How much of an adaptation of OMD is No Way Home?

[godisawesome]

This was sparked by a discussion on another thread; the usual pro-OMD/anti-OMD argument brought up how much or how less No Way Home was an adaptation of One More Day.

My perception is that, in general, most people sort of see it as different enough to not really impact the argument on OMD’s quality; that whether it’s an adaptation or not, it doesn’t really “prove” OMD’s value to critics or supporters:

Conceptually, it’s important to note that No Way Home is not targeted at ending the relationship with MJ as it’s be-all, end-all purpose and focus, and may even in fact have negligible impact on their relationship beyond possible temporary angst in Holland’s next movie - that’s the most obvious foundational difference that can make it sort of fun to debate how much of an adaptation it is.

However, the more interesting debate to have about it is how much the radical difference in the plotting, stakes, consequences, and manner of the “cosmic retcon” disqualifies it as a comparison or “proves” the problem is more with the poor plotting of OMD: the conflict is not “my old aunt is dying and is okay with that, but I’m not” and is instead “My aunt *is dead*, and if we don't act quickly, everyone else will die too”; the magic is not “literally malevolent and demonic Faustian bargain targeting mostly just a marriage” but instead “multi-verse spanning emergency heroism by Doctor Strange of which MJ’s relationship with Peter is a sad side-effect”; the characters are not going “It’s worth acting radically different from my normal behavior to willfully do this clearly crappy idea” but is instead “we don't really have a choice, and I don’t want to do this, but I have to”, etc.

Soooo…

How much do you think it’s an adaptation, or something too different to be so?

[Alan2099]

Spider-man, at probabaly his worst, makes a deal with a magic guy in a red cape that erases public knowledge of his secret identity and serves to end his relationship with somebody called MJ (for the time being at least). I'm not sure why anyone would argue that it ISN'T at least strongly inspired by One More Day even if it's not a direct copy.

[Garlador]

There ARE elements of OMD and OMIT.

And they work.

Let me be clear, I HATE OMD with a burning passion that will never dissipate, but the core idea of a major and tragic sacrifice can (and does) work so long as the tragedy serves a truly heroic purpose and is in-character for those involved.

OMD commits the cardinal sin of disrespecting its characters and readers, all to serve an agenda that is counter to Peter’s growth and responsibility.

NWH isn’t problem free, but erasing himself from the lives of his loved ones was ultimately a necessity to save all of reality and a sign of him putting everyone he loved ahead of his own desires, in contrast to how he felt at the start of the film.

And most important, he KNOWS he made the sacrifice. He’s burdened with remembering it. 616 doesn’t.

I would have been sad about Peter and Mary Jane making a sacrifice like that in the comic, but I wouldn’t be angry. Like, it would be such amazing drama if only Peter or Mary Jane remembered fully. In fact, I would have loved a story of MJ pursing Peter for once and being the only one to be burdened with their lost moments as he ignorantly hooks up with Black Cat and has no memory of the loss of their daughter, etc. Good drama can be milked there if someone OTHER than Mephisto remembered.

[Xenon]

It's an adaptation of OMIT, not OMD.

OMD DID a lot of things, but OMD is fundamentally about Peter's life and marriage to Mary Jane. The deal is about their marriage, the lead up is about what his life could have been like without Mary Jane, guided by a kid he would have had had he stayed with Mary Jane. Ultimately for a story to be an adaptation of OMD, you need a married Spider-Man choosing to sacrifice his marriage for dubious reasons.

OMIT is a worse story in that it's a lot messier. It's about new continuity (how didn't they get married) and setting up the status quo he was in at the start of BND. Like a recent explainer tale, it's one of the worst things ever printed. But there's basically two events in OMIT. The first is the retelling of the wedding and how it was averted. The second is the tale of him restoring his secret identity and how that led to the end of his relationship with Mary Jane. That second event is very clearly what No Way Home is based off of. Peter has his secret identity revealed to everyone, he needs it back in the bottle, he goes to Dr. Strange to do it, , he changes the deal at the last second, consequences ensure. The consequences are different, of course (total multiversal breakdown vs. MJ mad at him for dumb reasons), but that's clearly what they're referencing.

