Spider-Man's Marriage Is Over

So remember back when Spider-Man revealed his identity to the world? It was about eighteen months ago. I ever wrote a minor rant about it. In fact, go read it because it's important to what follows. Don't worry, I'll wait here until you're done. You're back? Good, let's get this going.

Recently in the Spider-Man books Aunt May was shot. A sniper's bullet was meant for Peter, but his spider-sense warned him and he ducked and moved Mary Jane out of the way also. The problem was as fate would have it Aunt May was in the line of sight on the other side of the room. Aunt catches the bullet meant for Peter and is rushed to the hospital where we're told she probably only has one day left. Now in this world of the incredible in which Spider-Man lives no one was able to save Aunt May. And remember this is the world where Mr Fantastic can create a time machine from Legos and the Sorcerer Supreme Dr Strange can rewrite reality with a wave of his hand. Let's not forget there are characters that have regenerative powers and there are even those that can actually heal people also. Unfortunately for one plot contrivance or another, none of them are able to help.

Now let's look back 18 months ago to where Spider-Man revealed his identity to the world. Here's one of my quotes from 18 months ago:

Mark my words, in a year, maybe two at the most, there will be a "reality changing event" where everything reverts and no one knows Spidey's ID. ... All I know is, this won't last. And dollars to doughnuts when it's undone, the marriage will somehow get erased also. You heard it here first.

I'm like a an oracle or something. I did get a minor point wrong. I had assumed the marriage would get erased as a consequence of undoing the unmasking. What happened though was that the unmasking was erased as a consequence of undoing the marriage.

So what happened you ask? Well, remember that the powers that be didn't want to remove the marriage due to a divorce because that wouldn't sit well with the morality aspect. They also didn't want to make him a widower because they felt that would also "age" the character. So what was their answer? The worst case of deus ex machina I think I've ever seen.


With no one else to turn to save Aunt May Peter Parker makes a deal with the devil (who just happens to show up with no foreshadowing). Let me repeat that in case you missed it. Our hero, made a deal with the devil. Let's read between the lines as to what's being said there. Getting a divorce: morally wrong. Making a deal with the devil: Not so bad. This is what's passing for story these days? Are they kidding?


So the devil says he'll save Aunt May, but the cost is going to be Spider-Man's marriage. Why ask for the marriage? Another plot contrivance. At this point the story couldn't seem any more editorial mandated if they had tried. From hereon the story requires that you ignore any sense of logic or normal storytelling and just hang on for the ride and shut off your brain and chow down on what they're feeding you. So here's the part most people (myself included) don't get. Peter makes the deal. Did I mention that they imply Mary Jane is pregnant with an unborn daughter. And yet he trades away his life and love of his wife and that of his unborn child so that his surrogate mother Aunt May (who has to be about a 100 at this point, but in comic years is probably still 80) can live. Who makes that choice? Does he really think May would want him to give up his marriage for her? But logic is put on hold and our hero (let me reiterate this again) makes a deal with the devil. So just like that "poof" the marriage is gone. Not only that, because the marriage was undone he apparently was never in a position to unmask publicly, so the unmasking has been erased. And in addition now characters who were dead are suddenly alive and well and back in continuity like nothing ever happened. In addition Peter's about five years younger and still lives with his Aunt and once again has trouble making ends meet. It's like we entered a wayback machine and it's the 70s again and the last 20 years of comics never happened. Although no other comic's continuity seems to be affected, so it's unclear how they're expecting to explain this overall.

Now anyone that has seen the Simpsons knows that comic book fans can whine better than anyone. And suffice to say this issue has a lot of said fans enraged. In fact, once the "news" broke, one of the comic book forums had a thread with 1000+ posts in it about the issue. And then there's the poll they took where 65% of the people said this was the worst Spider-Man storyline ever. Now there is a chance this is all a huge misdirection, but given how vocal the Editor in Chief at Marvel has been against the marriage, it doesn't seem that way. It will be interesting to see how it plays out since they claim they're doing this so the character will be more relatable to kids, but most surveys show comic book buyers aren't kids these days (and at 3 and 4 dollars an issue, they can't afford to be). And since a lot of people seem upset about this, if enough people drop the title Marvel may change things back. This happened about 15 years ago with a clone storyline. That was their first attempt to try and undo the marriage, say the guy that got married was a clone and the real Spider-Man had been hiding out for 20 years. People got really upset, the title's numbers hit rock bottom and presto, Marvel decided to change things back. So that could still happen here, only time will tell at this point.