Thread Drift: Will One More Day ever be reversed?

[Blackest Knight]

from what slott tells us, it's because it's systemic and goes beyond the influence of any one fan who "rises from our ranks to use the power of the matrix" etc etc.

you would need one of those nostalgia driven fans strategically placed in every position of power and influence not just in the comics office but in all the higher up positions of marvel entertainment in order to have a chance of changing that policy.

i guess we'll have definitive proof in...what? 10 years? that's about the window for marriage nostalgia fans to jump in to a decision maker's chair before the fan base is mostly just post-marriage readers.

I saw the BleedingCool.com article on this discussion and had to see it to believe it.

You mention 10 years from now. I won't predict what's going to happen in 2027. But I can tell you what happened in 2004 and what's happening now and comment on that.

Back in 2004, my pull list was 75% Marvel to 25% DC, Dark Horse and Image. I was buying Marvel over DC at a ratio of 2-to-1, maybe even 3-to-1. That is no longer the case. And in 2007 after OMD, I dropped all Spider-Man books and never bought them again.

In the past year or two, Marvel has started regularly overshipping "free" copies of books to retailers. I say "free" because retailers do have to pay for the shipping costs on those books, most of which end up as unsold product shops are stuck with and ultimately stick in dollar book bins or 50 cent bins or simply give them away. These overships started at 10% and have increased to 15% on some titles. My question is, how high does Marvel keep increasing those overships--20%, 25%, 30%--before the numbers make it untenable to continue giving away their product for free?

I have no beef with Dan Slott at all. By all accounts, I hear he's a nice guy and a successful writer whom I respect. But I fail to see how spending your days criticizing fans who stopped buying Marvel's product because they didn't like it and how they are all dumb, wrong or foolish for wanting Marvel to make product they want to buy is a winning strategy.

Marvel Comics is a business. They want and need to make money and they want to beat all of their competitors and hold the #1 position in sales. Like it or not, the customer is always right. The comics retail business rests solidly on a sales base of older, white, straight male customers who are proven resistant to change and can hold out anyone for years, if not decades. Me personally, I don't care which version of GL DC publishes--Hal, John, Kyle, Guy--as long as the stories and art are good, I will buy it. But I'm in the minority and sales figures prove that the fans will get what they want if they vote with their wallets. That isn't an opinion; that's a fact.

Marvel could go the route of undoing OMD and restoring Peter and Mary Jane to an earlier point where they weren't married. DC has proven fans will accept and buy this reset trope with Aquaman, Flash and Wally West in Titans. It can be done and sell well. But the harsh reality is that most customers do not join or even read online forums. The vast majority simply add or drop books from their pull lists without ever interacting with creators or other fans online.

The bottom line is, if the sales figures for any and all Marvel books continue their steady erosion where Marvel keeps increasing the number of free overships, then eventually the profits simply won't support continually giving away free product in ever increasing numbers. That isn't my feeling or opinion; it's basic math. It is Economics 101. No business can maintain profitability on a sales strategy founded on giving away their product for free.

Also, arguing with and criticizing your customers is a lousy way to get them to buy your product. If someone walks into a store and says they want a certain product and the salesman tells them, "Too bad. This is what we're making. Now shut up and buy it," that customer can and will walk out of the store and go to your competitors and buy their product instead.

I never, ever thought Trump could win. It was impossible. Saying that Marvel will always be #1 and no one will ever bring back a story element that the people running the company have insisted is gone forever is unrealistic. Sales can certainly drop lower. And they can continue to drop to the point where the people running the company will in fact be forced to do just about anything to claw their way back to again win over customers they alienated.

Never say never. The impossible can and does happen. Not because I or other fans want it to. But solely because falling sales figures and pressure to increase sales and regain profits will force comics executives and creators to say and do things they swore they never would.

In the eternal battle between the need to be creative and the need to make money, money always wins.

[DoctorWho]

There used to be a say that the only characters that would never ever ever ever ressurrect in comics were Bucky, Uncle Ben and Jason Todd. Hey, Dan, how long until we get Uncle Ben back in the next crossover?

[Blackest Knight]

There used to be a say that the only characters that would never ever ever ever ressurrect in comics were Bucky, Uncle Ben and Jason Todd. Hey, Dan, how long until we get Uncle Ben back in the next crossover?

LOL. Yeah. I ask myself that question all the time. Heh.

