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

[oldschool]

A tough question to answer with a simple yes or no. I voted "yes" simply because the character needed a reset of sorts and Marvel clearly wanted to get rid of the marriage, as evidenced by several prior failed attempts. The delivery mechanism to get Peter back to single status again, though, was of course the worst imaginable and I don't think many will debate that. Still---it ultimately was worth it as Marvel returned Peter to being single and, despite some rough patches, the last 10 years have seen a lot of good stories and the character now more closely resembles the one in the MCU.

[Carabas]

"One More Day" was instrumental in me giving up superhero comics entirely. More than any other story it showed the man behind the curtain, and made explicit why its just not worth it getting emotionally atached to anything that happens in a Marvel/DC superhero book.

So it was probably a bad idea as I had a €50+ a week habit.

My wallet thinks it was the best story ever though.

[TheCape]

Not really, the last 10 years hadn't been particurlary good.

Things like The Gauntles was like the peak of mediocre writing for the BND era, Slott run since Big Time isn't very good IMHO and Superior was a bad joke that should had stayed like that (really, i don't get why some many people like that one), not mentioning that their reasons for breaking the couple weren't good and that most of the stories done after the deal could have happened with the marriage still being there and the few that couldn't (all that nonsense with Carlie, Michele and Nora) weren't that good.

Botton line, it didn't fit anything and after 10 years is still broken.

[Prof. Warren]

A tough question to answer with a simple yes or no. I voted "yes" simply because the character needed a reset of sorts and Marvel clearly wanted to get rid of the marriage, as evidenced by several prior failed attempts. The delivery mechanism to get Peter back to single status again, though, was of course the worst imaginable and I don't think many will debate that. Still---it ultimately was worth it as Marvel returned Peter to being single and, despite some rough patches, the last 10 years have seen a lot of good stories and the character now more closely resembles the one in the MCU.

Yeah, this isn't a simple "yes or no" question so I'll abstain from voting.

Some people will always resent it but while the methodology was poor, the end goal was worthy.

A better question to ask was whether the marriage was necessary in the first place. It can be argued that it was the marriage that caused years of headaches for editors and writers, shackling the book to a status quo that few wanted to stick with. It was always something that had to be worked around, with multiple attempts to get rid of it.

Taking it out of the book altogether in a definitive way was necessary. It was worth doing in order to finally extract the book from its biggest mistake.

[oldschool]

Yeah, this isn't a simple "yes or no" question so I'll abstain from voting.

Some people will always resent it but while the methodology was poor, the end goal was worthy.

A better question to ask was whether the marriage was necessary in the first place. It can be argued that it was the marriage that caused years of headaches for editors and writers, shackling the book to a status quo that few wanted to stick with. It was always something that had to be worked around, with multiple attempts to get rid of it.

Taking it out of the book altogether in a definitive way was necessary. It was worth doing in order to finally extract the book from its biggest mistake.

Yes, all good points. And it was worth nothing when considering whether the marriage was "necessary" in the first place that it was really an off the cuff remark at a convention when Stan Lee was asked what he thought about Peter and MJ perhaps getting married someday that started the ball rolling. It wasn't a path that was laid out particularly well and, just a few years after the nuptials, writers started trying to wiggle out of it.

[DieHard200904]

Half-assed reboot. Even if there was no other choice, having a price via Loki of resurrecting Peter Parker would have made more sense, because there well, you have a dead Peter Parker, and as much as you want to cheat death, you have to sacrifice something to get him back, and not put Aunt May as a prop when it is Peter who is dead.

[Cmbmool]

No as it made Spider-man less of a hero in my eyes.

[UnknownEntity]

HELL NO!

One More Day ensured that Peter would never achieve any significant long term change and would be kept in a perpetual status quo as Marvel's Peter Pan. It completely crapped upon the very foundations of Spider Man's beliefs by making him commit an atrocious satanic travesty and completely threw his responsibility mantra out the window.

