OMD, 10 Years Later--Was It Worth It?

[Jokerz79]

It was both for me. The marriage didn't need to go away and it did not impede any story to be told. Its only impediment was preventing another love interest, and when you have Mary Jane, the best possible love interest for Peter, that counts as a good thing.

And then the way they ended the marriage I never wanted to see gone, an atrocious satanic travesty and utter character assassination and deconstruction.

I agree with everything you're saying and I hate the marriage stifle stories B.S. but if they ended the marriage respectfully I could had accepted it but the way they did it made it worse to me.

[UnknownEntity]

I agree with everything you're saying and I hate the marriage stifle stories B.S. but if they ended the marriage respectfully I could had accepted it but the way they did it made it worse to me.

If the marriage had run its course and ended as well as it could have with good closure then I would've accepted it. But alas it did not run its course and it was atrociously taken away. And now I want it back so much its become one of my top 3 reasons why I love Spider Man. Its become a literal selling point to me where I gots to have it. That's why I'm on a roll collecting everything RYV related.

[Jokerz79]

If the marriage had run its course and ended as well as it could have with good closure then I would've accepted it. But alas it did not run its course and it was atrociously taken away. And now I want it back so much its become one of my top 3 reasons why I love Spider Man. Its become a literal selling point to me where I gots to have it. That's why I'm on a roll collecting everything RYV related.

The strange thing is Peter and MJ had one of the easiest and nature built in out for their marriage. MJ was never comfortable with the danger being Spider-Man brought to Peter's life all they needed was one event where when the dust settled MJ is like "Peter I love you but I can't do this anymore, I can't ask you not be Spider-Man it's who you are and I can't watch you go out while I wait for you to come home or get the news Spider-Man is dead." It would had been understandable and MJ and Peter could separate but on good terms which would leave the door open for the future if they ever wanted to revisit them. But to simply erase their marriage was trash to me.

[Miles To Go]

The strange thing is Peter and MJ had one of the easiest and nature built in out for their marriage. MJ was never comfortable with the danger being Spider-Man brought to Peter's life all they needed was one event where when the dust settled MJ is like "Peter I love you but I can't do this anymore, I can't ask you not be Spider-Man it's who you are and I can't watch you go out while I wait for you to come home or get the news Spider-Man is dead.".

While this is a character trait that the mainline comics can't seem to tear MJ away from, it really is kind of B.S if you read the newspaper strip, where MJ isn't only comfortable with Peter's life as it is, she goes out of her way sometimes to involve herself in it and contributes greatly to saving the day.

Endings like ''The Book of Peter'' where the One-Above-All guaranteed Peter and MJ would grow old together and have kids if they never accepted the deal don't help this ''natural out'' argument either.

[phantom1592]

OMD was a terrible story. If they wanted to get rid of the marriage they should have just killed her. Not with Green Goblin, but maybe Doctor Octopus this time or Venom... something to elevate ANOTHER enemy to top tier. Breaking up the marriage this way?? There was no closure. All anyone wants is for OMD to be undone. While death is constantly undone in comics... you don't really see people yelling for the return of Gwen Stacy anymore... they've moved on. Same with Daredevil and Karen Page. Death just gives a finality to it.

Messing with the continuity so nobody knows what happened or how... seeing her standing there or worse going over to Tony Stark's book?!? That's just salt in a wound that they shouldn't have made. I never cared much for what MJ brought to the table so seeing the marriage go didn't break my heart. The road they TOOK?? Yeah, that was just garbage.

[Miles To Go]

Karen's death was more Quesada-mandated b.s that ought to go away. It's a testament to the strength of some writers that DD was able to carry on without her, but she's still very much missed.

Gwen fans will never move on either..not with Spider-Gwen presently active, also doesn't help Marvel remind us of her at every opportunity, even finding constant ways of ''resurrecting her'' in the core canon [and then doing nothing with her like every character they revive]

Ultimately, there's nothing to move on from in regards to the marriage, because it actually hasn't gone away all decade through other means and publications. Peter has enjoyed thirty years of marriage with MJ somewhere and the comparisons will always be there as a result.

