Discussion with Tom Brevoort on Spider-Man marriage

[Spidercide]

I had an interesting discussion with Tom Brevoort on Twitter tonight. Basically guys, OMD isn't getting undone, Peter and MJ are never getting married again. Marvel aint intersted.

Tom admitted that he understood I was invested in the marriage because thats how I grew up reading the character, so I replied that it means he knows a married Spidey could work for future generations because thats how they could also encounter the character, and he responed yes, but the future numbers who are still invested in it will dwindle to nothing. Ouch, cruel!

He is dead set on Spidey being youthful and is dead set on the marriage being something that "crippled" the book. Something that Marvel is unified on. So forget it, move on, it ain't happening. He even compared the marriage repeatedly as a bad idea, on the level of Batman fighting aliens. It's crazy how he could think that. Especially after what JMS did for it.

Also, he actually even said he thought marrying Spidey in a movie would kill the franchise, LOL! Seriously! It's a sad day but I can finally forget about my dream of seeing it happen in the movies. If Marvel is behind them and they are informing studios on how to go about things, we can expect them avoid marriage like the plague. Marvel obviously hated it with a passion and never want the world to know about it. So sad to see such a huge legacy so near and dear to the hearts of Spidey fans for 2 decades thrown away like trash.

Goodnight guys. Over and out.

Lets break this down.

The marriage will not return under THIS regime who don't have the divine right of the King to rule for life.

Investment in the marriage is often shallowly dismissed as 'you just grew up with it'.

No.

MOST Spider-Man fans who began reading before September 1987 were also in favour of the marriage too.

It is a lie yet convenient narrative to spin that ONLY those people who grew up with Spider-Man from Sept 1987-December 2007 are invested in the marriage.

It also makes no sense considering the overwhelming majority would've come to discover those comics from adaptations that probably did not feature a married Spider-Man.

During the marriage, the only media outside of comics depicting an married Spider-Man were a few video games and less than 13 episodes of the 1994 cartoon show, plus Spider-Man Unlimited but MJ was only in the first episode.

MOST fans would've gotten in via Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, the 1994 cartoon or the Raimi films (maybe the 2003 MTV show but that's a long shot).

Spider-Man was not only single but actively younger in all those versions, being aged between 18-22 tops, whereas Spider-Man was about 25-30 during the course of the marriage when you do the math.

And yet those readers still read and enjoyed an older married Spider-Man and the marriage itself was part of that.

In fact ULTIMATE Spider-Man fans clearly liked the marriage too considering they had to a large extent their own version of it.

Despite being a teenager, Ultimate MJ's functions within the narrative were near identical to her older married 616 counterpart's and references to the marriage were made more than once during Bendis' run, even going into Miles' book.

Why exactly did all those kids, myself included, who first got hooked onto a younger unmarried Spider-Man embracing of an older married one?

Simple: growth and character development.

That is the crack that fueled the Marvel universe from day 1. The notion that a kid in their minds could somehow headcanon that the Spider-Man of their movies and cartoons off scree/panel got older and wound up married to MJ isn't a difficult jump to make and is itself rather rewarding.

In this sense the status quo change in BND was even dumber than it was considering mass audiences were coming off a movie franchise shipping Peter and MJ and implying Aunt May knew his secret. Jum,ping from that to the JMS status quo is an easier leap for audience than the BND set up.


In fact I've seen enough newer fans who jumped on board in BND/Slott's run who LIKE Mary jane, SHIP him with Peter and would be okay if they DID get married, as evidenced by their positive reception of Renew Your Vows under Slott and later vol 2 under Conway.


People LIKE growth, so the majority are always going to be onboard with the progressive direction, in this case moving beyond a revolving door of girlfriends into something more serious and meaningful.


Think about it. MOST Spider-Man fans for the first 25 years WANTED Spider-Man to eventually wind up with somebody. Who that somebody was might've changed but few of them actively wanted Spidey to remain in a state wherein he had a revolving door of girlfriends. **** STAN LEE didn't even want that, he had him date 3 women and intended number 3 to be the endgame. Then Gerry Conway showed up and decided he wasn't girlfriend number 2 to be the endgame. All these creators and fans who grew up on a unmarried Spider-Man WANTED to see him progress to the point where he hit the life milestone of getting married.