"Hey kids, know what Spider Man stands for now, making faustian pacts with the devil to fix his mistakes rather than manning up and taking proper responsibility" "HOORAY SATANISM, if anything in your life goes terribly wrong just make a deal with the devil"

Writers who couldn't tackle the spider marriage, or marriage which is as common as life demonstrated how the disciplines and fields of their writers was limited. The only shackles they had were those they put on themselves for being creatively limited. The marriage was a positive development that introduced meaningful change rather than maintaining the perpetual status quo of him screwing up every other Thursday, breaking away from doing the same thing always. It enhanced Peter's life and gave him something to fight for rather than his tired guilt ridden complex. It also gave him a worthy and interesting partner with whom he could trust and unload his worries.

What OMD did was bring Peter back to square one, to a status quo he had naturally outgrown. Can you imagine how atrocious the notion if of keeping Peter a high schooler for his entire 50 year long history while every one else aged and developed. ATROCIOUS. Mary Jane is the BEST supporting character and romance Peter has ever had with much more meaningful contribution than Aunt May or Jameson and had developed into an immensely likable and developed character.

OMD was a TERRIBLY TOLD AND DRAWN STORY, and its result was the ultimate REGRESSION OF SPIDER MAN. The removal of the marriage eliminated any chance or hope for a lasting development or progress in Spider Man's life because now nothing will ever last and when Spidey stretches out too far, BOOM, reset. No more stakes, no more consistency or plausibility, nothing. Everything is predictable now.

[Vixx]

The story element by itself is pretty benign - it was just done piss poorly; at a bad time and after 2 previously bad attempts to achieve the same results.

The rollout caused permenant damage - eroding trust between readers and creators and came on the heels of some the most antagonistic arcs put forth. What's come after hasn't redeemed any of it - as absolutes built over decades were cast aside for new and sexy.

They never "earned" the right to turn a 50 year book on its ear in this way - and haven't delivered anything that made it worthwhile....the response to feedback has been underwhelming and hostile, and the charectors just do whatever they want it seems.

Married .. Divorced ... Never married; I'm happy to go along for the ride as long as you respect the charectors and what's gotten us here.. 616 has had some good story arcs; but lacks the .. Soul? Which acts as the connective tissue to earlier works ... It's not just OMD.

If you limit the charectors you have to step up the stories; I miss responding to ASM the way I did with Ultimate.

[Metamorphosis]

A tough question to answer with a simple yes or no. I voted "yes" simply because the character needed a reset of sorts and Marvel clearly wanted to get rid of the marriage, as evidenced by several prior failed attempts. The delivery mechanism to get Peter back to single status again, though, was of course the worst imaginable and I don't think many will debate that. Still---it ultimately was worth it as Marvel returned Peter to being single and, despite some rough patches, the last 10 years have seen a lot of good stories and the character now more closely resembles the one in the MCU.

The era of the marriage saw the greatest sales the title had ever achieved, though. Obviously can't be solely attributed to the marriage, but it wasn't a factor that seemed to hurt it either.

Why exactly did the character need a reset?

Looking at the last ten years, how would the marriage have prevented:

- Peter being a paparazzi photographer
- Peter going to work at Horizon Labs
- Peter teaming up with Spider-Men from all universes
- Peter becoming a member of the Fantastic Four?

It wouldn't have prevented him from unlocking Silk from her bunker, and their pheromone attraction would've taken on a different angle and tension had he been married.

Superior is a story that is debatable, but it is no doubt one that absolutely could've been done with a Peter Parker that was married, and may have been all the more interesting for it.

And being wed to MJ certainly wouldn't have prevented Peter from making Parker Industries a worldwide entity and becoming a gadgety Iron Man clone. But having MJ around may have made him less of a jerk while he was doing it.

[UnknownEntity]

The story element by itself is pretty benign - it was just done piss poorly; at a bad time and after 2 previously bad attempts to achieve the same results.