I never cared much for what MJ brought to the table so seeing the marriage go didn't break my heart.

Reliability, relatability, understanding, faith and stability are turn-offs for you?

[UnknownEntity]

The strange thing is Peter and MJ had one of the easiest and nature built in out for their marriage. MJ was never comfortable with the danger being Spider-Man brought to Peter's life all they needed was one event where when the dust settled MJ is like "Peter I love you but I can't do this anymore, I can't ask you not be Spider-Man it's who you are and I can't watch you go out while I wait for you to come home or get the news Spider-Man is dead." It would had been understandable and MJ and Peter could separate but on good terms which would leave the door open for the future if they ever wanted to revisit them. But to simply erase their marriage was trash to me.

MJ's comfort with Peter's superhero life was always sketchy but she has known about it since the very beginning so she understands better than anyone and already knows he will never stop being Spider Man. She enters the marriage knowing this and while we've seen numerous times her trying to pry Peter away from his life and then ensuing in marital spouts and melodrama, she still knows the truth about the situation. As time passes she becomes noticeably more intolerable of that life but she overcomes it. MJ worrying about Peter, wanting him to stop being Spider Man and all that stuff has been tackled innumerable times through the 20 year long marriage and MJ is used to it and has accepted this way of life, especially in the JMS run.

Case in point, while the method you propose was better than OMD, at the same time it would be contrarian to how MJ's acceptance of this life had been thoroughly established.

BTW, that method you say where MJ just can't tolerate superhero life was used as a partial reason in OMIT for why MJ left Peter and then again at the atrocious end of Superior Spider Man 31. While its completely understandable for a person to feel this way, MJ is as tough as they come and the strong person she had become would enable her to overcome that. So, whenever I hear that MJ can't take anymore, they're making her character much more weak willed than the supremely strong woman she had become while being Spider Man's wife and that was one of the boon's of the marriage. But since they're not married anymore, not tied down, they can use this excuse to moderate success.

I'd rather really that the two never split up. Love them together far too much.

[UnknownEntity]

OMD was a terrible story. If they wanted to get rid of the marriage they should have just killed her. Not with Green Goblin, but maybe Doctor Octopus this time or Venom... something to elevate ANOTHER enemy to top tier. Breaking up the marriage this way?? There was no closure. All anyone wants is for OMD to be undone. While death is constantly undone in comics... you don't really see people yelling for the return of Gwen Stacy anymore... they've moved on. Same with Daredevil and Karen Page. Death just gives a finality to it.

Messing with the continuity so nobody knows what happened or how... seeing her standing there or worse going over to Tony Stark's book?!? That's just salt in a wound that they shouldn't have made. I never cared much for what MJ brought to the table so seeing the marriage go didn't break my heart. The road they TOOK?? Yeah, that was just garbage.

That is such an atrocious idea man. Even if you don't like MJ as much, why are people suggesting her death to end the marriage. Its horrible. MJ is an awesome, entertaining and dynamic character in her own right, not some frilly damsel in distress like Gwen was and certainly not a victim. Besides they already tried killing her off in the late 90's with that plane crash fiasco and the entire thing backfired on Marvel receiving massive reader and fan backlash for killing her off to the point where they brought her back.

There is zero need to turn MJ into another Gwen martyr. It wouldn't have the same effect as Gwen, especially not in the modern age. What's next, Felicia becomes the next love interest and after ten years together they kill her off to end it. Horrible. So every prospective new love interest has to look forward to dying so Peter can be a bachelor. Peter would be damaged beyond count with MJ's death on top of Gwen and Uncle Ben's deaths. Aunt May should be the one they're trying to kill off, not awesome Mary Jane.