Just because you regress the character back to a pre-married status quo doesn't mean that attitude will not repeat itself. Those 'newer' fans who are jumping onboard and causing the married fans' numbers to 'dwindle' aren't actually fans of Spider-Man NOT being married. They just want him to undergo growth as well, just as the fanbase of pre-1987 did.



Now let's talk about those 'dwindle to nothing' numbers.

Question: Did those people who wanted a single Spider-Man 'dwindle to nothing' in Brevoort's mind?

Clearly not.

Other question: Why does Renew Your Vows even exist and served as the most successful SW tie-in if these numbers are constantly dwindling to nothing?

Last question (for now): Wouldn't it economically make more sense to KEEP those fans and then ADD to their numbers with yet more new ones?

Because it's pretty obvious that

a) People who actively want a married Spider-Man outnumber the ones who actively want an unmarried/single Spider-Man

b) There are segments of the fanbase indifferent to either camp who therefore would not be upset by having a married Spider-Man

Oh and you know you have the fact that Spider-Man's sales are egregiously LOWER now than there were in during the marriage.

And no, that isn't a 'relative' thing at all.

In the early-mid 2000s when JMS was writing ASM and people were praising his take on the marriage, Marvel and the comic book market were still picking up the pieces from the 90s crash.

The comic book market is actually BETTER now than it was back then when you really crunch the numbers. It's just not better for Marvel necessarily.

And yet part 2 of a unremarkable JMS arc in 2005 outsold an issue of Power Play, a variant cover, hyped up, crossover starring Iron Man (in a post RDJ Iron Man mvie landscape, and during a time when Stark was under BENDIS' pen) and Miles Morales as well as the Avengers and served as a de facto tie-in to ubermegahit Captain America Civil War.

So...who's numbers are dwindling here exactly?

Brevoort might be dead set on Spider-Man being abou youth and dead set on the marriage crippling the book but lets consider the source here.

Why does Brevoort's word count for anything?

Is Tom Brevoort a revered Spider-Man expert?

No.

Is Tom Brevoort a noteworthy Spider-Man writer?

No.

Is Tom Brevoort even a particularly great editor? Just on a craft level, does he have solid gold editing skills.

No.

Tom Brevoort is BAD at his current job and he was BAD at his old jobs in the 90s.

Tom brevoort is a BAD writer to the point where he will admit as much in refence to his Fantastic Force work and his most notable Spider-Man writing credit is the lambasted Funeral for an Octopus mini-series.

Tom Brevoort exists as someone who is an authority on Spider-Man merely because he seems to think he is one in spite of his statements not holding up to scrutiny (Spider-Man is not about youth, as in it is a provable fact that that is the case holy ****, how could anyone be dumb enough to actually think otherwise it's so obvious!)

So...why in God's name does Brevoort's word on Spider-Man count for anything at all?

Why on Earth should we BELIEVE him when he says the marriage crippled the book or that Spider-Man is about youth when both are provably untrue.

Then you have this whole 'Marvel is unified' BS.

Of course he's going to SAY that and of course people will agree that that is true.

But it's provably not.

Matt Fraction, peter David, DeMatteis and other creators have gone on record post-OMD in disagreeing with Brevoort's stance

Finally never say never with comic books.

Superman's marriage came back hardcore and it didn't even go away in such a hated way.

Someday Spider-Man's marriage will return

[Spidercide]

New people will probably follow in their footsteps. Honestly, it took a bit of guts to marry Peter and MJ. It's not something you typically do in this sort of comic, but for me, that was part of the appeal. It wasn't something typically done. The union ended up being great, unfortunatley, Marvel seemed blind to how good it was. I don't suspect things will change unless we get some people in charge who grew up on it and loved it. But fat chance of that. They'll probably only hire like-minded individuals.

Not exactly.

No one says they have the power to pick their successors. Quesada and I think Stan are the ONLY examples of that.

Cebulski doesn't even seem to be of a like mind to Alonso on a lot of things

[Alan2099]

It's going to be decades before the marriage is any position to come back. By that point, there really isn't going to be anyone who grew up with the marriage reading the books and the majority of people who would want the marriage back would probably have left anyway, meaning there's no reason to bring it back.

So it's not happening.