Saying it's an adaptation of OMD is off though. Close as OMIT is dependent on OMD to exist, but OMIT is its own bag of terrible.

[Xenon]

There ARE elements of OMD and OMIT.

And they work.

Let me be clear, I HATE OMD with a burning passion that will never dissipate, but the core idea of a major and tragic sacrifice can (and does) work so long as the tragedy serves a truly heroic purpose and is in-character for those involved.

OMD commits the cardinal sin of disrespecting its characters and readers, all to serve an agenda that is counter to Peter’s growth and responsibility.

NWH isn’t problem free, but erasing himself from the lives of his loved ones was ultimately a necessity to save all of reality and a sign of him putting everyone he loved ahead of his own desires, in contrast to how he felt at the start of the film.

And most important, he KNOWS he made the sacrifice. He’s burdened with remembering it. 616 doesn’t.

I would have been sad about Peter and Mary Jane making a sacrifice like that in the comic, but I wouldn’t be angry. Like, it would be such amazing drama if only Peter or Mary Jane remembered fully. In fact, I would have loved a story of MJ pursing Peter for once and being the only one to be burdened with their lost moments as he ignorantly hooks up with Black Cat and has no memory of the loss of their daughter, etc. Good drama can be milked there if someone OTHER than Mephisto remembered.

OMD is actaully pretty well put together right up until the end. Like OMIT is garbage, just poorly put together contrived out of character BS. But OMD is not. OMD is mostly fine (it's contrived that literally no one can heal Aunt May, of course) right up until Peter accepts the deal, because ultimately the heroic answer to that question is no. It's to accept his responsibility and seek out another way to do the best he can. If the ending of that comic was changed it wouldn't be the worst Spider-Man comic by a long shot. But because the ending is what it is.....

[godisawesome]

Spider-man, at probabaly his worst, makes a deal with a magic guy in a red cape that erases public knowledge of his secret identity and serves to end his relationship with somebody called MJ (for the time being at least). I'm not sure why anyone would argue that it ISN'T at least strongly inspired by One More Day even if it's not a direct copy.

See, I chose 3 because I think that it depends on what someone’s priority for OMD was - like, if Joe Quesada checks into a movie theater in three years, and a major scene is Zendaya’s MJ figuring out who Spider-Man is and getting back together with him, than I think he would (theoretically) think NWH “couldn’t” be an adaptation of OMD, because to him, it’s single, all-consuming purpose was breaking up Peter and MJ… but if Zendaya never returned to the series, then he’d think it would be a success.

I tend to think that there’s two aspects to OMD as a story - it’s meta-fictional goal plus the meta-fictional argument began there and carried forward to today, and the actual plotted story.

NWH to me is waaaaaaay too radically different as a plotted story to be an adaptation in that way - I think it’s insulting to both stories to compare Mephisto to Dr. Strange, Aunt May dying to the universe being threatened, a young Peter taking responsibility for a more understandable mistake to an older Peter being selfish and running for his responsibilities, and the way the MCU story has no meta-textual conversation about whether she should be with Peter comparable to OMD being dominated by a three-way meta-textual argument between Quesada, JMS, and (JMS’s perception of) the fans.

But at the same time, the plotted story and characterizations of NWH are so much better and so different that the hated goal of OMD - getting rid of MJ as “the” love interest - has a greater likliehood of being an “actionable” outcome for the MCU if Zendaya doesn’t come back, even if that same plotted story and characterization makes a return by Zendaya likely more profitable and tempting to Disney.

So I really do think it’s likely to come down in the long run to whether or not Zendaya comes back - because if someone likes OMD, and doesn’t want MJ as the love interest, do you really want trivia groups to bring up OMD as an “inspiration” for a story that ultimately achieves dramatic catharsis by undoing it? and wouldn’t you want to make the comparison more if the status quo outcome was actually the same?