Killing Mary Jane is a terrible idea, and both undoing the marriage and HOW they undid it were both very bad ideas. They should've just let Peter be with his wife. They shouldn't have messed with that. Only thing being married prevents is the inclusion of another love interest, Every other possible story can be told with the two being married.

BTW agree that MJ working for Stark is insulting and salt on the wounds. Rather she'd been kept in limbo until they brought her back to any Peter Parker Spider Man title.

[DieHard200904]

OMD was a terrible story. If they wanted to get rid of the marriage they should have just killed her. Not with Green Goblin, but maybe Doctor Octopus this time or Venom... something to elevate ANOTHER enemy to top tier. Breaking up the marriage this way?? There was no closure. All anyone wants is for OMD to be undone. While death is constantly undone in comics... you don't really see people yelling for the return of Gwen Stacy anymore... they've moved on. Same with Daredevil and Karen Page. Death just gives a finality to it.

Messing with the continuity so nobody knows what happened or how... seeing her standing there or worse going over to Tony Stark's book?!? That's just salt in a wound that they shouldn't have made. I never cared much for what MJ brought to the table so seeing the marriage go didn't break my heart. The road they TOOK?? Yeah, that was just garbage.

Having a villain kill a love interest is just cliche. Having death by cancer makes more sense, since no villains at fault. Even though you aren't attached to the marriage, what do you feel about Parker not holding a job of his own? Going from one job to another gets old. I know, I have been there. I think that they should stick him at Horizon Labs and make that be his job for a long time, with him having news updates thanks to phone apps or whatnot. Let's face it, they could have given him a job and stuck with it, and that's dating back even before OMD, but it's something that they could have done to Peter to make him better candidate for a family guy since he you know, has a job that he sticks with.

[phantom1592]

That is such an atrocious idea man. Even if you don't like MJ as much, why are people suggesting her death to end the marriage. Its horrible. MJ is an awesome, entertaining and dynamic character in her own right, not some frilly damsel in distress like Gwen was and certainly not a victim. Besides they already tried killing her off in the late 90's with that plane crash fiasco and the entire thing backfired on Marvel receiving massive reader and fan backlash for killing her off to the point where they brought her back.

There is zero need to turn MJ into another Gwen martyr. It wouldn't have the same effect as Gwen, especially not in the modern age. What's next, Felicia becomes the next love interest and after ten years together they kill her off to end it. Horrible. So every prospective new love interest has to look forward to dying so Peter can be a bachelor. Peter would be damaged beyond count with MJ's death on top of Gwen and Uncle Ben's deaths. Aunt May should be the one they're trying to kill off, not awesome Mary Jane.

Killing Mary Jane is a terrible idea, and both undoing the marriage and HOW they undid it were both very bad ideas. They should've just let Peter be with his wife. They shouldn't have messed with that. Only thing being married prevents is the inclusion of another love interest, Every other possible story can be told with the two being married.

BTW agree that MJ working for Stark is insulting and salt on the wounds. Rather she'd been kept in limbo until they brought her back to any Peter Parker Spider Man title.

MJ is really whatever the writers want her to be. Some times she was dynamic and stong... and other times she absolutely was an emotional trainwreck who couldn't deal with being second string to a superhero. The 90's were not kind to that woman. Between her cigarette addiction her being stalked by obsessed fans and the venom incidents had a lot of issues where her sole purpose was to sit in the dark apartment scared. And really that was annoying.

My point was not should they or shouldn't they end the marriage. My point was IF they want Peter to be single and they DON'T want MJ around... Killing her was the cleaner break. If they write them breaking up.... it will feel temporary. If she goes missing, he'll spend all his time looking for her. If they get a divorce, It'll be a cloud hanging around him forever, until they eventually reconcile and that was not the goal. The goal was 'marriage over, Peter single'... If you want her out... then they should write her out. Deals with the devil and massive retcons were the absolute WORST road they could have taken. Death would have been cleaner and more 'final'.