That's not even getting into the corporate side of things. Let it go, man, seriously. You can examine and re-examine and post reasons why you think the logic of the people who wanted it gone don't matter, but in the end, it's still gone. It ain't coming back. You're only torturing yourself. Spend the time on something you like.

[LordUltimus]

It's going to be decades before the marriage is any position to come back. By that point, there really isn't going to be anyone who grew up with the marriage reading the books and the majority of people who would want the marriage back would probably have left anyway, meaning there's no reason to bring it back.

So it's not happening.

That's not even getting into the corporate side of things. Let it go, man, seriously. You can examine and re-examine and post reasons why you think the logic of the people who wanted it gone don't matter, but in the end, it's still gone. It ain't coming back. You're only torturing yourself. Spend the time on something you like.

Technically it's already been a full decade. And we're getting coporate shake-ups with Cebulski taking over. And some of us like to torture ourselves.

[Scott Taylor]

It's going to be decades before the marriage is any position to come back. By that point, there really isn't going to be anyone who grew up with the marriage reading the books and the majority of people who would want the marriage back would probably have left anyway, meaning there's no reason to bring it back.

So it's not happening.

That's not even getting into the corporate side of things. Let it go, man, seriously. You can examine and re-examine and post reasons why you think the logic of the people who wanted it gone don't matter, but in the end, it's still gone. It ain't coming back. You're only torturing yourself. Spend the time on something you like.

I would have said the same thing to Brevoort and others who were chewing the bone from the opposite end since ASM Annual #21.

[WebLurker]

It also makes no sense considering the overwhelming majority would've come to discover those comics from adaptations that probably did not feature a married Spider-Man...MOST fans would've gotten in via Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, the 1994 cartoon or the Raimi films (maybe the 2003 MTV show but that's a long shot).

Spider-Man was not only single but actively younger in all those versions, being aged between 18-22 tops, whereas Spider-Man was about 25-30 during the course of the marriage when you do the math.

And yet those readers still read and enjoyed an older married Spider-Man and the marriage itself was part of that.

To be totally honest, the Raimi movies are a huge factor in why, I a kid of the '90s who didn't even get into comic books until a couple years ago, am very strongly in the married camp.

In fact ULTIMATE Spider-Man fans clearly liked the marriage too considering they had to a large extent their own version of it.

Despite being a teenager, Ultimate MJ's functions within the narrative were near identical to her older married 616 counterpart's and references to the marriage were made more than once during Bendis' run, even going into Miles' book...

As someone who's first Spidey comic was Ultimate and count it as my all-time favorite comic series, I can confirm that theory. Heck, given that the couple's relationship was the primary emotional core of the series and the end of their part in the story essentially had them eloping, I think it's a safe guess that most USM fans are probably pro-marriage (or at least of that coupling).

It's going to be decades before the marriage is any position to come back. By that point, there really isn't going to be anyone who grew up with the marriage reading the books and the majority of people who would want the marriage back would probably have left anyway, meaning there's no reason to bring it back.

So it's not happening.

That's not even getting into the corporate side of things. Let it go, man, seriously. You can examine and re-examine and post reasons why you think the logic of the people who wanted it gone don't matter, but in the end, it's still gone. It ain't coming back. You're only torturing yourself. Spend the time on something you like.

Why'd I let something go that I've got nothing to loose by holding onto? Besides, ten years after the fact and it's still a debate (not to mention that ancillary materials have dabbled in it often on since, too). This problem is not going away anytime soon.

[Miles To Go]

Technically it's already been a full decade. And we're getting coporate shake-ups with Cebulski taking over. And some of us like to torture ourselves.

It's been a whole decade and we've still gotten marriage stories since then, including an ongoing RYV..and look, the sky didn't fall.

[LASERlips]

Lets break this down.

The marriage will not return under THIS regime who don't have the divine right of the King to rule for life.

Investment in the marriage is often shallowly dismissed as 'you just grew up with it'.

No.

MOST Spider-Man fans who began reading before September 1987 were also in favour of the marriage too.

It is a lie yet convenient narrative to spin that ONLY those people who grew up with Spider-Man from Sept 1987-December 2007 are invested in the marriage.

It also makes no sense considering the overwhelming majority would've come to discover those comics from adaptations that probably did not feature a married Spider-Man.

