Spider-Man: One More Day - Page 2

When I still read Spidey, I never understood why JMS was always trying to shoehorn in Dr. Strange to every story. If he wanted to write Dr. Strange, why didn't he lobby for some sort of Dr. Strange book.

Dr. Strange sucks.

He did:

I'm a little embarrassed about asking this, but how did Aunt May come back? I thought she was already dead.

Because JMS writes himself into corners. And Dr. Strange is Marvel's go-to deus ex machina.

I think its more that JMS loves that mystical mumbojumbo crap. Hence the whole totem of the spider thing.

She got better.

Back in Spider-Man #400, the Aunt May that died was a terminally ill actress hired by Norman Osborn to basically fuck with Peter's head. Few years later, Peter discovers Aunt May is alive, and has a bomb surgically implanted in her by Norman Osborn (who is also alive, cause he's got a healing factor like Wolverine). Peter defeats Osborn, takes May to Reed Richards who removes the bomb, and Spidey temporarily retires.

Y'know, I'm eagerly awaiting the day where Peter punches a fist sized hole into Norman's chest, then rips Norman's fucking head off his body and drop kicks it to Staten Island. Just because.

Thanks, Tim!

Unless it turns out to be Osborn Clone #569.

The funny thing is that I'm prepared to wager that OMD is, in fact, almost the opposite of what it appears: it's one of those stories that's designed to prove that their love was always meant to be, and not even magic (in the person of Mephisto, evidently) can sunder it.

If I have this right, the Big M gives Pete the choice: May can live, but all memory of his marriage to MJ, and their life together, will be erased. I might point out, by the way, that The Watcher accomplished virtually the same thing in one panel in last week's FF #550, and no one even batted an eye. Pete takes him up on it (since this way no one dies), and we get 9 months to a year of "old-school" Spidey stories.

Except... there's this redhead he keeps running into. And there's just something about her... and we'll eventually be back at status quo, with memories restored. Presumably, at that point, she'll drop the "Jackpot" identity, though who knows?

I think there's plenty of clues that this is the case, but the most compelling for me is that they're not removing MJ from the Marvel U-- what's the point of keeping her around if not for an eventual reunion? And I would be VERY surprised if Marvel scooped up Terry Moore to write the "Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane" series if the future of that relationship were about to be wiped out altogether.

Plus, of course, there's the report from last summer's cons that Quesada, responding to an annoyed fan, blurted out "Well, it's not permanent," before catching himself.

And while it all sounds dumb to me, if it gets me Dan Slott Spidey on a regular basis, I have no complaints. Well, not many.

Though for what it's worth, he's being reverted (even if only temporarily) to a condition that many of today's readers never saw-- some weren't even born when the marriage happened. So for a lot of the audience, it's not really a "reversion" at all.

Both Quesada and editor Steve Wacker were very coy about it... they dropped broad hints that, one way or another, that story would become part of official continuity without being more specific. And if it were just an "imaginary story" or whatever, they could have just said that. No, that's where there stashing MJ till it's time for her and Peter to come back together.

No shit? Quesada said that, huh? Figures. He's admitted in the past that as much as he hates the idea of Peter and MJ being married, annuling it, a divorce or killing MJ would be worse, due to fan reaction. Kevin Smith was even asked back in the day to get rid of MJ when he was being considered as the writer for Amazing (I think?), and he said "no" as he had just killed off Karen Page in Daredevil and was afraid of fan backlash if he did the same to MJ.

You want to make Peter single again? Have Mary Jane leave him. She can't take wondering if he's going to come home every night, whatever, but at least that way you develop her character a little bit and it's a lot more interesting storyline for Spidey than making a magical deal with Mephisto. And it's also in keeping with the old-school Spidey stories.

Of course, only Claremont is allowed to write interesting female characters, so this would never fly in Spider-Man.