I could see current editorial having a casual but likely passionate desire that the MCU doesn’t immediately do the one thing they don’t want to do - and the only reason OMD exists, since it doesn’t have the rest of NWH’s plot - and then make a billion dollars or such…

[Spider-Tiger]

I agree that it's more OMIT than OMD. Peter makes no deals to save May here. He uses Dr. Strange's help to undo the outing of his identity. That's all from OMIT.

People detest OMD to the extent that they do because it is a story about Spider-man sacrificing his marriage (and child?) to the devil to save May. None of that story is in No Way Home.

The film is part Back in Black, part OMIT, part Spider-verse, and part The Night Gwen Stacy Died.

[godisawesome]

I agree that it's more OMIT than OMD. Peter makes no deals to save May here. He uses Dr. Strange's help to undo the outing of his identity. That's all from OMIT.

People detest OMD to the extent that they do because it is a story about Spider-man sacrificing his marriage (and child?) to the devil to save May. None of that story is in No Way Home.

The film is part Back in Black, part OMIT, part Spider-verse, and part The Night Gwen Stacy Died.

See, I think that OMIT is actually even less of an adaptation because it’s really only the “plotline” as to how the change happened, not the moment where the characters make the choice creating the change; while Strange doing magic is the answer for the “how” in both, the why, the when, the where, and even the who (in terms of who’s choice matters) are all radically different, while the dramatic parallel and output is closer in OMD.

I’d even argue that OMIT trying very, very hard to argue that “Hey, dudes, nothing else changed! Ignore how that doesn’t really explain Harry being back and the web shooters being mechanical again being immediately caused by the deal…” contrasts heavily with the initally disorienting changes OMD tried to portray itself as having and that JMS wanted to do if he was to stay on the book, while NWH is, if anything, far more about the other massive changes Peter is now faced with than it is about him and MJ being apart.

[Spider-Tiger]

See, I think that OMIT is actually even less of an adaptation because it’s really only the “plotline” as to how the change happened, not the moment where the characters make the choice creating the change; while Strange doing magic is the answer for the “how” in both, the why, the when, the where, and even the who (in terms of who’s choice matters) are all radically different, while the dramatic parallel and output is closer in OMD.

I’d even argue that OMIT trying very, very hard to argue that “Hey, dudes, nothing else changed! Ignore how that doesn’t really explain Harry being back and the web shooters being mechanical again being immediately caused by the deal…” contrasts heavily with the initally disorienting changes OMD tried to portray itself as having and that JMS wanted to do if he was to stay on the book, while NWH is, if anything, far more about the other massive changes Peter is now faced with than it is about him and MJ being apart.

Thematically, No Way Home is a repackaged The Night Gwen Stacy Died. It's about the consequences that Peter suffers as a result of being Spider-man. He loses Aunt May in death and Mary Jane forgets as a result of the spell and Peter has to pick up the pieces and rebuild himself.

OMD isn't that story at all. In fact, the antithesis of that happens in OMD. Yeah Peter loses his marriage, but Aunt May is saved and Peter doesn't really "suffer" any consequences (yeah on a meta level we the reader know that Peter lost his marriage and potential daughter, but in-story Peter is blissfully naive and moves on to being a happy swinging bachelor. Like OMD literally ends with Peter at a party surrounded by friends. That's the exact opposite of NWH.)

So no the story doesn't ring true to me as an adaptation of One More Day. It's an adaptation of The Night Gwen Stacy Died that borrows story elements from One Moment in Time: mainly the Dr. Strange fix to Peter's outed identity.