During the marriage, the only media outside of comics depicting an married Spider-Man were a few video games and less than 13 episodes of the 1994 cartoon show, plus Spider-Man Unlimited but MJ was only in the first episode.

MOST fans would've gotten in via Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, the 1994 cartoon or the Raimi films (maybe the 2003 MTV show but that's a long shot).

Spider-Man was not only single but actively younger in all those versions, being aged between 18-22 tops, whereas Spider-Man was about 25-30 during the course of the marriage when you do the math.

And yet those readers still read and enjoyed an older married Spider-Man and the marriage itself was part of that.

In fact ULTIMATE Spider-Man fans clearly liked the marriage too considering they had to a large extent their own version of it.

Despite being a teenager, Ultimate MJ's functions within the narrative were near identical to her older married 616 counterpart's and references to the marriage were made more than once during Bendis' run, even going into Miles' book.

Why exactly did all those kids, myself included, who first got hooked onto a younger unmarried Spider-Man embracing of an older married one?

Simple: growth and character development.

That is the crack that fueled the Marvel universe from day 1. The notion that a kid in their minds could somehow headcanon that the Spider-Man of their movies and cartoons off scree/panel got older and wound up married to MJ isn't a difficult jump to make and is itself rather rewarding.

In this sense the status quo change in BND was even dumber than it was considering mass audiences were coming off a movie franchise shipping Peter and MJ and implying Aunt May knew his secret. Jum,ping from that to the JMS status quo is an easier leap for audience than the BND set up.


In fact I've seen enough newer fans who jumped on board in BND/Slott's run who LIKE Mary jane, SHIP him with Peter and would be okay if they DID get married, as evidenced by their positive reception of Renew Your Vows under Slott and later vol 2 under Conway.


People LIKE growth, so the majority are always going to be onboard with the progressive direction, in this case moving beyond a revolving door of girlfriends into something more serious and meaningful.


Think about it. MOST Spider-Man fans for the first 25 years WANTED Spider-Man to eventually wind up with somebody. Who that somebody was might've changed but few of them actively wanted Spidey to remain in a state wherein he had a revolving door of girlfriends. **** STAN LEE didn't even want that, he had him date 3 women and intended number 3 to be the endgame. Then Gerry Conway showed up and decided he wasn't girlfriend number 2 to be the endgame. All these creators and fans who grew up on a unmarried Spider-Man WANTED to see him progress to the point where he hit the life milestone of getting married.

Just because you regress the character back to a pre-married status quo doesn't mean that attitude will not repeat itself. Those 'newer' fans who are jumping onboard and causing the married fans' numbers to 'dwindle' aren't actually fans of Spider-Man NOT being married. They just want him to undergo growth as well, just as the fanbase of pre-1987 did.



Now let's talk about those 'dwindle to nothing' numbers.

Question: Did those people who wanted a single Spider-Man 'dwindle to nothing' in Brevoort's mind?

Clearly not.

Other question: Why does Renew Your Vows even exist and served as the most successful SW tie-in if these numbers are constantly dwindling to nothing?

Last question (for now): Wouldn't it economically make more sense to KEEP those fans and then ADD to their numbers with yet more new ones?

Because it's pretty obvious that

a) People who actively want a married Spider-Man outnumber the ones who actively want an unmarried/single Spider-Man

b) There are segments of the fanbase indifferent to either camp who therefore would not be upset by having a married Spider-Man

Oh and you know you have the fact that Spider-Man's sales are egregiously LOWER now than there were in during the marriage.

And no, that isn't a 'relative' thing at all.

In the early-mid 2000s when JMS was writing ASM and people were praising his take on the marriage, Marvel and the comic book market were still picking up the pieces from the 90s crash.

The comic book market is actually BETTER now than it was back then when you really crunch the numbers. It's just not better for Marvel necessarily.

And yet part 2 of a unremarkable JMS arc in 2005 outsold an issue of Power Play, a variant cover, hyped up, crossover starring Iron Man (in a post RDJ Iron Man mvie landscape, and during a time when Stark was under BENDIS' pen) and Miles Morales as well as the Avengers and served as a de facto tie-in to ubermegahit Captain America Civil War.

So...who's numbers are dwindling here exactly?

Brevoort might be dead set on Spider-Man being abou youth and dead set on the marriage crippling the book but lets consider the source here.

