How much longer do you guys think before the marriage is back for good?

[TinkerSpider]

This is the one necessary argument, though. If there isn't someone to make it, there's no way Marvel will go for this change.

Why are you assuming that person doesn’t exist?

It doesn't have to be you, though if the argument's been made, maybe someone here is familiar with it.

The argument has been made a bazillion times right here on this forum. Stan Lee and Jim Shooter made the argument. It’s been made ever since the Clone Saga and quite probably ever since Peter Parker was conceived and revealed to be of an age to be interested in forming long term romantic attachments.

Want a published argument? Kraven’s Last Hunt. Take away the marriage, take away MJ, and it’s just another grim dark edgelord fest and why every homage since has failed, including the one we’re about to get.

[Tuck]

But they did. They revealed that Peter Parker was a clone. Then they had MJ's plane blow up. Then they had the coffee separate.

(I assume 'coffee' is supposed to be 'couple')

They're still doing this.

The problem isn't the marriage, it's MJ. And at this point in the book's history, if they tried to permanently nix MJ, I'm not sure the book could recover.

[Garlador]

But they did. They revealed that Peter Parker was a clone. Then they had MJ's plane blow up. Then they had the coffee separate.

The Fantasyic Four is a different dynamic as a family- themed team book that doesn't always have the same membership.

The Clone Saga ironically brought them MUCH closer together, the plane bomb was widely mocked and quickly retconned (and it took place a whopping 13 years AFTER their marriage issue), and separation was a blip, with neither character remotely being happy apart. Not a very compelling argument.

Sue and Reed have had more dramatic separations and setbacks, yet nobody says Marvel was actively trying to ruin their marriage.

Whoever it is, you need an argument to persuade them.

Legit asking, but I stated earlier that EVERY argument used against the marriage was used for The Flash.

… Wally got his marriage back.

So I would like to know why the argument worked for Wally, but not Peter.

[Tuck]

There's a good essay to be written out there with a title like, "Mary Jane: The Character Who Wouldn't Do As She Was Told".

[Venomsaurus]

There's a good essay to be written out there with a title like, "Mary Jane: The Character Who Wouldn't Do As She Was Told".

Oooh I think that could be an absolutely fascinating deep dive. It'd require a lot of research though, and I think it'd be important to track it with the overall rise of feminism in more modern storytelling. Mary Jane is truly an anomaly that cannot be stopped.

[Daibhidh]

Whoever it is, you need an argument to persuade them.

It's a fan favourite relationship.
The storytelling dynamic of rising threat-overcoming threat is more easily done with relationships when there is a successful status quo to be threatened.
Successful relationships are more interesting than unsuccessful relationships, because any fool can foul up a relationship. The world is short of depictions of healthy relationships that successfully overcome problems.
Having all your solo heroes single means that you're just using them all to tell the same sorts of stories about relationships. If there's more variety among their relationship status that increases the types of story you can tell across the entire Marvel line.
(I'd add that indefinite serial storytelling is a medium more suited to stable relationships than it is to romance: you can only tell stories about a developing romance so often before you get diminishing returns, but you can keep on telling stories about a stable relationship negotiating obstacles in the same way that you can keep on telling stories about villains posing a threat and having to be stopped.)

But these are all arguments that people have put forward on these boards already.

[Garlador]

There's a good essay to be written out there with a title like, "Mary Jane: The Character Who Wouldn't Do As She Was Told".

It’s a different can of worms, but I might do this at some point. I don’t really have a blog or podcast, but I’m familiar enough with the history of the character to find Mary Jane to be one of the most amazing “accidents” Marvel ever created. She wasn’t supposed to be the “winner” of Spidey’s love life. She was supposed to be the “bad girl” compared to Gwen. She was supposed to be the wild counter-culture hippie with a few screws loose that was too crazy for Peter to envision a future with. She was antithetical to the traditional, standard 60s and 70s view of what a love interest should be, seeking a good man to become a doting housewife to. She was a staunch feminist, marching on the streets, pushing back against “the man” and refusing to be boxed in by gendered norms, desiring to be a career woman who could stand on her own, self-made and self-determined. She resonated with readers more than the other stock, cookie-cutter love interests because she didn’t play by those rules. She was too feisty. She called out our hero on his BS. She dared stand up for herself and fight with the men in her life that kept pressuring her to be what they wanted her to be.

… and I can see why certain individuals reading and overseeing the comic didn’t like that.

Marvel created a feminist icon that was aspirational and inspirational in many ways that Spider-Man himself wasn’t.

