Thursday, January 10, 2008

Worst Comic Book Ever

Spider-man and Mary Jane are breaking up. More to the point, Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson are splitsville. I'm pretty sure that when you break up with one, you pretty much lose the other, this being the way with secret identities. To be even more precise, Peter and Mary Jane made a deal with Mephisto: In exchange for saving Aunt May's life, Mephisto erases all traces of the Peter-Mary Jane marriage from memory.
I know that this was a decision made from on high. It was an attempt to turn back the clock, something that all comic books have to do on a regular basis to keep things "fresh". Marvel big shot Joe Quesada knew that what he was doing would be controversial. "I remember editors and editors in chief lamenting that a married Spider-Man was not where we want to be," Quesada says. "A married Peter Parker makes for a less interesting soap opera than a single Peter Parker going about his nerdy kind of life."
Okay, granted, but undoing twenty-one years of webbed wedded bliss should cause some tumult. Especially if you have spent any amount of time trying to emulate or soak up some of that magic in your real life. We have a copy of the wedding issue next to a photo of our own nuptials. Or, say, maybe you tried to propose to your wife in the same way that Peter popped the question (hiding the ring in a box of Cracker Jacks). Or perhaps you have a secret yen for being called "Tiger". I am pretty much past the swinging from webs and wearing tights stage, but I did always hope for some of that romance to creep off the page like some sort of alien symbiote and - well - maybe that's too dangerous. It was something to aspire to, and now it's over.
In time I'm sure that Gwen Stacy will reappear, and the whole ugly cycle will begin again, but for now I'll grieve just a little for what has passed. Lois Lane and Clark Kent are still together, but in Metropolis, things have a way of getting stuck and staying stuck. God, how I hate Superman.

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