Why does Brevoort's word count for anything?

Is Tom Brevoort a revered Spider-Man expert?

No.

Is Tom Brevoort a noteworthy Spider-Man writer?

No.

Is Tom Brevoort even a particularly great editor? Just on a craft level, does he have solid gold editing skills.

No.

Tom Brevoort is BAD at his current job and he was BAD at his old jobs in the 90s.

Tom brevoort is a BAD writer to the point where he will admit as much in refence to his Fantastic Force work and his most notable Spider-Man writing credit is the lambasted Funeral for an Octopus mini-series.

Tom Brevoort exists as someone who is an authority on Spider-Man merely because he seems to think he is one in spite of his statements not holding up to scrutiny (Spider-Man is not about youth, as in it is a provable fact that that is the case holy ****, how could anyone be dumb enough to actually think otherwise it's so obvious!)

So...why in God's name does Brevoort's word on Spider-Man count for anything at all?

Why on Earth should we BELIEVE him when he says the marriage crippled the book or that Spider-Man is about youth when both are provably untrue.

Then you have this whole 'Marvel is unified' BS.

Of course he's going to SAY that and of course people will agree that that is true.

But it's provably not.

Matt Fraction, peter David, DeMatteis and other creators have gone on record post-OMD in disagreeing with Brevoort's stance

Finally never say never with comic books.

Superman's marriage came back hardcore and it didn't even go away in such a hated way.

Someday Spider-Man's marriage will return

Spectacular. Amazing. I have nothing to add, bravo!

[Knightsilver]

Lets break this down.

The marriage will not return under THIS regime who don't have the divine right of the King to rule for life.

Investment in the marriage is often shallowly dismissed as 'you just grew up with it'.

No.

MOST Spider-Man fans who began reading before September 1987 were also in favour of the marriage too.

It is a lie yet convenient narrative to spin that ONLY those people who grew up with Spider-Man from Sept 1987-December 2007 are invested in the marriage.

It also makes no sense considering the overwhelming majority would've come to discover those comics from adaptations that probably did not feature a married Spider-Man.

During the marriage, the only media outside of comics depicting an married Spider-Man were a few video games and less than 13 episodes of the 1994 cartoon show, plus Spider-Man Unlimited but MJ was only in the first episode.

MOST fans would've gotten in via Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, the 1994 cartoon or the Raimi films (maybe the 2003 MTV show but that's a long shot).

Spider-Man was not only single but actively younger in all those versions, being aged between 18-22 tops, whereas Spider-Man was about 25-30 during the course of the marriage when you do the math.

And yet those readers still read and enjoyed an older married Spider-Man and the marriage itself was part of that.

In fact ULTIMATE Spider-Man fans clearly liked the marriage too considering they had to a large extent their own version of it.

Despite being a teenager, Ultimate MJ's functions within the narrative were near identical to her older married 616 counterpart's and references to the marriage were made more than once during Bendis' run, even going into Miles' book.

Why exactly did all those kids, myself included, who first got hooked onto a younger unmarried Spider-Man embracing of an older married one?

Simple: growth and character development.

That is the crack that fueled the Marvel universe from day 1. The notion that a kid in their minds could somehow headcanon that the Spider-Man of their movies and cartoons off scree/panel got older and wound up married to MJ isn't a difficult jump to make and is itself rather rewarding.

In this sense the status quo change in BND was even dumber than it was considering mass audiences were coming off a movie franchise shipping Peter and MJ and implying Aunt May knew his secret. Jum,ping from that to the JMS status quo is an easier leap for audience than the BND set up.


In fact I've seen enough newer fans who jumped on board in BND/Slott's run who LIKE Mary jane, SHIP him with Peter and would be okay if they DID get married, as evidenced by their positive reception of Renew Your Vows under Slott and later vol 2 under Conway.


People LIKE growth, so the majority are always going to be onboard with the progressive direction, in this case moving beyond a revolving door of girlfriends into something more serious and meaningful.


