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By now you have probably heard through the various news outlets that Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson-Parker have split up after twenty years of marriage. This headline just made the CNN and MSN web sites today (January 17) and I'm sorry to say this, but the comics news outlets had this story and the fans reaction to it, a long time ago.
The imbroglio started back some time last year when Peter revealed himself to the Marvel Universe as the alter ego of Spider-Man during the MEGA-CROSSOVER event Civil War. When he did that, it set into motion a series of events that included his Aunt May getting shot, and Peter returning to using a black Spider-Man costume, but it is not the Venom symbiote. Recently it was revealed that Aunt May had no chance at recovery from her gun shot wound. This led to the latest storyline in the Spider-Man comics "One More Day" which boils down to Peter striking a deal with Mephisto (Marvel Comics version of the Devil) so that his (Peter's) and Mary Jane's marriage no longer happening in order to save Aunt May's life. This deal also removes other things from continuity, like Spider-Man no longer having organic web shooters, Harry Osborne coming back from the dead and everyone in the Marvel Universe forgetting that Peter Parker and Spider-Man are the same person.
According to interviews of Joe Quesada and postings on comic book message boards by JMS (the latest former writer of Amazing Spider-Man) there were some issues that JMS wanted to clear up before he made the decision on whether or not he wanted his name attached to the final two issues of One More Day. JMS and Joe Q discussed what was going to happen and JMS said he did not want his name on the final issues. The reason for this boiled down to one thing, and that is that Joe Quesada wanted all the changes to happen because "It's magic."
It's magic?
IT'S MAGIC?
I don't cuss all that often, but when I read about this I said out loud, "What the FUCK!"
In my research I learned that Joe Q disliked the fact that Peter and Mary Jane were married and wanted them broken up. He decided to not only throw out the past twenty odd years of continuity since they were married, but to take out another ten or fifteen years beyond that when he decided to bring Harry Osborne back to life. That is hitting the reset button on well over thirty years of comics.
If I were running things and decided that I wanted to break up Peter and Mary Jane I would come up with a much more plausible reason than, "It's magic." About half of all marriages today end in divorce and a good chunk of those are because of infidelity. There's a good reason right there to break them up. Mary Jane could confess to Peter that while they were married and she was a model/actress she had to sleep with a casting agent to get the acting parts she wanted. Peter could decide that he cannot live with Mary Jane anymore and file for divorce.
Solving the Mary Jane/Peter marriage problem is a lot easier than one would think. If Joe Q. just put his mind to solving the problem rather than having to hit the reset button on thirty plus years of continuity there would have been a lot less of an uproar on the internet, and JMS would have kept his name on the comics without having to go on the internet and give his side of things.
It is stuff like this that makes me glad that I only buy three Marvel comics a month. Those three are Cable/Deadpool, Punisher War Journal and Thunderbolts. I'm at a crossroads with Thunderbolts because it seems like Marvel only wants to put it out whenever rather then every month, and the book has a rather dark tone that I'm not that comfortable with. Cable/Deadpool is going away after issue fifty, and I'm thinking of switching over to a Spider-Man book without all the drama; Ultimate Spider-Man.
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