[Prof. Warren]

I saw the BleedingCool.com article on this discussion and had to see it to believe it.

You mention 10 years from now. I won't predict what's going to happen in 2027. But I can tell you what happened in 2004 and what's happening now and comment on that.

Back in 2004, my pull list was 75% Marvel to 25% DC, Dark Horse and Image. I was buying Marvel over DC at a ratio of 2-to-1, maybe even 3-to-1. That is no longer the case. And in 2007 after OMD, I dropped all Spider-Man books and never bought them again.

In the past year or two, Marvel has started regularly overshipping "free" copies of books to retailers. I say "free" because retailers do have to pay for the shipping costs on those books, most of which end up as unsold product shops are stuck with and ultimately stick in dollar book bins or 50 cent bins or simply give them away. These overships started at 10% and have increased to 15% on some titles. My question is, how high does Marvel keep increasing those overships--20%, 25%, 30%--before the numbers make it untenable to continue giving away their product for free?

I have no beef with Dan Slott at all. By all accounts, I hear he's a nice guy and a successful writer whom I respect. But I fail to see how spending your days criticizing fans who stopped buying Marvel's product because they didn't like it and how they are all dumb, wrong or foolish for wanting Marvel to make product they want to buy is a winning strategy.

Marvel Comics is a business. They want and need to make money and they want to beat all of their competitors and hold the #1 position in sales. Like it or not, the customer is always right. The comics retail business rests solidly on a sales base of older, white, straight male customers who are proven resistant to change and can hold out anyone for years, if not decades. Me personally, I don't care which version of GL DC publishes--Hal, John, Kyle, Guy--as long as the stories and art are good, I will buy it. But I'm in the minority and sales figures prove that the fans will get what they want if they vote with their wallets. That isn't an opinion; that's a fact.

Marvel could go the route of undoing OMD and restoring Peter and Mary Jane to an earlier point where they weren't married. DC has proven fans will accept and buy this reset trope with Aquaman, Flash and Wally West in Titans. It can be done and sell well. But the harsh reality is that most customers do not join or even read online forums. The vast majority simply add or drop books from their pull lists without ever interacting with creators or other fans online.

The bottom line is, if the sales figures for any and all Marvel books continue their steady erosion where Marvel keeps increasing the number of free overships, then eventually the profits simply won't support continually giving away free product in ever increasing numbers. That isn't my feeling or opinion; it's basic math. It is Economics 101. No business can maintain profitability on a sales strategy founded on giving away their product for free.

Also, arguing with and criticizing your customers is a lousy way to get them to buy your product. If someone walks into a store and says they want a certain product and the salesman tells them, "Too bad. This is what we're making. Now shut up and buy it," that customer can and will walk out of the store and go to your competitors and buy their product instead.

I never, ever thought Trump could win. It was impossible. Saying that Marvel will always be #1 and no one will ever bring back a story element that the people running the company have insisted is gone forever is unrealistic. Sales can certainly drop lower. And they can continue to drop to the point where the people running the company will in fact be forced to do just about anything to claw their way back to again win over customers they alienated.

Never say never. The impossible can and does happen. Not because I or other fans want it to. But solely because falling sales figures and pressure to increase sales and regain profits will force comics executives and creators to say and do things they swore they never would.

In the eternal battle between the need to be creative and the need to make money, money always wins.

And OMD was in 2008. We're now in 2017. Marvel has continued to make money just fine. ASM is their top-selling superhero book.

So if sales were ever faltering on ASM, the immediate solution to that would not be "let's reinstate the marriage!" because it's been proven that fans support a single Peter. Had sales tanked immediately after OMD and stayed that way, Marvel might've reconsidered their move. But that's not what happened. Reinstating the marriage would provide a sales bump temporarily but then leave them struggling with the same ongoing problems that made them seek to undo it in the first place. It's a losing move, especially when sales bumps can be achieved through a variety of other ways.

The key statement in the above is this: "But the harsh reality is that most customers do not join or even read online forums. The vast majority simply add or drop books from their pull lists without ever interacting with creators or other fans online."

Most readers who follow ASM don't give a rat's ass about OMD. They've moved on.

As for calling fans who want the marriage reinstated "dumb, wrong or foolish", let's be honest. Slott has never said that fans shouldn't buy (or not buy) what they want. He's never said fans are wrong to prefer the marriage. If he's just pointing out a truth that he knows as an insider at Marvel and someone who, probably more than most people on this planet, is fully cognizant of what is and isn't possible with Spider-Man, that's not calling anyone dumb, wrong or foolish.