Think about it. MOST Spider-Man fans for the first 25 years WANTED Spider-Man to eventually wind up with somebody. Who that somebody was might've changed but few of them actively wanted Spidey to remain in a state wherein he had a revolving door of girlfriends. **** STAN LEE didn't even want that, he had him date 3 women and intended number 3 to be the endgame. Then Gerry Conway showed up and decided he wasn't girlfriend number 2 to be the endgame. All these creators and fans who grew up on a unmarried Spider-Man WANTED to see him progress to the point where he hit the life milestone of getting married.

Just because you regress the character back to a pre-married status quo doesn't mean that attitude will not repeat itself. Those 'newer' fans who are jumping onboard and causing the married fans' numbers to 'dwindle' aren't actually fans of Spider-Man NOT being married. They just want him to undergo growth as well, just as the fanbase of pre-1987 did.



Now let's talk about those 'dwindle to nothing' numbers.

Question: Did those people who wanted a single Spider-Man 'dwindle to nothing' in Brevoort's mind?

Clearly not.

Other question: Why does Renew Your Vows even exist and served as the most successful SW tie-in if these numbers are constantly dwindling to nothing?

Last question (for now): Wouldn't it economically make more sense to KEEP those fans and then ADD to their numbers with yet more new ones?

Because it's pretty obvious that

a) People who actively want a married Spider-Man outnumber the ones who actively want an unmarried/single Spider-Man

b) There are segments of the fanbase indifferent to either camp who therefore would not be upset by having a married Spider-Man

Oh and you know you have the fact that Spider-Man's sales are egregiously LOWER now than there were in during the marriage.

And no, that isn't a 'relative' thing at all.

In the early-mid 2000s when JMS was writing ASM and people were praising his take on the marriage, Marvel and the comic book market were still picking up the pieces from the 90s crash.

The comic book market is actually BETTER now than it was back then when you really crunch the numbers. It's just not better for Marvel necessarily.

And yet part 2 of a unremarkable JMS arc in 2005 outsold an issue of Power Play, a variant cover, hyped up, crossover starring Iron Man (in a post RDJ Iron Man mvie landscape, and during a time when Stark was under BENDIS' pen) and Miles Morales as well as the Avengers and served as a de facto tie-in to ubermegahit Captain America Civil War.

So...who's numbers are dwindling here exactly?

Brevoort might be dead set on Spider-Man being abou youth and dead set on the marriage crippling the book but lets consider the source here.

Why does Brevoort's word count for anything?

Is Tom Brevoort a revered Spider-Man expert?

No.

Is Tom Brevoort a noteworthy Spider-Man writer?

No.

Is Tom Brevoort even a particularly great editor? Just on a craft level, does he have solid gold editing skills.

No.

Tom Brevoort is BAD at his current job and he was BAD at his old jobs in the 90s.

Tom brevoort is a BAD writer to the point where he will admit as much in refence to his Fantastic Force work and his most notable Spider-Man writing credit is the lambasted Funeral for an Octopus mini-series.

Tom Brevoort exists as someone who is an authority on Spider-Man merely because he seems to think he is one in spite of his statements not holding up to scrutiny (Spider-Man is not about youth, as in it is a provable fact that that is the case holy ****, how could anyone be dumb enough to actually think otherwise it's so obvious!)

So...why in God's name does Brevoort's word on Spider-Man count for anything at all?

Why on Earth should we BELIEVE him when he says the marriage crippled the book or that Spider-Man is about youth when both are provably untrue.

Then you have this whole 'Marvel is unified' BS.

Of course he's going to SAY that and of course people will agree that that is true.

But it's provably not.

Matt Fraction, peter David, DeMatteis and other creators have gone on record post-OMD in disagreeing with Brevoort's stance

Finally never say never with comic books.

Superman's marriage came back hardcore and it didn't even go away in such a hated way.

Someday Spider-Man's marriage will return

This site really does need a "like" button.

[WebLurker]

This site really does need a "like" button.

And no 10 character floor.

[Mister Mets]

I'm going to be curious about Vortex85's view that this thread got bumped years later.

Incidentally, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. Spidercide clearly has stuff to say.

Anyone checking it out now might want to see the 23rd, 31st and 34th post where comments by Brevoort and responses by Vortex85 are quoted.

Lets break this down.

The marriage will not return under THIS regime who don't have the divine right of the King to rule for life.

Investment in the marriage is often shallowly dismissed as 'you just grew up with it'.

No.

MOST Spider-Man fans who began reading before September 1987 were also in favour of the marriage too.