As for stories they can't tell about married Peter... for me it was always the 'underdog' story. Once he got married to a beautiful actress/underwear model... who was faithful, dependable, brought in a decent paycheck and understood all his secrets and accepted them... any talk about the 'Parker luck' REALLY felt hollow.

Having a villain kill a love interest is just cliche. Having death by cancer makes more sense, since no villains at fault. Even though you aren't attached to the marriage, what do you feel about Parker not holding a job of his own? Going from one job to another gets old. I know, I have been there. I think that they should stick him at Horizon Labs and make that be his job for a long time, with him having news updates thanks to phone apps or whatnot. Let's face it, they could have given him a job and stuck with it, and that's dating back even before OMD, but it's something that they could have done to Peter to make him better candidate for a family guy since he you know, has a job that he sticks with.

I agree Villain cliché may suck, but after Spider-man Reign... I really don't want her dying of cancer. The idea that he killed her with radioactive blood was the WORST idea I ever heard of in a Spider-man comic... including OMD and Sins Past! Death is death. Anyway is good as long as it had finality to it. Plane crash was way too vague and nobody really believed it. Auto wreck, childbirth, falling anvil... whatever. As long as there was a body and no vagueness the result would have been the same.

As for Peter not holding a job? I love that aspect. For me Peter Parker is about personal responsibility and the pressures of balancing being Spider-man and trying to live a normal life. It's also why I preferred him having girl troubles all the time. If given the choice between 'Stop the armed bank robbers...' or 'meet Gwen/MJ/whoever for coffee on time' or in this case 'get to work on time', He ALWAYS choses Stop the bank robbers. The idea that Peter Parker can't keep a job because real life bosses don't put up with people coming and going whenever they darn well feel like it, makes Parker much more relatable.

Someone like Peter... regardless of personal integrity and intelligenca and capability... should never be truly successful. He TRIED to put success before heroics in the first issue and Ben died. Now his personal success is always a lesser priority to him, and that feels realistic to me. I hate the idea that Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark spend their days running multinational businesses by hand, their evenings at fancy parties, and their nights inventing things that just practically should take months to manufacture... and sleep maybe an hour every other Saturday successfully. That's why freelance photographer always fit so well. 1) he makes his own hours.... 2) photographer and Spider-man need ot be in the same place anyway.

Karen's death was more Quesada-mandated b.s that ought to go away. It's a testament to the strength of some writers that DD was able to carry on without her, but she's still very much missed.

I never believed it was Quesada mandated. I blame Kevin Smith. He wanted to come in make a huge splash and then bail before the dust settled and not deal with any of the ramifications. He had the celebrity status to do what he wanted and Marvel bent over backward for him and he murdered both Mysterio and Karen who had been a solid love interest for 35 years....

Then Matt fell for Echo 4 issues later and in the very next arc. I'm still annoyed by that story, but it had a finality and the character moved on.

Reliability, relatability, understanding, faith and stability are turn-offs for you?

I rarely saw those traits. They were there, but not in the quantities people like to think. Nor are they MJ specific traits. Any decent love interest would bring those same things to the table.

[UnknownEntity]

MJ is really whatever the writers want her to be. Some times she was dynamic and stong... and other times she absolutely was an emotional trainwreck who couldn't deal with being second string to a superhero. The 90's were not kind to that woman. Between her cigarette addiction her being stalked by obsessed fans and the venom incidents had a lot of issues where her sole purpose was to sit in the dark apartment scared. And really that was annoying.

My point was not should they or shouldn't they end the marriage. My point was IF they want Peter to be single and they DON'T want MJ around... Killing her was the cleaner break. If they write them breaking up.... it will feel temporary. If she goes missing, he'll spend all his time looking for her. If they get a divorce, It'll be a cloud hanging around him forever, until they eventually reconcile and that was not the goal. The goal was 'marriage over, Peter single'... If you want her out... then they should write her out. Deals with the devil and massive retcons were the absolute WORST road they could have taken. Death would have been cleaner and more 'final'.

