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In keeping with everyone who reads comic books, I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about the Spider-Man arc One More Day, written by JMS. I just got a chance to read it, and, despite not normally reading Spider-Man-oriented comics, or Marvel in general, I think I’ve been exposed to enough general Spider-Man, and superhero comics in general, to give my opinion on this arc.

This arc has been described as one of the worst things to happen to Spider-Man since the Clone Wars arc and a multitude of other things that various people have put Peter Parker through in his year as being a superhero with Marvel. It’s described as “out of character”, “dripping with editorial mandate” and just and all-around shitty story.

But let’s break it down, shall we?

One More Day follows Peter Parker as he desperately attempts to save the ever-dying Aunt May as she was critically wounded by a gunshot wound from a sniper hired by Kingpin. As Peter is a fugitive–having sided against Tony during the Civil War and, thus, turning his back on the Super-Human Registration Act and all that–May finds herself without any form of health insurance as she barely clings to life and might end up being forced to go into a charity wing.

I could go into my hatred of the American medical system, but that’s another rant.

Peter is ripped with guilt, as opposed to how he normally is, I suppose. The entire series is filled with Peter whining about how May isn’t going to die–isn’t SUPPOSED TO die–and how all of this is HIS FAULT and he HAS to fix it. It is an understandable thing, of course, to be guilty of the fact that you may be responsible for someone’s death. But my God, May Parker is an old woman. The fact that they let her live this long is astounding in itself.

Anyway.

Peter mopes around, going from place to place hoping to have just One More Day with May, so that she could live, and he wouldn’t feel so guilty about what happened–see how this is all about him?

After he discovers that Modern Medical Science can’t do a damn thing he goes to Doctor Stephen Strange. Strange tells Parker that it is, in fact, May’s time. However, Peter goes on a tangent about his guilt, and all of that. It’s a recurring theme–how Peter feels to point out that he’s perfectly okay with his Aunt dying, provided that he can’t be the direct blame of it.

Using Strange’s various mystical things Peter decides to go against what Strange said an essentially goes to every possible person in an effort to find out if there’s just some way that he can absolve himself of the guilt that he feels. Apparently, no one in the Marvel universe has this ability…except for one person that he meets–who just happens to be Mephisto.

Now I know what you should be thinking, and that is, “Okay, Mr. Wooldridge, this is the part where Spider-Man finally accepts the futility of what he’s doing, and allows Aunt May to die a peaceful death.”

Well, that’s where you’re wrong. Mephisto tells Parker that he will help his Aunt May, and give the two “One More Day”–see how it recurs like that?–all Peter has to do is give up one little thing.

Not his soul. Mephisto doesn’t want souls anymore.

No. Mephisto wants Peter’s marriage.

Now, the proper reaction to this is, “What the hell?” Because that’s really the ONLY reaction. The justification is that Mephisto wants to hear THIS part of Peter’s soul forever torment with the knowledge of what could have been–as suffering arouses Mephisto apparently. There’s more to it, also. In the ultimate act of Retcon Punching,¹ Mephisto says that the marriage will have NEVER happened. Not “you will know you were married, and know what you lost”. No, that would be easy. This is “there was no marriage.”

We’ve gotten this far. Peter Parker, super-hero, once and still loved my millions of people for saving lives and everything else, is sitting making a deal with Mephisto–essentially Marvel’s version of the devil. Do you see what’s wrong with this? Because I do. Let’s assume for a minute that Peter is under the influence of some drug that causes him to think that making a deal with the devil is a good idea, and even then it seems like the worst mistake the guy could make.

But, Mary-Jane and Peter talk it over, and they AGREE TO ERASE THEIR MARRIAGE FROM EXISTENCE. Not only that, but their child now is no longer going to be born, and we’ve been jetted back to what is essentially 20 years ago in continuity. Peter Parker is 30, living with his Aunt, and without the woman he’d been married with for about 20 years.

The result of this is that I’m not entirely sure if Peter is even part of mainstream Marvel. Another effect of this is that he now no longer was unmasked during the Civil War, and Harry Osbourn never died, and now he’s back to the mechanical webshooters.

What the hell? I mean. Really. What the hell? I don’t even know how to properly react to this.

1. You remember Retcon Punching, right? [↩]