It is a lie yet convenient narrative to spin that ONLY those people who grew up with Spider-Man from Sept 1987-December 2007 are invested in the marriage.

It also makes no sense considering the overwhelming majority would've come to discover those comics from adaptations that probably did not feature a married Spider-Man.

During the marriage, the only media outside of comics depicting an married Spider-Man were a few video games and less than 13 episodes of the 1994 cartoon show, plus Spider-Man Unlimited but MJ was only in the first episode.

MOST fans would've gotten in via Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, the 1994 cartoon or the Raimi films (maybe the 2003 MTV show but that's a long shot).

Spider-Man was not only single but actively younger in all those versions, being aged between 18-22 tops, whereas Spider-Man was about 25-30 during the course of the marriage when you do the math.

And yet those readers still read and enjoyed an older married Spider-Man and the marriage itself was part of that.

In fact ULTIMATE Spider-Man fans clearly liked the marriage too considering they had to a large extent their own version of it.

Despite being a teenager, Ultimate MJ's functions within the narrative were near identical to her older married 616 counterpart's and references to the marriage were made more than once during Bendis' run, even going into Miles' book.

Brevoort's view that many Spider-Man fans want the character to grow up with them would also apply to people who were fans of the character in 1986.

There has been some talk of making Spider-Man younger, although that will be a bigger change than removing the marriage, especially in the context of the Marvel Universe.

Whether Peter and Mary Jane lived together or were married doesn't have much of an effect on the standard Marvel comic, but if it's only been a maximum of five years since Spider-Man appeared in the Marvel Universe, that will affect stories involving his rogues in other titles.

Video games did often have a married Spider-Man, but I'd imagine that's because Spider-Man having to rescue MJ works as an easy set-up to a final boss fight.

Why exactly did all those kids, myself included, who first got hooked onto a younger unmarried Spider-Man embracing of an older married one?

Simple: growth and character development.

That is the crack that fueled the Marvel universe from day 1. The notion that a kid in their minds could somehow headcanon that the Spider-Man of their movies and cartoons off scree/panel got older and wound up married to MJ isn't a difficult jump to make and is itself rather rewarding.

One of the biggest divisions for Spider-Man fans is whether the important thing about the character is that he's young or that he's grown.

In this sense the status quo change in BND was even dumber than it was considering mass audiences were coming off a movie franchise shipping Peter and MJ and implying Aunt May knew his secret. Jum,ping from that to the JMS status quo is an easier leap for audience than the BND set up.

In fact I've seen enough newer fans who jumped on board in BND/Slott's run who LIKE Mary jane, SHIP him with Peter and would be okay if they DID get married, as evidenced by their positive reception of Renew Your Vows under Slott and later vol 2 under Conway.


People LIKE growth, so the majority are always going to be onboard with the progressive direction, in this case moving beyond a revolving door of girlfriends into something more serious and meaningful.


Think about it. MOST Spider-Man fans for the first 25 years WANTED Spider-Man to eventually wind up with somebody. Who that somebody was might've changed but few of them actively wanted Spidey to remain in a state wherein he had a revolving door of girlfriends. **** STAN LEE didn't even want that, he had him date 3 women and intended number 3 to be the endgame. Then Gerry Conway showed up and decided he wasn't girlfriend number 2 to be the endgame. All these creators and fans who grew up on a unmarried Spider-Man WANTED to see him progress to the point where he hit the life milestone of getting married.

Just because you regress the character back to a pre-married status quo doesn't mean that attitude will not repeat itself. Those 'newer' fans who are jumping onboard and causing the married fans' numbers to 'dwindle' aren't actually fans of Spider-Man NOT being married. They just want him to undergo growth as well, just as the fanbase of pre-1987 did.

Now let's talk about those 'dwindle to nothing' numbers.

Question: Did those people who wanted a single Spider-Man 'dwindle to nothing' in Brevoort's mind?

Clearly not.

Other question: Why does Renew Your Vows even exist and served as the most successful SW tie-in if these numbers are constantly dwindling to nothing?

As a quick point, RYV's numbers are declining.

And it did have a significant change for 17 issues which means it no longer serves as evidence that Peter Parker as a family man with a wife and relatively young child works as a long-term story engine.