The rollout caused permenant damage - eroding trust between readers and creators and came on the heels of some the most antagonistic arcs put forth. What's come after hasn't redeemed any of it - as absolutes built over decades were cast aside for new and sexy.

They never "earned" the right to turn a 50 year book on its ear in this way - and haven't delivered anything that made it worthwhile....the response to feedback has been underwhelming and hostile, and the charectors just do whatever they want it seems.

Married .. Divorced ... Never married; I'm happy to go along for the ride as long as you respect the charectors and what's gotten us here.. 616 has had some good story arcs; but lacks the .. Soul? Which acts as the connective tissue to earlier works ... It's not just OMD.

If you limit the charectors you have to step up the stories; I miss responding to ASM the way I did with Ultimate.

Exactly! Twice they tried to undo the marriage, and TWICE they were met with overwhelmingly bad reception from their readers. They needed to take the hint that the spider marriage was wanted and was a positive change.

The damage they've caused has contributed to the overall decay of Marvel's standard of sales.

As for their marital status, if Peter and MJ survived through Venom, stalkers like Jonathan Caesar, certain death scenarios, the Clone Saga, abductions, the plane crash and even a miscarriage, there was no plausible way to split them up if they went through all that hell and survived.

[UnknownEntity]

On another note, everything that's been tackled in regards to Spider Man material and stories over the last ten years is nothing that hasn't been tackled in the pre marriage Spider Man world.

They just went back to square one, back to a Batman like status quo of doing the same thing over and over but without the awesome stories commonly found in a Batman book.

[Metamorphosis]

On another note, everything that's been tackled in regards to Spider Man material and stories over the last ten years is nothing that hasn't been tackled in the pre marriage Spider Man world.

They just went back to square one, back to a Batman like status quo of doing the same thing over and over but without the awesome stories commonly found in a Batman book.

I think they're much more savvy about it with Batman. You can have a story like "Zero Year" that retells the origin after the reset of the New 52, but it doesn't at all crap on what came before in most cases.

They evolve Batman / Bruce in small but meaningful ways--he's gone from a loner to a mentor to the head of a team. They've given him a son in Damien, but it hasn't affected or seemingly aged the character of Bruce Wayne that much.

[WebLurker]

I personally came into comics long after OMD was set. I had an extremely dim view of the idea when I first heard about it, and, based on my overall experiences with the franchise since, regard the reboot and subsequent comic runs based off it as being asinine, to put it kindly.

Now, granted, without OMD, I doubt we'd have gotten the Renew Your Vows series, which is a favorite of mine. So, in that sense, I guess it kind of worked out in the end (so far; cancelation is always a thing), although I do think that it's more of a "lemonade from lemons" situation rather than a vindication of OMD being the right decision. So, I'd say "no," but because of my background with Spider-Man, I always saw the Peter Parker/Mary Jane relationship as being a sacrosanct piece of the mythos, I'd never have been in a position to give the OMD idea a objective chance. However, as of right now, I think we have the best compromise possible for "married Spidey" fans if Marvel wants to enforce a marriage ban, something we couldn't say a few years ago.

Still---it ultimately was worth it as Marvel returned Peter to being single and, despite some rough patches, the last 10 years have seen a lot of good stories and the character now more closely resembles the one in the MCU.

So far, everything about the MCU suggests that the Miles Morales comics (Ultimate era) are what MCU Spider-Man most resembles, with obvious stuff taken from the Peter Parker-era Ultimate. Now, when the movies actually come out, we'll know for sure how much they're drawing from that. However, historically, the MCU has taken a lot from the Ultimate comics, and Ultimate Spider-Man is one of the most anti-OMD comics Marvel has ever published, so there is a distinct possibility that MCU Spidey will be nothing like post-OMD Spider-Man.

[vhm74]

Not in the slightest.