It may be dumb for someone to stubbornly disbelief the facts that are being presented to them, it may be wrong for someone to think they have better knowledge of what a company will or won't do than someone who is privy to that companies' inner-workings, and it may be foolish for someone to persist in chasing after something that just isn't going to materialize, but laying out what may seem to some harsh facts isn't the same as directly calling anyone dumb, wrong or foolish. Not the same thing.

You say that "after OMD, I dropped all Spider-Man books and never bought them again." And to that, one can only say "Ok, and so...?"

You dropped the book. Other people started picking it up. That's how it goes. And if the marriage was reinstated, some people might come back, other people might drop out.

You can't please everybody. There's no such thing as a solution that will cause every single person who's ever liked Spider-Man to like the book equally at the same time.

Marriage fans can, and surely will, keep bleating "Never say never!" until they're laying on their death beds. That's fine. But I would assume that anyone who was against OMD and who wanted to show Marvel where they stood already voted with their wallet and stopped buying ASM almost ten years ago. Did it make a difference? No.

If you don't want to follow the character anymore, ok. Everyone has the choice to support or not support whatever they like. But if anyone thinks that the sales performance of ASM since 2008 has ever caused Marvel to have second thoughts about undoing the marriage, I think it's safe to say that they'd be wrong.

[stillanerd]

well that's sort of shadowland all over again.daredevil was also married and feeling trapped in the marriage and had his identity exposed and then was poessessed by the beast after murdering bullseye but the bromance of foggy caused the grip of the beast to loosen and elecktra provided the final means to escape from the condition. speaking about that how did he manage to make his I'd secret again? there was a arc about it recently but I missed the resolution.

If you mean Daredevil, we don't know yet how he got his secret identity back as the current arc isn't over. What we do know is that it may have something to do with the Purple Man and his kids.

So it's Peter who has to defeat Mephisto, but leave it up to destiny to solve the rest?

I think so, but the impression Spider-Man/Deadpool gives is that Peter isn't aware of just how involved Mephisto is in what's been going on in that comic. There was that encounter he had with him during Spider-Man/Deadpool #5, but for Peter, it's like coming out of a dream, in which you can't really remember what happened.

[Blackest Knight]

And OMD was in 2008. We're now in 2017. Marvel has continued to make money just fine. ASM is their top-selling superhero book.

So if sales were ever faltering on ASM, the immediate solution to that would not be "let's reinstate the marriage!" because it's been proven that fans support a single Peter.

Um...no. It's been proven fans support Spider-Man. I never claimed everyone dropped the book because of OMD. But some definitely did. I'd have to dig through records (which I don't have time to do right now) to compare sales figures between then and now. However, yes, some of Spidey's fans did drop the book due to that storyline. No, it hasn't been "proven" that the majority of fans support Peter being single. That's an opinion which neither you nor I can definitively proven without polling all Spidey fans past and present. Neither of us is likely to ever do that.

Had sales tanked immediately after OMD and stayed that way, Marvel might've reconsidered their move. But that's not what happened. Reinstating the marriage would provide a sales bump temporarily but then leave them struggling with the same ongoing problems that made them seek to undo it in the first place. It's a losing move, especially when sales bumps can be achieved through a variety of other ways.

Define these "problems" you allege, please.
And I'm not talking about temporary sales bumps. I'm talking about reclaiming fans who left and getting Marvel to retain them over months or years.

The key statement in the above is this: "But the harsh reality is that most customers do not join or even read online forums. The vast majority simply add or drop books from their pull lists without ever interacting with creators or other fans online."

Most readers who follow ASM don't give a rat's ass about OMD. They've moved on.

Again, what is your evidence that "most fans" don't care about OMD? Yes, Spider-Man is selling well and continues to sell. That is a true statement for any and all bestselling intellectual properties--Star Wars, Star Trek, Batman, X-Men, Superman, Avengers--who have a large and healthy sales base. They will always sell in decent or large numbers no matter what.

But that doesn't mean that sales can and do fluctuate and go down or go lower over time. Hardcore fans can and do stop supporting properties through their purchases. Amazing Spider-Man coming in at #13 on the most recent Diamond sales chart is a far cry from it once being in the Top 10, Top 5 or even #1 in years past.