Last question (for now): Wouldn't it economically make more sense to KEEP those fans and then ADD to their numbers with yet more new ones?

Because it's pretty obvious that

a) People who actively want a married Spider-Man outnumber the ones who actively want an unmarried/single Spider-Man

b) There are segments of the fanbase indifferent to either camp who therefore would not be upset by having a married Spider-Man

This assumes that the marriage is viable in the wrong term, and that the character's progression will remain interesting to readers.

Eventually there would be further changes.

Oh and you know you have the fact that Spider-Man's sales are egregiously LOWER now than there were in during the marriage.

And no, that isn't a 'relative' thing at all.

In the early-mid 2000s when JMS was writing ASM and people were praising his take on the marriage, Marvel and the comic book market were still picking up the pieces from the 90s crash.

The comic book market is actually BETTER now than it was back then when you really crunch the numbers. It's just not better for Marvel necessarily.

And yet part 2 of a unremarkable JMS arc in 2005 outsold an issue of Power Play, a variant cover, hyped up, crossover starring Iron Man (in a post RDJ Iron Man mvie landscape, and during a time when Stark was under BENDIS' pen) and Miles Morales as well as the Avengers and served as a de facto tie-in to ubermegahit Captain America Civil War.

So...who's numbers are dwindling here exactly?

Aren't other factors used to explain the numbers.

I think the biggest problem is Marvel's brand, since ASM regularly outsells other Marvel titles.

But I've also heard the argument that Dan Slott is a bad writer who alienates fans with his online antics. It seems to me unlikely that Spider-Man would remain Marvel's top ongoing monthly with multiple disadvantages.

Brevoort might be dead set on Spider-Man being abou youth and dead set on the marriage crippling the book but lets consider the source here.

Why does Brevoort's word count for anything?

Is Tom Brevoort a revered Spider-Man expert?

No.

Is Tom Brevoort a noteworthy Spider-Man writer?

No.

Is Tom Brevoort even a particularly great editor? Just on a craft level, does he have solid gold editing skills.

No.

Tom Brevoort is BAD at his current job and he was BAD at his old jobs in the 90s.

Tom brevoort is a BAD writer to the point where he will admit as much in refence to his Fantastic Force work and his most notable Spider-Man writing credit is the lambasted Funeral for an Octopus mini-series.

Tom Brevoort exists as someone who is an authority on Spider-Man merely because he seems to think he is one in spite of his statements not holding up to scrutiny (Spider-Man is not about youth, as in it is a provable fact that that is the case holy ****, how could anyone be dumb enough to actually think otherwise it's so obvious!)

So...why in God's name does Brevoort's word on Spider-Man count for anything at all?

Why on Earth should we BELIEVE him when he says the marriage crippled the book or that Spider-Man is about youth when both are provably untrue.

When have we established that Brevoort is a poor editor?

Then you have this whole 'Marvel is unified' BS.

Of course he's going to SAY that and of course people will agree that that is true.

But it's provably not.

Matt Fraction, peter David, DeMatteis and other creators have gone on record post-OMD in disagreeing with Brevoort's stance

Finally never say never with comic books.

Superman's marriage came back hardcore and it didn't even go away in such a hated way.

Someday Spider-Man's marriage will return

Superman's an older character, and one argument could be that those stories weren't as good as Brand New Day/ The Big Time/ Superior Spider-Man.

[RedWhiteAndBlueSupes]

Well Alonso's gone, so thats good. Brevoort is hopefully next. Slotts going, so thats good.

More than just OMD, Marvel has taken a weird anti MJ kinda stance since then. So hopefully that will at least stop.

[The Dying Detective]

Well Alonso's gone, so thats good. Brevoort is hopefully next. Slotts going, so thats good.

More than just OMD, Marvel has taken a weird anti MJ kinda stance since then. So hopefully that will at least stop.

Slott is going to write Iron Man.

[RedWhiteAndBlueSupes]

Slott is going to write Iron Man.

Oh man... First ive heard this.. Well at least he's gone from ASM!! Sucks he still gets a major marvel character though

[The Dying Detective]

Oh man... First ive heard this.. Well at least he's gone from ASM!! Sucks he still gets a major marvel character though

Yup now he's another character's problem still he did turn Peter into a Tony Stark rip off he could do well with the real thing.