I agree that that status quo will be returned soon enough. That's rule #1 of comic books. Always back to the status quo. All the mutants will return after Messiah Complex. Steve Rogers will return in time for the movie. All will be revealed to Peter and he'll be back with MJ.

This story really lacks originality though (rule #2 of comics. No originality.) They did something far too similar in the Flash a few years ago. His wife Linda got severly injured by Zoom. Blaming himself he went to Spectre and wanted everyone to forget he was the Flash, resulting in EVERYONE (including Linda Park, and himself) forgetting he was the Flash. It was soon undone and never actually occured due to some time travel.

Will Mephisto erase anything that had to do with the Spider-Totem nonsense? Just looking for positives ...

I just hope Aunt May dies anyway. I mean that's what usually happens when you make a deal with the devil. Of course then Spider-man will go all skull flamey and ride a motorcycle.

And if Peter never met MJ, wouldn't it mean that Ben Reilly would still be alive? That's right folks. All of this has been masterminded to bring back the Spider-Clone.

She did leave him. She was "blown up" in an airplane crash (she got better - turns out she was kidnapped by a mutant with a grudge against Spider-Man, Peter never thought she was really dead, they reunited, etc.), then was so traumatized she separated from Peter and moved to LA, pursuing her acting dream (playing the girlfriend of "Lobster-Man"). They eventually reunited when they bumped into each other at an airport, during which a disguised Capt. America was escorting Dr. Doom through the very same airport. Then there was a terrorist attack, Spidey saved everybody, Doom owed him a favor, etc. etc. etc.

I-I know WAY too much Spidey stuff (hugs his Mego Spidey, rocks back and forth).

Claremont writes interesting female characters? I thought he just wrote intolerable harpies with power complexes.

There was more than a little sarcasm in my head when I typed that.

If anything, this thread prompted me to look up who Jackpot is. You shittin' me?

Nope. And she's all over the Spider-man books the moment this OMD thing is over.

That's another thing that cracks me up-- people complain all the time about the things JMS has done on the book. Then, when it looks as though Marvel might be planning to undo it... they complain more!

I wasn't there (and actually can't remember if it was San Diego or Chicago), but I saw more than one person post that they heard him say it at a Marvel panel. Take that with the appropriate quantity of salt...

As a result of his deal with the devil Aunt May and Mary Jane will live but Spider-man 4 will be written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson.

Nice try, but this is a truly horrible story.

As has been already pointed out, it shows a hideous lack of imagination.

The "good news"? Marvel announced today that the last two issues of the story have been delayed by a month.

Well, they didn't announce it so much as release a list of upcoming One More Day publishing info, which had the release dates a month later than the original solicits.

I'm wondering why DC/Marvel has such a major problem with getting things on schedule these days. I would blame the artists (and probably be right 85% of the time) but World War Hulk is dealing with a similar thing, and Romita Jr is a workhorse.

I guess it's all these fucking tie-ins?

I'm surprised that after all these years there are still scheduling problems and delays in comics. I'd always figured they'd be at least six months ahead of the game when they were soliciting books - plenty of breathing room to account for anything that would cause a delay. I especially hoped that would be the case after the Kevin Smith debacles with Spider-Man and Daredevil's books.

I think it might have something to do with the shifting of "Amazing Spder-man" to three times a month. That was suppose to take place after the completion of the "One More Day" story line. If they delay "One More Day" they give themselves more time to get the tri-monthly thing in order. It's still no excuse for not being able to pull off some they seemed to give themselves enough time to impliment.

It seems a better reason than they can't manage to produce fours comics and keep them on schedule.

Make sense. Thanks, Slagar!

So not only is Joe Quesada a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE ARTIST, he's also incapable of drawing four issues in, what, eight months? Nine?

He's the Michael Scott of Editors.

Quesada was a decent artist once, way back in the day, before he started drawing everyone as if they were Honey Baked Hams with legs. I mean, it was only like a four issue stretch of him being okay before it all went to hell.