We’re still fridging women in comics (in Spider-Man comics, no less) in 2023. Mary Jane’s existence and history continues to defy the mindset that lets that happen. I’m not surprised so many at Marvel continue to struggle at writing her. She’s an anomaly they never expected to become so enduring, despite so many attempts to drag her through the mud.

And yet - despite all attempts in the past and present and likely future - she IS the “Lois” to Peter’s “Clark”.

Even my grandmother knows this, and she’s in her 80s.

[Dan Slott]

It does seem strange that if it's the 'assignment' that Spencer apparently had such a sudden last-minute and clearly unplanned swerve at the end of his run.

No one on editorial pumped the brakes on reversing OMD or on reinstating the marriage at any point since 2008 on, no matter how many people on a message board zealously believe that.

[TinkerSpider]

It's been 15 years and Marvel hasn't seen the need to push the reset button on this.

I think we can all agree current editorial’s thinking on this is more set in stone than a coprolite.

But coprolites only tell us what was. They don’t tell us what will be. They certainly don’t predict events like an asteroid strike and/or evolution.

[Garlador]

No one on editorial pumped the brakes on reversing OMD or on reinstating the marriage at any point since 2008 on, no matter how many people on a message board zealously believe that.

I would very much like to hear Nick Spencer talk about this at some point when he’s able.

Again, from an outside-looking-in perspective, the story Spencer was setting up and telling - one prominently bringing up the events, problems, and consequences of One More Day - quite clearly had a radical shift in the third act and failed to resolve the many issues he spotlighted earlier on.

He’s a capable enough writer based on what I read of Secret Avengers and Captain America for me to accept he’s incompetent at resolving prominent lingering story beats that were integral to his runs, or having abrupt contradictions in the finale that undermine what was previously being set up.

I don’t know what Marvel leadership’s intent was letting him write, but I certainly know that “addressing and possibly undoing One More Day” dominated every comic site headline I saw during the Kindred arc. I wasn’t reading the book at the time, but I was well aware of what the primary conversation was about when everyone from CBR to IGN to Bleeding Cool to Screenrant was harping on about it.

I would be happy to compile those headlines for you, Dan.

[Spider-Tiger]

There's a good essay to be written out there with a title like, "Mary Jane: The Character Who Wouldn't Do As She Was Told".

There's actually a brilliantly written essay series "Why Did it Have to be You, Mary Jane?" that I came across a few years ago on the Crawlspace. It pretty much explores just that.

[duke togo]

No one on editorial pumped the brakes on reversing OMD or on reinstating the marriage at any point since 2008 on, no matter how many people on a message board zealously believe that.

Why does editorial constantly try to frustrate most readers with keeping MJ and Peter apart? It's pretty obvious the vast majority of fans want to them together and I would even say it's a pretty fair assumption to say most would want OMD reversed. OMD was clearly a mistake and it just seems like Marvel has too much pride to admit it. The current run in ASM is going is going down in history as being the worst run in the characters history and a lot of it is due to the strange shenanigans of keeping MJ and Peter apart after their bond in the Spencer run. This goes beyond a message board, as it's everywhere. Social media, articles, etc. People are simply tired of the stagnation the book is enduring and the forced contrivances of keeping two people who love each other apart.

[clonegeek]

Why does editorial constantly try to frustrate most readers with keeping MJ and Peter apart? It's pretty obvious the vast majority of fans want to them together and I would even say it's a pretty fair assumption to say most would want OMD reversed. OMD was clearly as a mistake and it just seems like Marvel has too much pride to admit their mistake. The current run is ASM is going is going down in history as being the worst run in the characters history and a lot of it is due to the strange shenanigans of keeping MJ and Peter apart after their bond in the Spencer run. This goes beyond a message board, as it's everywhere. Social media, articles, etc. People are simply tired of the stagnation the book is enduring and the forced contrivances of keeping two people who love each other apart.

I don't see the point of keeping Peter and MJ apart because you aren't replacing it with anything meaningful.

[MASTER-OF-SUPRISE]

Sadly I don’t see them reversing OMD anytime soon. Marvel editorial is too stubborn. @Mister Mets I would argue there is more compelling reasons to reverse OMD than not. The marriage from everything I’ve seen isn’t a reason the clone saga got as bad as it did. The clone saga went bad because they stretched the storyline out far too long. Not to mention a plethora of other factors. None of the post OMD stories imo couldn’t have been told with pre-OMD Peter. All it would take is a few minor changes. In some ways the stories could actually be improved IMO.

[Steven Caldwell]

I don't think it really matters if they bring back the marriage at this point.
There is not enough talent to write a decent Peter Parker, either married or single.
For the next 50 years, it will be "darn that bad Parker luck" over and over.
If you want a married couple story, you are best to seek out of a different character from a indie comic.