Spider-Man Retcon confusion

[Celgress]

*examines thread and sighs*

Damn I hate the whole OMD debacle.

[Phantom Roxas]

*examines thread and sighs*

Damn I hate the whole OMD debacle.

I'm sorry if I frustrate you about this.

[Celgress]

I'm sorry if I frustrate you about this.

Nah I just mean in general. It is such a terrible mess. The discussion here simply remained me of that fact.

[Xenon]

That sounds like really bad writing to me. I mean to have powers and to lose them for no reason is annoying. His new powers were not god level but made him truly embody the spider. What I don't get is and I know I'm very far behind but I thought Peter and MJ have a child? Or is this on another earth? I also heard there is a universe where May dies. Also there is a comic where Peter's daughter has powers?

That sucks, I thought the marriage was something important to Peter - his life kind of sucks and this helps him get through it.

This post is true. I just wanted to see it again in the thread. Other people have this largely covered.

[primenumber101]

That sucks, I thought the marriage was something important to Peter - his life kind of sucks and this helps him get through it.

I agree. Spidey already went lots of misfortune throughout his life and writers does seemed to unallow Peter to be happy.

[bat39]

As far as my understanding of 'One Moment in Time' goes, Mephisto literally changed only one event...he caused Peter to be late to his wedding with MJ, leading to the wedding being called off. All the other changes caused by 'One More Day' are the result of a butterfly effect that stems from this divergence...including the restoration of Peter's secret identity and Harry Osborn's supposed resurrection.

I dunno if the bit about his totem powers has ever been addressed anywhere, but no doubt that's also a change that would have some 'natural' explanation independent of Mephisto.

[Carabas]

As far as my understanding of 'One Moment in Time' goes, Mephisto literally changed only one event...he caused Peter to be late to his wedding with MJ, leading to the wedding being called off. All the other changes caused by 'One More Day' are the result of a butterfly effect that stems from this divergence...including the restoration of Peter's secret identity and Harry Osborn's supposed resurrection.

I dunno if the bit about his totem powers has ever been addressed anywhere, but no doubt that's also a change that would have some 'natural' explanation independent of Mephisto.

The thing is that Quasada seems to have massively miscalculated how bad the fanbase, even the part of it that really liked Brandnew Day, hated Peter making a deal with Mephisto, and Mephisto having such a huge footprint in Peter's life.

So One Moment In Time was the huuuge retcon to diminish that.

[Mister Mets]

As far as my understanding of 'One Moment in Time' goes, Mephisto literally changed only one event...he caused Peter to be late to his wedding with MJ, leading to the wedding being called off. All the other changes caused by 'One More Day' are the result of a butterfly effect that stems from this divergence...including the restoration of Peter's secret identity and Harry Osborn's supposed resurrection.

I dunno if the bit about his totem powers has ever been addressed anywhere, but no doubt that's also a change that would have some 'natural' explanation independent of Mephisto.

It can be argued that some of the other changes would've happened anyway (ie-Harry had faked his death in the pre-OMD world as well) though it hasn't been confirmed.

[Mister Mets]

As far as my understanding of 'One Moment in Time' goes, Mephisto literally changed only one event...he caused Peter to be late to his wedding with MJ, leading to the wedding being called off. All the other changes caused by 'One More Day' are the result of a butterfly effect that stems from this divergence...including the restoration of Peter's secret identity and Harry Osborn's supposed resurrection.

I dunno if the bit about his totem powers has ever been addressed anywhere, but no doubt that's also a change that would have some 'natural' explanation independent of Mephisto.

It can be argued that some of the other changes would've happened anyway (ie-Harry had faked his death in the pre-OMD world as well) though it hasn't been confirmed.

[Phantom Roxas]

As far as my understanding of 'One Moment in Time' goes, Mephisto literally changed only one event...he caused Peter to be late to his wedding with MJ, leading to the wedding being called off. All the other changes caused by 'One More Day' are the result of a butterfly effect that stems from this divergence...including the restoration of Peter's secret identity and Harry Osborn's supposed resurrection.

I dunno if the bit about his totem powers has ever been addressed anywhere, but no doubt that's also a change that would have some 'natural' explanation independent of Mephisto.

I believe there was more like a point of convergence at One More Day. Joe Quesada maintains that nearly everything happened roughly the same, since every story apparently happened almost the same way, just that Peter and Mary Jane were boyfriend and girlfriend instead of husband and wife, and therefore, Mary Jane was never pregnant. The restoration of Peter's secret identity was done by Doctor Strange not as a consequence of a butterfly effect, but to make it easy for the point of divergence to result in two parallel timelines that reach the same point regardless. Given how Harry's resurrection was explained by his death being faked, it doesn't seem like Mephisto's intervention changed Harry's fate. There's a notion that the marriage "limits" story potential, but that cannot use Harry's resurrection, since it's clear that the marriage was not preventing that story from happening. In other words, something that supposedly benefitted from One More Day did not actually require One More Day to be done. It's not a butterfly effect, because whereas that typically results in a timeline that is completely different from what happened, Quesada expects us to believe that One More Day had very minimal effects on the timeline. Even Peter visiting Doctor Strange for the psychic blindspot did not require Peter missing the wedding.

You're right, those are certainly things that came up after One More Day, but I don't think that there was a butterfly effect in place. Quesada actually seemed to have gone out of his way to avoid a butterfly. Considering how he was treating the marriage like it was inconsequential, acknowledging a butterfly as a result of the marriage being removed would be giving the marriage far more weight than he would have liked.