As for stories they can't tell about married Peter... for me it was always the 'underdog' story. Once he got married to a beautiful actress/underwear model... who was faithful, dependable, brought in a decent paycheck and understood all his secrets and accepted them... any talk about the 'Parker luck' REALLY felt hollow.

The awesome about MJ always outdoes the worst. Same with all other fictional characters. Spider Man was also treated terribly in the 90's and half the time even when he's at his best is sometimes downright annoying. However, MJ already has an identity and perception of her own that isn't dominated by the writer. All the issues she had in the 90's were Marvel orchestrating their destruction of the marriage and throwing in melodrama en masse and even with that she managed to survive.

Who cares about clean or final. Its even worse if she never gets to be around anymore. They already tried that route and it didn't work. Frankly no route where they undid the marriage was going to work well at all. In fact nearly everything you said happened in the comics and none of it work. Death, separation, breakup, abduction, all of it failed. Their separation after OMD retconned the marriage is akin to the divorce you mentioned as it still hovers above them. The finality of death is worse. They wanted Peter single but did not want Mary Jane dead. They know from their first attempt that she's a fan favorite and valuable to them and the fans.

Peter was still a total underdog. MJ was the breadwinner of the family something that hovered over Peter and still made him under and her model career ended early on and multiple times through their time together. And even then she wasn't always the breadwinner cause she also suffered layoffs and her own dose of Parker luck. Peter went through a shitload of a lot and deserves the permanence of MJ after everything he's been through as the one bright thing in his life instead of complete solitude.

[Miles To Go]

At this point, I've had all that I can stomach of ''The Parker Luck'', I was never raised on it outside of catching up on the classics, and even then it never felt like some curse Peter had, it just felt like a natural set of bad breaks in his life, breaks he would eventually overcome to FORGE a life.

[suemorphplus209]

MJ is really whatever the writers want her to be. Some times she was dynamic and stong... and other times she absolutely was an emotional trainwreck who couldn't deal with being second string to a superhero. The 90's were not kind to that woman. Between her cigarette addiction her being stalked by obsessed fans and the venom incidents had a lot of issues where her sole purpose was to sit in the dark apartment scared. And really that was annoying.

My point was not should they or shouldn't they end the marriage. My point was IF they want Peter to be single and they DON'T want MJ around... Killing her was the cleaner break. If they write them breaking up.... it will feel temporary. If she goes missing, he'll spend all his time looking for her. If they get a divorce, It'll be a cloud hanging around him forever, until they eventually reconcile and that was not the goal. The goal was 'marriage over, Peter single'... If you want her out... then they should write her out. Deals with the devil and massive retcons were the absolute WORST road they could have taken. Death would have been cleaner and more 'final'.

As for stories they can't tell about married Peter... for me it was always the 'underdog' story. Once he got married to a beautiful actress/underwear model... who was faithful, dependable, brought in a decent paycheck and understood all his secrets and accepted them... any talk about the 'Parker luck' REALLY felt hollow.




I agree Villain cliché may suck, but after Spider-man Reign... I really don't want her dying of cancer. The idea that he killed her with radioactive blood was the WORST idea I ever heard of in a Spider-man comic... including OMD and Sins Past! Death is death. Anyway is good as long as it had finality to it. Plane crash was way too vague and nobody really believed it. Auto wreck, childbirth, falling anvil... whatever. As long as there was a body and no vagueness the result would have been the same.

As for Peter not holding a job? I love that aspect. For me Peter Parker is about personal responsibility and the pressures of balancing being Spider-man and trying to live a normal life. It's also why I preferred him having girl troubles all the time. If given the choice between 'Stop the armed bank robbers...' or 'meet Gwen/MJ/whoever for coffee on time' or in this case 'get to work on time', He ALWAYS choses Stop the bank robbers. The idea that Peter Parker can't keep a job because real life bosses don't put up with people coming and going whenever they darn well feel like it, makes Parker much more relatable.

