Yet Another Geeky Comic Book Diatribe ...

I doubt any of you have heard anything about it – and I haven’t actually read it, because it’s been years since I’ve purchased a comic book – but a storyline has just finished in the Spider-Man comics that’s seen Peter Parker’s marriage to his wife, Mary-Jane, get magically erased from the book’s history.

For those only familiar with the movies; about twenty years ago (real world time), Spidey and MJ got hitched. Pretty much ever since then, the editorial department has been looking for a way to end the marriage, feeling it was a mistake.

This has led into some of the most poorly-received storytelling in comics. First there was the Clone Saga, which saw Peter exposed as a clone, and the real deal having been running around unnoticed for the past few decades under the name ‘Ben Reilly’. The editors thought this would be a good way to shuffle Peter off while bringing in a new, single Spider-Man. But of course, the readers didn’t react well to being told the Spider-Man they’d been reading about since the ‘70s was a fraud, so they reversed that decision and made it known that Peter Parker was the genuine article.

Then they killed Mary Jane off. And then they brought her back, with her “death” having been an elaborate stunt pulled off by a stalker of hers so he could have her to himself. Creepy, huh? (And this is all without mentioning the fact that Mary Jane was pregnant during the Clone Saga, which culminated in a stillbirth because the editors felt a baby would “age Peter too much”. How sleazy is that??).

After that, they had Mary Jane and Peter separate (due to the trauma of her abduction). But eventually, they relented to fan pressure and brought them back together … only to now turn around and have Peter and Mary Jane strike a deal with the devil in order to save the life of Peter’s elderly Aunt May, at the price of their marriage being erased from history.

So now everything’s been rebooted to the status quo the Spider-Man comics had back in the ‘70s/early ‘80s, and once again the fan community is going batshit nuts over it.

It’s a weird, weird decision on a number of levels, that seems to speak more of the emotional immaturity of the editorial team at Marvel comics than anything else. We’ll set aside that Marvel is currently publishing not one, but two titles that are set in their own, separate continuities where Peter Parker is young and single, and instead focus on the decision itself.

Editorial has been pushing for this for over a decade. The argument has been that being married ages Peter too much, makes him difficult to relate to for younger readers, and that being married to a “super model” removes the “hard luck” component of his character that made him so unique when he debuted in the ‘60s.

With the first argument, they have a point. Being that he was married – and the fact that he’d been around for forty years - I took Peter Parker to be late 20s/early 30s, rather than the mid-20s the editorial team wants him to be seen as.

But that certainly didn’t make it difficult for me to relate to him. The thing with Peter was that he was the hard luck geek done good. It was aspirational comics. Sure, he’d had a hard time in high school, but as he’d gotten older he’d grown out of his awkward stage. He’d come to accept himself for who he was, and had gained confidence in that.

It was that confidence that made it believable that a girl like Mary Jane would be attracted to him. And as far as the “super model”-going-for-the-geek straining credibility goes, well, I feel I have to point out that MJ wasn’t a famous super model until she was made one by the very same people who were complaining about her status as one, as if they were generating “valid” reasons to be against the marriage. Before then, she was a struggling model / actress who had a hard time getting people to take her and her career seriously, which fit perfectly in alongside Peter’s own careers ups-and-downs. They were having a hard time of it, but they were in it together.

I liked the relationship between Peter and Mary Jane. Certainly, it was geeky wish fulfilment. But when you’re a lonely, powerless kid, it gives you strength to see someone who’s started off where you are and managed to get to a good place in his life … even if that character is completely fictional.

But more importantly, Peter’s marriage to Mary Jane was a thematically strong aspect of the character. Spider-Man is about many things, but the biggest theme of his story is responsibility, and how we have to accept responsibility rather than fight against it. Beyond Superman, I can’t think of any other comic character where the gradual increase of real world responsibilities is so centrally important.

The other thing that strikes me as strange – and a little bit sad – is that this argument that good stories can’t be told about a married Spider-Man is, in fact, coming from a group of married men. What kind of relationships do they have with their wives if they feel that all their greatest stories are behind them and that life no longer poses any challenges or adventures?

The sentiment is that good stories can’t be told about a married Spider-Man. My feeling is that writers have failed in telling good stories about a married Spider-Man because they’ve been too focused for too long on trying to do away with the marriage.

I could go on and on about this (and obviously have). There are lot of aspects to it that I haven’t even touched on. But I’ll take mercy on you all and leave it there, especially given that, with the cyclical nature of comic books, I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before this boneheaded decision is reversed and we have a reunited Peter and Mary Jane.

Hey, a geek can dream …