As for calling fans who want the marriage reinstated "dumb, wrong or foolish", let's be honest. Slott has never said that fans shouldn't buy (or not buy) what they want. He's never said fans are wrong to prefer the marriage. If he's just pointing out a truth that he knows as an insider at Marvel and someone who, probably more than most people on this planet, is fully cognizant of what is and isn't possible with Spider-Man, that's not calling anyone dumb, wrong or foolish.

I think that's clearly implied and fairly inferred. Case in point being Slott's own comments (to quote just one example): "A person who believes that’s a scenario that could happen does not have a realistic grasp on how a company/corporate entity like Marvel functions. That’s the reality of the situation."

I don't think anyone who is advocating why they want Pete and MJ's marriage restored lacks "a realistic grasp" on "the reality of the situation." They want something he believes is impossible. Both I and others here have cited multiple examples of comic book stories being undone after years or decades later. No, it's not impossible--and challenging your customers' grasp of reality isn't paying them a compliment.

It may be dumb for someone to stubbornly disbelief the facts that are being presented to them, it may be wrong for someone to think they have better knowledge of what a company will or won't do than someone who is privy to that companies' inner-workings, and it may be foolish for someone to persist in chasing after something that just isn't going to materialize, but laying out what may seem to some harsh facts isn't the same as directly calling anyone dumb, wrong or foolish. Not the same thing.

If you want to debate what was implied by or inferred from Slott's statements, that isn't an argument I came here to engage in.

And the only facts that matter are sales figures and business plans. You don't start giving away your books for free if your sales margins are so high that no one can threaten your ranking in the industry.

You say that "after OMD, I dropped all Spider-Man books and never bought them again." And to that, one can only say "Ok, and so...?"

So I am one of Marvel's customers and I have dropped 90% of their books. Maybe me spending my money on Marvel Comics doesn't matter to them, but I suspect that me and others saying we're dropping Marvel titles isn't something they want people to publicly post. And they probably would prefer to have our money in larger numbers. So yes, it matters if customers post testimonials online stating why they don't like your product and don't buy it.

You dropped the book. Other people started picking it up. That's how it goes. And if the marriage was reinstated, some people might come back, other people might drop out.

You can't please everybody. There's no such thing as a solution that will cause every single person who's ever liked Spider-Man to like the book equally at the same time.

I never said there was a perfect solution. I'm only pointing out that out of all possible business plans, the one that garners the most sales wins.

Marriage fans can, and surely will, keep bleating "Never say never!" until they're laying on their death beds. That's fine. But I would assume that anyone who was against OMD and who wanted to show Marvel where they stood already voted with their wallet and stopped buying ASM almost ten years ago. Did it make a difference? No.

On the contrary, I think that both editorially and financially it's reasonable to assume Marvel has noticed that Amazing Spider-Man went from being a Top 5 or #1 book to being #13.

If you don't want to follow the character anymore, ok.

Everyone has the choice to support or not support whatever they like.

Again, I do want to follow Spider-Man and I do. I follow what happens in his line of books. I just don't buy them--but I want to buy them again and spend lots of money on them. So yes, I'm making the case for what I want to see in the books that would get me to buy them.

But if anyone thinks that the sales performance of ASM since 2008 has ever caused Marvel to have second thoughts about undoing the marriage, I think it's safe to say that they'd be wrong.

Neither you nor I knows for a fact whether or not anyone working at Marvel had second thoughts about OMD.

But I don't doubt for a second that seeing no Marvel superhero books in the Top 10 on the latest Diamond chart is definitely a hot topic of discussion for Marvel executives now.

[DoctorWho]

And OMD was in 2008. We're now in 2017. Marvel has continued to make money just fine. ASM is their top-selling superhero book.

So if sales were ever faltering on ASM, the immediate solution to that would not be "let's reinstate the marriage!" because it's been proven that fans support a single Peter. Had sales tanked immediately after OMD and stayed that way, Marvel might've reconsidered their move. But that's not what happened. Reinstating the marriage would provide a sales bump temporarily but then leave them struggling with the same ongoing problems that made them seek to undo it in the first place. It's a losing move, especially when sales bumps can be achieved through a variety of other ways.

The key statement in the above is this: "But the harsh reality is that most customers do not join or even read online forums. The vast majority simply add or drop books from their pull lists without ever interacting with creators or other fans online."