[Mister Mets]

There are elements of it, just as there are also elements of the Night Gwen Stacy Died (the angry Peter Parker looking to beat Norman Osborn to death; Norman snapping & bringing death and destruction), One Moment in Time (especially Dr. Strange's spell), Amazing Fantasy #15 (Peter Parker losing one of the people who raised him), Amazing Spider-Man #400 (Aunt May dies after she seems to recover from a serious threat to her life, and Peter can’t even mourn her properly because the authorities want him arrested; there's a clone saga vibe in the interactions between different versions of Peter), Ultimate Spider-Man (a young superhero pushes against compromises the adults around him take for granted, and makes some impulsive decisions), Back in Black (Peter Parker’s identity is revealed to the world, Aunt May is hurt and Spider-Man is so pissed off that all the typical rules have gone out the window), Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine (Spider-Man falls in love with a girl and is forced to erase her memories of ever meeting him to save the day), and No One Dies (the inside-out costume resembles the bulletproof suit, Spider-Man makes a vow that no one dies, which puts him into difficult positions because of his refusal to compromise.)

[Venomsaurus]

A very interesting question to ponder! I'd argue that while the OMD element is certainly a major factor I would argue it's not really an adaptation in any way. Sure, the results are similar but the road there to that ending and the end itself are so vastly different.

For one, this MJ and Peter are not married. Giving up their relationship wasn't a key component. Dr. Strange made it seem like he could have let MJ still know, but he added so many other people it muddied the spell from what I understand. It's been a year or so since I rewatched it.

There wasn't the multiversal element to OMD. Unless you count the child they could have had, which I don't. No extra Spideys-Mans from other universes showing up to help. No alternate universe villains. Not a single Willam DaFoe as far as the eye can see in the comic.

If it were an adaptation of OMD, then it would have been about saving Aunt May. Her death is pretty clearly a vital part of NWH and Peter having to grow up and accept the consequences of his mistakes. One of those consequences being he loses MJ for the time being, with the hope they can find each other again. Which again is kinda similar to OMD but not really the same thing, in my eyes.

Then there's the ending. OMD puts Peter in a place that's still supposed to be a decent restart. Yes he's back with Aunt May, but Harry's alive! So it's not all bad news when he resets in BND.

Whereas the end of NWH, Peter is in a significantly worse place. He's essentially back to level 0, this time without Aunt May or his best friend Ned around to support him. He's rebuilding from nothing. Not even able to rekindle his relationship with MJ out of his own fear of getting her killed like May. At least, that's how I translated him not being able to really introduce himself properly to her.

So overall, no, not really an OMD adaptation. There's elements, but it feels mostly like it's own thing we could only really get from the movies what with Toby and Andrew-Man making appearances.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

The idea of retconning continuity and splitting Peter from MJ comes from OMD. That's about it.

If anything, NWH is kinda the anti-OMD. They took a Spidey that was more like the Post-OMD Spidey (CEO/tech based, incompetent, stereotypically youthful) and made him more like the pre-OMD Stan Lee Spidey.

As much as some MCU fans don't want to admit it, that's a huge factor in why NWH was accepted and OMD wasn't. A lot of fans thought there was something "off" with the MCU version and wanted a lot of stuff (mostly the Iron Man Jr stuff) retconned. Whereas outside Editorial and some fringe fringe fans, no one thought there was anything "off" with the married Spider-Man. Almost no one asked for it. But they did ask for MCU Spidey to be "fixed" in some way.

Splitting MCU Peter from MJ was never going to have the same reaction because the context is different. MCU Peter and MJ are still in high school, so it's fine if you do will-they-won't-they crap for a while. Plus, it's obvious they're going to be reunited. The MCU is too trope-savvy to make the same mistake as Quesada. That and Zendaya is an A-list star. The idea NWH was some permanent sendoff is just laughable.

I guess the only other thing they have in common is they both gave Peter's secret identity back. So I guess you can say the main thing they looked at OMD as a tool for how to retcon stuff. That's about the only value it had for them.

[godisawesome]

And all those arguments are why I’d still argue that it sort of “depends” on what the next film does; if MJ comes back, than the only real piece of OMD is gone.

[WebLurker]

Very loose, at best; it borrows a couple ideas but remixes them in a brand-new story that has a different point and purpose.

[Mister Mets]

And all those arguments are why I’d still argue that it sort of “depends” on what the next film does; if MJ comes back, than the only real piece of OMD is gone.

But MJ came back in the comics.