Last week, we posted a short piece on poster Stuart Green’s survey about Spider-Man’s post-One More Day status.
In the story arc by J. Michael Stracynzki and Marvel EiC Joe Quesada, Aunt May had been shot into a coma, and Peter Parker made a deal with the demon Mephisto to annul his marriage to save her life.
According to the results, one thing is clear: the fans want the marriage back. 71 posts voted that the marriage should return, versus 24 posts that the marriage should stay dead.
Meanwhile, fans wrote that if there was anyone who should return the marriage, it should be J. Michael Stracynzki, who also expressed his problems with the story following its release. Runner-ups included Brian Michael Bendis with 16 votes, and Matt Fraction as a write-in with another 16 votes.
That said, the jury is still out on the rest of Brand New Day, with 63 voting that it should remain in continuity, while 57 said it should not.
Perhaps most important, however, was that while the erasure of the marriage was done primarily in the interest of not alienating new readers, the vast majority of voters (110 posts versus 16 in the negative) said that if the marriage was returned, they would still read the book.
December 7th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Not surprising but the book is still selling so nothing is going to change for the time being.
JMS has enough knowledge regarding mystical things, he should be the one to put things back. Not sure if he’d want to since he didn’t like the marriage either. Perhaps Defalco, Mattais, Peter David, Roberto(wrote Sensational, not gonna try to write his name wrong), David Michelinie and others who like the union can come up with something.
I wouldn’t mind if they found a way to keep Anti-Venom part of continuity if they did away it BND. I’m rather indifferent about the rest of it.
December 7th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
What a shocker! An online poll decrying One More Day?! It can’t be!
December 7th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
True. That’s just a poll of the ‘Rama, and that’s ALL it represents.
December 7th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I have always felt that Peter & MJ should have stayed married.
At the same time, the stories told since One More Day, should stay too. Not forgotten like Ben Reilly. He too should be remembered. All of it should be relevant.
The books can still be fun with Spidey married, so someone should bring it all back.
December 7th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
I for one stopped buying the Spider-Man titles when Peter went public with his identity, but the fact that that’s been magically erased (despite countless interviews during that time saying it never would be) wouldn’t bring me back because the Spider-Man I grew up reading was married to Mary Jane Watson.
Oh well. More money for other books.
December 8th, 2008 at 1:30 am
This is such a small percentage of the readership, that the results don’t really deserve their own blog entry IMO, that being said, I do wish that they were still together in some capacity; with the way the world hurts right now, it’d be nice if my escapism had a little love in it.
December 8th, 2008 at 7:51 am
I don’t think it would be amiss of me to say that New Ways To Die was comparable to the best of JMS’ Spider-Man run, i.e. the early stuff with JRJr. I would further note that I think the last few issues with Martin and Rivera on art are -better- and are not the type of stories that could be told with a married Spider-Man. To address commentary on that last remark, I’m very aware the stories would still work in terms of plot if Spider-Man was married but they work better tonally that Spidey isn’t beholden to his marriage as too large (and boring) a part of his life there’s no wasted space on a relationship that makes Peter less interesting.
December 8th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Wait, Peter and Mary Jane aren’t married anymore???
And, what… the DEVIL broke them up????
Superhero comics is so funny.
December 13th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I think it would be really interesting to see how the results of who wants the marriage back break down by gender.
The reasons given for getting rid of the marriage are usually along the lines of it making Spider-man unrelateable for typical male fans.
But for me, a huge part of the allure of Spidey is not just the fantasy of being him, but also being loved by him, something which MJ can provide in a way that a random Spider-man conquest couldn’t do.
I’ve always thought that actions speak louder than words, and One More Day says that Marvel doesn’t care about getting or retaining female readers.