Most readers who follow ASM don't give a rat's ass about OMD. They've moved on.

As for calling fans who want the marriage reinstated "dumb, wrong or foolish", let's be honest. Slott has never said that fans shouldn't buy (or not buy) what they want. He's never said fans are wrong to prefer the marriage. If he's just pointing out a truth that he knows as an insider at Marvel and someone who, probably more than most people on this planet, is fully cognizant of what is and isn't possible with Spider-Man, that's not calling anyone dumb, wrong or foolish.

It may be dumb for someone to stubbornly disbelief the facts that are being presented to them, it may be wrong for someone to think they have better knowledge of what a company will or won't do than someone who is privy to that companies' inner-workings, and it may be foolish for someone to persist in chasing after something that just isn't going to materialize, but laying out what may seem to some harsh facts isn't the same as directly calling anyone dumb, wrong or foolish. Not the same thing.

You say that "after OMD, I dropped all Spider-Man books and never bought them again." And to that, one can only say "Ok, and so...?"

You dropped the book. Other people started picking it up. That's how it goes. And if the marriage was reinstated, some people might come back, other people might drop out.

You can't please everybody. There's no such thing as a solution that will cause every single person who's ever liked Spider-Man to like the book equally at the same time.

Marriage fans can, and surely will, keep bleating "Never say never!" until they're laying on their death beds. That's fine. But I would assume that anyone who was against OMD and who wanted to show Marvel where they stood already voted with their wallet and stopped buying ASM almost ten years ago. Did it make a difference? No.

If you don't want to follow the character anymore, ok. Everyone has the choice to support or not support whatever they like. But if anyone thinks that the sales performance of ASM since 2008 has ever caused Marvel to have second thoughts about undoing the marriage, I think it's safe to say that they'd be wrong.

But the issue is exactly Slott using the word "never". Yeah, it's clear that's not a possibility right now and it won't be for the foreseeable future, but we're talking about characters that will outlive us by a large margin. They will likely remain being published for hundreds of years. When he says "never" he is assuming that circumstances that exist now will remain unchanged forever, for the whole eternity.

DC worked as hard to make Superman the sole survivor of Krypton, erasing entire characters. And one could argue they were even more sucessful than Marvel at accomplishing that, there were people of two whole decades that grew up without having Kara Zor-El as Supergirl, and yet they brought her back when the circumstances aligned to allow it. We can say the same about Barry Allen or Hal Jordan or even the Wonder Woman/Steve Trevor relantionship. Claiming that just because it's been a decade the publisher will never care to bring back that element anymore is beyond silly. I started reading Spider-Man post-OMD and I'd still prefer him to be married... mr. Slott seems to ignore the power that back issues have on new fans.

All his rant just made him look stubborn instead of "realistic" as it was probably his intetion.

[Blackest Knight]

But the issue is exactly Slott using the word "never". Yeah, it's clear that's not a possibility right now and it won't be for the foreseeable future, but we're talking about characters that will outlive us by a large margin. They will likely remain being published for hundreds of years. When he says "never" he is assuming that circumstances that exist now will remain unchanged forever, for the whole eternity.

DC worked as hard to make Superman the sole survivor of Krypton, erasing entire characters. And one could argue they were even more sucessful than Marvel at accomplishing that, there were people of two whole decades that grew up without having Kara Zor-El as Supergirl, and yet they brought her back when the circumstances aligned to allow it. We can say the same about Barry Allen or Hal Jordan or even the Wonder Woman/Steve Trevor relantionship. Claiming that just because it's been a decade the publisher will never care to bring back that element anymore is beyond silly. I started reading Spider-Man post-OMD and I'd still prefer him to be married... Mr. Slott seems to ignore the power that back issues have on new fans.

All his rant just made him look stubborn instead of "realistic" as it was probably his intention.

Ditto, seconded and quoted for truth.

[theoneandonly]

If you mean Daredevil, we don't know yet how he got his secret identity back as the current arc isn't over. What we do know is that it may have something to do with the Purple Man and his kids.



I think so, but the impression Spider-Man/Deadpool gives is that Peter isn't aware of just how involved Mephisto is in what's been going on in that comic. There was that encounter he had with him during Spider-Man/Deadpool #5, but for Peter, it's like coming out of a dream, in which you can't really remember what happened.