Someone like Peter... regardless of personal integrity and intelligenca and capability... should never be truly successful. He TRIED to put success before heroics in the first issue and Ben died. Now his personal success is always a lesser priority to him, and that feels realistic to me. I hate the idea that Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark spend their days running multinational businesses by hand, their evenings at fancy parties, and their nights inventing things that just practically should take months to manufacture... and sleep maybe an hour every other Saturday successfully. That's why freelance photographer always fit so well. 1) he makes his own hours.... 2) photographer and Spider-man need ot be in the same place anyway.





I never believed it was Quesada mandated. I blame Kevin Smith. He wanted to come in make a huge splash and then bail before the dust settled and not deal with any of the ramifications. He had the celebrity status to do what he wanted and Marvel bent over backward for him and he murdered both Mysterio and Karen who had been a solid love interest for 35 years....

Then Matt fell for Echo 4 issues later and in the very next arc. I'm still annoyed by that story, but it had a finality and the character moved on.





I rarely saw those traits. They were there, but not in the quantities people like to think. Nor are they MJ specific traits. Any decent love interest would bring those same things to the table.

Bolded part. Definitely. Stability to Peter Parker is not something I ever saw as being without a "break" in it for Peter Parker, there would always be times where he was less than perfectly secure, and always will be. Sometimes it is time to relish certain times. I like Peter Parker as a character who can't do everything, makes him feel more flawed and human to me than other superheroes. If I want a more perfect Peter Parker, or a Peter Parker who is more of a dick to people, either way, I have no problem turning for an alternate universe for that.

At this point, I've had all that I can stomach of ''The Parker Luck'', I was never raised on it outside of catching up on the classics, and even then it never felt like some curse Peter had, it just felt like a natural set of bad breaks in his life, breaks he would eventually overcome to FORGE a life.

Eventually is a relative term in fiction.

Guess I just don't share your nostalgia about 616, RYV is a better version of MJ to me than the 616 was in the past. Different narrative too. I personally don't mind AUs, especially when they are interesting in their own right.

[Miles To Go]

Guess I just don't share your nostalgia about 616, RYV is a better version of MJ to me than the 616 was in the past. Different narrative too. I personally don't mind AUs, especially when they are interesting in their own right.

I don't disagree with you at all. I think the newspaper strip and RYV are infinitely superior in how they handle Peter and MJ.

As for the MJ I grew up on with most of the original history intact, I got to see her develop as a mother over in Spider-Girl.

[UnknownEntity]

All the Gwen/MJ stories that have been told are still cannon and I love everyone of them the clone-saga had it's own charm but just overstayed it's welcome. and when it comes to OMD people just don't get it. the real focus of the story was aunt may and her dying. I think people would say peter "would be out of character" if he didn't sacrifice the marriage to save his own MOTHER. peter did and that's on par with his character. true fans know this, others just hate that they are not getting their wish from Marvel. 10 years and counting.

Oh please. Peter Parker making a literal deal with the devil for whatever reason, even saving a life is horrid. The lesson that instills is: kids, its okay to make faustian pacts with the devil if it means you save a life. Aunt May was begging for Peter to let her go and finally be with Uncle Ben cause that woman really should've stayed dead in ASM 400. Aunt May is what's unnecessary, not the spider marriage. You also forget that by choosing his dear old Aunt May, he also killed his own daughter before ever being born. He chose the past over the future, like a little kid who couldn't live without his mommy despite being a full grown man with his entire life ahead of him. Aunt May would never ever in a million years ever forgive Peter for doing that even to save her life and killing his daughter before she had a chance to draw breath. Satanism and Filicide all in one go. You can argue that Peter didn't know about killing his own daughter but that goes to show not to trust devil deals and how stupid and out of character Peter was through the entirety of those four issues.