Every now and then someone makes a comment about what Spider-Man comics might have been like without One More Day.
But I don't know if we've ever explored that counterfactual in detail.
What do you think would have happened if Joe Quesada's plans for One More Day were vetoed by higher-ups, or something similar?
And this butterfly's wings would have further effects.
- J. Michael Straczynski would have likely stayed on the book longer. He has said he enjoyed being on a series where he didn't have a complete beginning, middle and end. He mainly left the series because he didn't want to work on it after the status quo changed.
- "The Other" would probably have been published the way it was, since that was planned some time in advance. They might have explored his new powers soon.
- Spider-Man might not have unmasked in Civil War, because a major reason that happened was that Marvel knew they'd have a big retcon coming. No Spider-Man Unmasked- No Back in Black (at least not the way they planned it; it was a last minute change because they originally planned to have One More Day immediately after Civil War.)
- Without an unmasking, would Spider-Man have been so close to Tony Stark? Without that, with a smaller role in Civil War and without the iron spider suit, would his introduction have been the same in the MCU?
- It's not clear that they would have gone with the thrice-monthly schedule of Amazing Spider-Man. If they stuck with satellite books, that could lead to different creative teams, although there would still be the problem of satellite books selling much worse than Amazing Spider-Man. Would Marvel have recruited Stephen Wacker, if not for the almost weekly schedule? They had been considering the almost weekly schedule before, so it's possible they would have tried it at some point, but it makes for messy logistics.
- Dan Slott got the idea for Superior Spider-Man because of a scene in Amazing Spider-Man #600. We can figure he'd have been willing to take Spider-Man comics no matter the status quo, but his run could have gone differently. Spider-Island occurred because Marvel wanted to do Superior Spider-Man at that point, but Slott thought it was a better fit later in his run, so that story probably wouldn't happen if he got a different phone call in late 2010.
- If the Amazing Spider-Man books didn't go in a more back to basics direction that made Ultimate Spider-Man redundant, would Miles Morales have been introduced to replace the Ultimate Peter Parker?
One problem with counterfactuals is that we know the unplanned ways things go wrong in the comics that were published, but there likely would have been some serious errors (the equivalent of Nick Spencer's rushed departure) if the series went in a different direction.
We also don't know reception. So you might think it'd be great if Peter and MJ had a kid, or you might think it's a bad idea, but we wouldn't know how well it is executed or how well it sells.
With all the caveats in mind, what do you think the Spider-Man comics, and related media would be like if it weren't for One More Day, and Quesada was told by his bosses that Marvel's going to have to go for different stories after "The Other"?