[bat39]

I believe there was more like a point of convergence at One More Day. Joe Quesada maintains that nearly everything happened roughly the same, since every story apparently happened almost the same way, just that Peter and Mary Jane were boyfriend and girlfriend instead of husband and wife, and therefore, Mary Jane was never pregnant. The restoration of Peter's secret identity was done by Doctor Strange not as a consequence of a butterfly effect, but to make it easy for the point of divergence to result in two parallel timelines that reach the same point regardless. Given how Harry's resurrection was explained by his death being faked, it doesn't seem like Mephisto's intervention changed Harry's fate. There's a notion that the marriage "limits" story potential, but that cannot use Harry's resurrection, since it's clear that the marriage was not preventing that story from happening. In other words, something that supposedly benefitted from One More Day did not actually require One More Day to be done. It's not a butterfly effect, because whereas that typically results in a timeline that is completely different from what happened, Quesada expects us to believe that One More Day had very minimal effects on the timeline. Even Peter visiting Doctor Strange for the psychic blindspot did not require Peter missing the wedding.

You're right, those are certainly things that came up after One More Day, but I don't think that there was a butterfly effect in place. Quesada actually seemed to have gone out of his way to avoid a butterfly. Considering how he was treating the marriage like it was inconsequential, acknowledging a butterfly as a result of the marriage being removed would be giving the marriage far more weight than he would have liked.

You're right. I stand corrected on the 'butterfly effect' thing, which was a poor choice of words.

What I meant to say was that Mephisto literally changed only one thing about Peter's past...causing him to miss the wedding. Everything else that happened or didn't happen stemmed from that naturally, and most of the stuff would likely have happened anyway.

Scratch that...I do have a feeling the bit about Peter restoring his secret identity may have been something Mephisto somehow caused to happen, since it was part of the deal he made with the Parkers. I feel that's something that wouldn't have happened without Mephisto. I guess 'originally', Aunt May was dying anyway and Peter was more concerned about saving her life than restoring his secret. Also, MJ and he were married so in a sense he didn't feel like he could keep a secret from his own wife since their relationship was more permanent. Whereas in the revised timeline, Aunt May was likely to survive and he and MJ weren't married so Peter felt like he could keep a secret from her, or gradually phase her out of his life for her own safety, so he arranged for the mind-wipe.

I dunno...its been a while since I've read the stories in question.

[Phantom Roxas]

You're right. I stand corrected on the 'butterfly effect' thing, which was a poor choice of words.

What I meant to say was that Mephisto literally changed only one thing about Peter's past...causing him to miss the wedding. Everything else that happened or didn't happen stemmed from that naturally, and most of the stuff would likely have happened anyway.

Scratch that...I do have a feeling the bit about Peter restoring his secret identity may have been something Mephisto somehow caused to happen, since it was part of the deal he made with the Parkers. I feel that's something that wouldn't have happened without Mephisto. I guess 'originally', Aunt May was dying anyway and Peter was more concerned about saving her life than restoring his secret. Also, MJ and he were married so in a sense he didn't feel like he could keep a secret from his own wife since their relationship was more permanent. Whereas in the revised timeline, Aunt May was likely to survive and he and MJ weren't married so Peter felt like he could keep a secret from her, or gradually phase her out of his life for her own safety, so he arranged for the mind-wipe.

I dunno...its been a while since I've read the stories in question.

You had a fine choice of words. Sorry if I seemed aggressive towards you, it's just that I was having a discussion with someone over on the Spider-Man Crawlspace on Monday where I also explained my belief that there's no butterfly effect, so there was a sense of deja vu for me me. You're right, though, Mephisto only changed one event, and everything else had nothing to do with it.

I could see Mephisto playing some part in restoring the identity. Honestly, I think it's just easier to go with One More Day being a bad story that tried to reset to an earlier status quo, and One Moment In Time tried to offer lazy explanations.

[Mister Mets]

You're right. I stand corrected on the 'butterfly effect' thing, which was a poor choice of words.

What I meant to say was that Mephisto literally changed only one thing about Peter's past...causing him to miss the wedding. Everything else that happened or didn't happen stemmed from that naturally, and most of the stuff would likely have happened anyway.

Scratch that...I do have a feeling the bit about Peter restoring his secret identity may have been something Mephisto somehow caused to happen, since it was part of the deal he made with the Parkers. I feel that's something that wouldn't have happened without Mephisto. I guess 'originally', Aunt May was dying anyway and Peter was more concerned about saving her life than restoring his secret. Also, MJ and he were married so in a sense he didn't feel like he could keep a secret from his own wife since their relationship was more permanent. Whereas in the revised timeline, Aunt May was likely to survive and he and MJ weren't married so Peter felt like he could keep a secret from her, or gradually phase her out of his life for her own safety, so he arranged for the mind-wipe.

I dunno...its been a while since I've read the stories in question.

Mephisto did keep Peter out of May's room, when she suffered an episode. In OMIT, Peter was by her side, and able to help her (the mechanics of this are in some dispute.)

After May was safe, and someone attacked MJ and Anna (this was the crook whose release led to Peter missing the wedding), he went to the other Marvel heroes to help make his identity secret again.

So it does all tie to Peter's conversation with Mephisto, and the one thing Mephisto changed in the past.