Oh I did mean daredevil.thanks for the info. I thought it would have wrapped up by now but apparently not.Anyway marvel seems to thrive on stories having heroes exposing their identity and then trying to put the genie back in the bottle a prime example being iron man who has had several such stories in his kitty. Anyway Dan has hinted that a possible win over mephisto may be achieved and ironically peter himself is saying the same thing so a win over the devil could be in order but a little skepticism creeps in as I doubt they would do it in a title shared with another character unless its just a minor victory like peter not killing itsy bitsy and keeping his soul intact.

[Metamorphosis]

But the issue is exactly Slott using the word "never". Yeah, it's clear that's not a possibility right now and it won't be for the foreseeable future, but we're talking about characters that will outlive us by a large margin. They will likely remain being published for hundreds of years. When he says "never" he is assuming that circumstances that exist now will remain unchanged forever, for the whole eternity.

DC worked as hard to make Superman the sole survivor of Krypton, erasing entire characters. And one could argue they were even more sucessful than Marvel at accomplishing that, there were people of two whole decades that grew up without having Kara Zor-El as Supergirl, and yet they brought her back when the circumstances aligned to allow it. We can say the same about Barry Allen or Hal Jordan or even the Wonder Woman/Steve Trevor relantionship. Claiming that just because it's been a decade the publisher will never care to bring back that element anymore is beyond silly. I started reading Spider-Man post-OMD and I'd still prefer him to be married... mr. Slott seems to ignore the power that back issues have on new fans.

All his rant just made him look stubborn instead of "realistic" as it was probably his intetion.

Similar to the claim (I paraphrase) "all the new young Marvel employees funneling in are those who started reading the books with Brand New Day".

Who cares? The back issues are still out there. Neither OMD or the BND years have a very good reputation with fans. Many classic stories that still make best-of lists occurred during the marriage. They can try to downplay the importance of what came before, but they can't simply mind-wipe this stuff away.

I wager that they will at least have to address OMD properly at some point down the road--it's an unresolved albatross hanging over the book, and they need to finally fix it whether or not Peter or MJ get back together. They at least need to remember what happened to them, and Peter needs to face down Mephisto.

It's a story we may get a ways after this current Peter-as-Iron-Man foolishness, or sometime after the dead-end Peter and Mockingbird stuff runs its course.

[Miles To Go]

I wager that they will at least have to address OMD properly at some point down the road--it's an unresolved albatross hanging over the book, and they need to finally fix it whether or not Peter or MJ get back together. They at least need to remember what happened to them, and Peter needs to face down Mephisto.

Peter may get his victory over Mephisto in Spider-Man/Deadpool...possibly even in the current crossover event that is going to address Deadpool's own marriage problems.

[DieHard200904]

Peter may get his victory over Mephisto in Spider-Man/Deadpool...possibly even in the current crossover event that is going to address Deadpool's own marriage problems.

Deadpool is having a wedding? Why was I not invited by Wade Wilson?

[Patrick Gerard]

Deadpool got married a couple of years ago.

Personally, if I wanted to be transgressive as a comics writer, I'd have Deadpool buy Peter's old marriage from Mephisto at a bankruptcy auction. I like the idea that the marriage is a commodity sitting in Mephisto's cosmic garage next to a bunch of slabbed and graded souls. So then we'd have this weird status quo for awhile where Wade and MJ are married with a kid and have been for years. And you have this weird quirk where fixing things would delete the kid, leaving Spider-man and MJ to find another way out of the absurd cosmic predicament.

[Metamorphosis]

Peter may get his victory over Mephisto in Spider-Man/Deadpool...possibly even in the current crossover event that is going to address Deadpool's own marriage problems.

It's something, I guess--but that's if they let Joe Kelly even do it over there.

I'd prefer the resolution to happen in ASM rather than a team-up book, and it would be a brilliant move for Marvel to bring back JMS for a few issues to write it.

[Aruran.]

It's interesting how some view Peter and MJ back together = marriage restored.
Where Dan Slott is just pointing out (marriage restored) isn't happening. That them being back together isn't dependent on them being married. And it makes sense, considering that practically every idea for a marriage story happened in the 20 year span and in RYV we see them raising a kid. And the bigger problem comes from the marriage not being a new idea but a retread.

Deadpool is having a wedding? Why was I not invited by Wade Wilson?

Had a wedding. Around 2014-2015.