Tim O’Neil contemplates the problems Marvel has had over the years in dealing with a happily wed Spider-Man and yet still trying to keep the character fresh:
Spider-Man has been married for exactly twenty years, 4/9ths of the character’s existence. There have probably been just as many stories written with a married Spider-Man as not. Many generations of comics readers have grown up with a married Spider-Man as the default (Ultimate version notwithstanding). Some of my favorite Spider-Man stories (for nostalgia’s sake, if not on a strict aesthetic basis) have been married Spider-Man stories. I think Sal Buscema’s married Mary Jane from his long Spectacular run is one of the sexiest comic book females ever. But writing good married Spider-Man stories has gotten progressively harder. How do you keep the character interesting without darkening the tone of the books to a regrettable degree? From that perspective, it isn’t hard to see why the Clone Saga happened: they needed to do something to shake the character up, and with his personal life in forced stasis, they could only impose plausible status quo threats from external forces. When J. Michael Straczynski delved into all that bullshit about Spider-Totems and mystical junk, he was taking the franchise in an unpleasant leftward direction that worked against its strengths, but with Spider-Man’s personal life - the traditional engine of his best stories - essentially no-man’s land, it was probably the best he could do with the materials he had to work with.
August 30th, 2007 at 10:21 am
SPOILERS, MAN! SPOILERS!
August 30th, 2007 at 10:41 am
How about developing MJ herself a little? Half of the difficulty arises from her being a supplement to Peter’s other life. Shouldn’t she be more than just a target waiting at home for Norman Osborn’s next inevitable attack? She must be a crackshot with that .45 by now…
The problem for me as a reader and long-time fan of the character is that Spider-Man has not been subjected to the dissections that Daredevil, Batman, even Superman have. Editorial are still expecting the reader to be drawn in by the same factors that drew people in 30 years ago; Peter out of work, Peter single and lonely, Peter guilt-ridden. Remember ‘Born Again’? Frank Miller found out who Matt Murdock was by destroying totally what had come before and forcing character to emerge under pressure. He paved the way for Bendis’ even more radical run. Please Marvel, Break the Mold on this one literally. Whatever fragile emotional realism the character still posesses is dissolving as he is tormented by more and more shitty luck. It’s becoming absurd, which is something I, as a reader of superhero comics, naturally don’t object to too often. No offense to J.M.S, whose characterisation has been note-perfect for much of his run but killing Aunt May AGAIN strikes me as a failure of someone’s imagination. If ONE MORE DAY ends with the revelation that the real MJ has been rotting under the floorboards since the founding of New Avengers and that the current one has been a Skrull all along, I am fuckin’ out of here and I ain’t coming back even if James Joyce comes back from the dead to write AMAZING!
PHEW!
(ahem)
We now return you to the blog@newsarama already in progress…
August 30th, 2007 at 11:06 am
I predict MJ will be going into a kind of witness relocation program. This will do away with her without killing her - while avoiding the nastiness of a straight-up divorce.
August 30th, 2007 at 11:35 am
I would be a lot better with the idea of changing Peter’s marital status if I believed that they actually tried to tell classic Spider-Man stories within the framework of the Spider-marriage without just giving it all up for lost and pretty much intentionally writing the character into the ground.
JMS and Quesada gave interviews complaining about the fact that there were no more supporting characters. What they meant was that there was no more Gwen Stacy and Harry Osbourne. There are plenty of other supporting characters. Hell, MJ alone has a whole screwed up family that could potentially cause some problems for the Parkers.
The powers that be are just so narrowed minded in their thinking that they can’t see the forest for the trees. Sure a lot of the best Spidey stories stemmed from his personal life, but it wasn’t all love triangles and romantic angst either. It was just people with problems.
August 30th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
They want to give him money problems and no wife? I didn’t have money problems until I got married! Now, who can relate to that?
August 30th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I think Spidey needs Grant Morrison. If Grant can’t do it, no-one can.
August 30th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Grant Morrison? Worst idea ever. Spidey hasn’t been written well in years because he hasn’t had a writer worth his salt handling him. Grant Morrison is not it. Blaming his marriage is simply looking for an excuse for sloppy, event-driven stories that do nothing to further the character.
August 30th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Mary Jane and the marriage are not the problem.
The problem is that the writers are too lazy to incorporate a working relationship into an interesting life led by a super-hero.
If they would consider that the foundation of the marriage should be the nucleus of Peter’s motivations and values, then it would be a much better book, and as a result, a better role model for the youth of today.
August 30th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and the Silver Surfer are three Marvel properties I would be interested to see in Grant Morrison’s hands one day. Not until he’s finished with his Wildstorm workload though. I’m the only guy, it would seem, on Earth who dug those Authority books…
August 30th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
“JMS and Quesada gave interviews complaining about the fact that there were no more supporting characters. What they meant was that there was no more Gwen Stacy and Harry Osbourne. There are plenty of other supporting characters. Hell, MJ alone has a whole screwed up family that could potentially cause some problems for the Parkers”
Peter David provided on Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man that Peter still has a bunch of potential supporting characters (Flash, Betty, Robbie, even Deb) just waiting to be used.
What some writers need to realize is that Peter has a wider cast of characters than just Harry & MJ.
August 30th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Sorry that should have been “proved”, not “provided”. Doh!
August 30th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
DC’s The Manhattan Guardian is as close to a Grant Morrison Spider-Man as you are likely to get.
Between that and Animal Man…
//\Oo/\\
September 2nd, 2007 at 3:06 am
http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/08/30/should-we-now-call-him-friendly-divorced-spider-man/
As the saying goes - ‘it is a poor workman who blames his tools’.
If the currenty crop of editors and writers at Marvel are unable to craft interesting and entertaining stories involing Peter/Spider-Man strictly because he is married to Mary Jane, then they are properly flexing their creative muscles and perhaps are not the proper individuals for the job.
If there is a feeling that they have an abundance of stories to tell involving a single superhero, why do they feel the need to do it with Spider-Man. A vast majority of the characters in the stable of the Marvel Universe are single male characters. Tell the stories with one or more of those characters (why can’t Richard Rider be ‘that guy’?).
If no one else is up to the ‘challenge’ on Spider-Man, then give the job to Matt Fraction. He proved he ‘gets it’ with his Spectacular Spider-Man Annual. He is perfectly capable of writing the title with the current relationship in place.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
if I had a dollar for every medical problem aunt may had I wouldn’t need to play powerball. doesn’t it make MORE sense to kill off aunt may?? isn’t that what normal people do, bury their families then move on with their own lives and create their own??SOME people actually STAY married!!!! the BEST story would be for may to reconcile with peter that she’s lived her life and it’s finally time her to be with ben, and that she wants him to go on and have a family of his own. this free’s us from seeing one more soap opera spiderman tragedy and gives peter a little character growth. strong people accept their loved one’s natural death and even if tragedy takes them the human spirit IS strong enough to help them through it. Why are reed and sue richards the ONLY married superheroes that make it work???? come on marvel!!!! if they can so can peter and mary jane!
October 26th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
and he can always go back and NOT out himself…