers imagine what age he is after that. And have him be the only guy using the Spider-Man name in 616. Revive the OG Madame Web and have Julia Carpenter go back to being what she used to be. Let Gwen be Peter's girlfriend and Mary Jane be Peter's friend. Let Eddie Brock be Venom.

[WebLurker]

Thanks for your feedback.

No prob.

While I do believe that Option 4 could be an interesting and viable option (which is why I suggested it, lol), it does have the potential to spark some divisiveness in the fandom (and probably among the creators too), because you'd literally be claiming that one Peter and MJ are the "real" ones and the other set we've been following for the past 15 years are "copies" or "variants". In a certain sense, it'd basically be akin to the Clone Saga where you claim that the guy who's been headlining the books for a while isn't the "real" one. And consequently, it invalidates or throws out a lot of the new mythology and characters that were introduced during that period (or at least, makes it confusing as hell to acknowledge it).

Yeah, while I do see it as a "turn around is fair play" situation, given how OMD is the exact same thing in the details, as noted in my previous post, I don't think repeating the same mistakes as the original retcon in fixing things will make it any better.

[QUOTE=bat39;6490932]I included Option 4 because I do think Superman Reborn can serve as an inspiration for the Spider-Man franchise, and this approach is technically closest to what DC did. But it's a fact that Superman Reborn literally jettisoned the New 52 Superman and replaced him with the Post-Crisis version, declaring the latter as the "real" Superman of the "fixed" timeline (with the New 52 itself as a corruption of the DCU). A lot of fans, especially those on here, embraced it, but it did alienate quite a few newer fans who came on board with the New 52 Superman, or who generally enjoyed the more Golden Age/Silver Age-esq status quo of a younger, single Superman.

Well, the OMD situation is because of conflicting versions of Spider-Man, so I get the parallel. Heck, I've started using terms like "OMD-verse," "OMD variant of Spider-Man," "original version," etc., since I see the situation being a localized Crises reboot for the series (like how there's the post-Crises and New 52 Supermans).

But with DC, this is kinda par for the course - you have multiple conflicting versions of characters and TPTB need to pick one to be the 'main' version.

I'm not the biggest DC comics fan, but I do love Green Lantern Jessica Cruz and the Batgirls Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown. Given that DC runs on reboots and stuff, for that, if the material keeps the spirit of things intact, I'm okay with the minor details not always adding up and accepting that everything is its own branch of the multiverse. (Ironically, reading about how the Batgirls are fan favorites but have been hated by certain elements of the publishers in the past kinda leads to comparisons to the Spider-Man offices and how they treat certain fan favorite character(s)).

Marvel's approach to continuity is totally different. Even when it comes to OMD/BND, their argument is that this is the one, true Peter and MJ whose lives Mephisto tampered with. So while on a technical level, 'splitting' Spider-Man into two would make sense, it does kinda go against the spirit of Spider-Man being the same guy we've been following in an unbroken line since 1962. That said, its not like Marvel hasn't done weird timeline-related stuff to characters before (whatever they did to Tony Stark in the late 90's which I honestly just don't understand, for instance )

Think that OMD already split things, but i agree that the Powers That Be will maintain that it's the exact same characters irregardless of whether that makes sense, so that's how anything in the future will be done. That's a reason I just think they should undo OMD by having Peter and MJ marry again in the present, match the characterizations to the pre-OMD writing, and just gloss over all the weird stuff that was going on to keep them apart (if we need an in-universe explanation, Mephisto magic messing with their minds and forcing them to be apart is simple enough that we can move on).

So I dunno...this one needs a bit more thought.

I don't think there's a seamless fix (not that I think Marvel is going to try, given how editorial seems be a bit more vocal about how the marriage must not come back as of late). Honestly, I don't think it really needs to be overthought. Just do it, accept that it'll be a little wonky and that readers will have to know the meta reasons behind all this and just focus on making the upcoming stories good. The OMD-verse really seems like it's been rudder-less since the inception and current developments are not encouraging. Either way, original or OMD-verse, there needs to be a gameplan.

[bat39]

Y'know, no one ever question how the Scarlet Witch and Vision can date other people, even though we haven't seen them file their divorce papers on panel.

For all intents and purposes, Peter and MJ are divorced, right? They were married (which they both remember, per OMIT), and now they're not, and they're not trying to remedy that situation. They don't wear rings, if they still have them. As far as reading between the lines goes, that's pretty definitive, no?

Peter and MJ don't remember being married for the simple reason that the timeline was altered such that they were never married, but only lived together for a while. OMIT revealed that MJ remembered that Peter was Spider-Man when Dr. Strange cast his spell to erase the world's memories of the identity reveal.

I’ve said it before, but the Marvel universe is aging around Peter. His classmates are parents now. His exes are parents. Other heroes are married and having kids. JUBILEE is a mom. The sheer existence of Miles makes him the “old” Spider-Man.

Marvel’s attempts to keep him “young” have only created a 30 year old manchild.

Yeah, this is what happens in shared universes where some characters/groups progress while others regress back to or cling onto their status quos.

DC has the dubious 'advantage' of constantly rebooting their continuity with some weird timeline shenanigans. So they can mess around with ages and the passage of time a lot more freely. They can do crazy things like having there be 4 Robins in the span of 5 years, or making Cyborg a Justice League founder. But Marvel needs to preserve their shared universe and its continuity, and broadly maintain a consistent passage of time. So they can't literally turn the clock back and make Peter 15 again, but they can make the 30 year old Peter act as much like an 18 year old as possible.