Spider-Marriage, Youth and Responsibility

Hey co,

Were there any writers who supported the Spider-marriage?

From what I've heard most writers didn't really like the marriage. Even JMS who apparently only disagreed with OMD due to Editorial deciding not to not resurrect Gwen Stacy for BND.

So far I've found Conway, Kurt Buseik, Dan Slott (obviously), Mark Waid and Roger Stern (heart breaking for me to know desu) to be against marriage all together. Whether it be to MJ or anyone else.

On the other side the writers I do see that support spider marriage is Defalco and DeMatteis.

I was wondering if there were any other writers who liked the spider marriage? I imagine both Fraction and Bendis supporting the marriage.

Kay, so I am a marriage-fag. THAT being said I can see why writers favor spidey being single and youthful.

They don't want him to be like any other old hero. The young-ness of him is what makes him unique. Spidey's appeal according to them is his youth. Marriage no doubt removes that and ages him.

Opponents to this opinion claim these guys simply want to live through the younger Pete but I honestly don't see it that way, especially if writers like Buseik and Stern argue for no marriage.

Same marriage fag, with that being said the other faction namely Defalco's faction believes responsibility should be the main focus. The more responsibility he gets the more interesting his life becomes. This makes sense since most High School fags don't have as immense responsibility as they did when they go to college or university.

So yea, with greater power should come greater responsibility like bills, marriage and eventually a kid.

However the "youthful" faction does seem to argue that the appeal of great power and responsibility belongs to the younger crowd, the people who are trying to figure things out in life.

That's the group they need to pander, the further you remove peter away from that the further he becomes less and less as the Spider Man we know. Which I guess makes sense. Other heroes have power and responsibility as well, but the unique "youthness" factor can only be captured by Spidey. I mean how successful was Teen Tony? Or how good will Teen Batman even be?

The Spider-marriage hurts the story engine and makes Peter a more generic protagonist.

It has nothing to do with youth. It's about whether or not being Spider-man actually prevents Peter from getting what he wants.

If he's in a happy marriage with a woman whose entire purpose was originally to be an off-screen hot girl running joke (because Aunt May was trying to set him up with her but Peter kept missing her/getting out of it) he either has what he wants or he has someone to help cover for him/support him.

Both of those instances are what makes the story engine break.

Read the first 36 issues. Peter wants something, Spider-Man keeps him from getting it. That's the story and it works on every single front.

Well, Kelly goes out of his way to expressively say that Peter cannot ever be truly happy without MJ

On another note, a thing I've always found extremely funny is how the anti-marriage faction will say that the high school days were the best for Spidey, but those are something like two years at most of his stories, since he graduated and went to college almost immediately>That's the group they need to pander, the further you remove peter away from that the further he becomes less and less as the Spider Man we know. Which I guess makes sense. Other heroes have power and responsibility as well, but the unique "youthness" factor can only be captured by Spidey. I mean how successful was Teen Tony? Or how good will Teen Batman even be?
In my opinion Spidey has lost the need of having his own gimmick. He's too famous and important to having problems because of it.
Just look at the current stories. He's basically a loser Tony Stark right now, yet he's the most successful regular comic

Bendis was pro-marriage at the time. Or he was anti-OMD considering that the first thing he did post OMD was have Pete tell the Avengers his identity again

user, I just think the whole point of slowing down Spidey's age or giving the "illusion of change" as Stan Lee put it was necessary to build a recognizable brand or franchise.

Since spidey has become a successful recognizable franchise we have gotten so many shows and movies about him, some good and some bad.

Which makes me think. We already got an established franchise going on. Why the hell cant Comic writers allow at least this one version of Peter to grow? Comics are already a niche group,so whats the point in deaging him for the "new hip" crowd. Where the fuck are these mysterious "new readers" marvel keeps pandering too. It's just fucking asinine. I want the fucking marriage back.

Yea I wanted to mention Bendis but didn't want to attract his irrational haters. When that guy writes good comics they are amazing when its bad they are down right horrible.
I've found most writers have written at least one bad or good comic in their life.

Except for Liefeld and Austen. Fuck em.

>Austen
Strips. Or Hardball.

Also, storytime

I honestly think you are on point on what makes Peter work. That's exactly it.

Peter is fully capable of getting something what he wants but the act of being Spidey always hinder's it.

However I think it's definitely something that can be applied in the spider-marriage. JMS separation of the two comes to mind as Peter tries to make amends with MJ as it never works out since both of them decided to surprise visit each other at the same time (ofc later they reunite thru their connecting flights).

That's probably why I admittedly enjoyed Slott's Spock run where Otto realizes Petes problem and invents Spiderbots to alert and direct law enforcement to places he can't make it too.

This is also something happening in the current run. Pete's overreaching the capabilities of Parker Industries (through his increasingly disgruntled employees) that sooner or later its going to blow up in his face.

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Even JMS? Weird, he write them like a couple very good.

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Peter David says he thought it was a nifty idea.

He also wrote one of the best depictions and showed why being married absolutely does not break the story engine in his short story "Five Minutes."

oh man its my favorite spidey story ever. Thanks user~

Side note, if editorial had the guts to stay with this status quo we would have so many interesting stories. After all the whole point of Spider-man is the spider-man persona making it harder for Peter to have a normal life. Now with his identity blown and him suddenly being on the run... the possibilities out there would've been fucking endless. Shame everyone involved got cold feet.

>Were there any writers who supported the Spider-marriage?

David Michelinie did and he wrote a really good married couple.

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Oh awesome. PAD is one of my favorites, even if some of his stories can be weird (supergirl the earth born angel comes to mind). So it's nice to know he supports it.

Any idea what issue that short story was on?

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Honestly not that surprised when you consider his wankfest over Gwen in sin's past... or whenever Gwen was bought up in his run (which thankfully wasn't a lot)

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OP Is wrong.

JMS liked the marriage. OMD Was editorially forced on him. Here's his response to Stephen Wacker on Facebook when Wacker trolled him:

"I have always made it very clear that when I came aboard ASM I brought Peter and MJ back together because I liked writing them as a married couple. I made equally clear that the decision to unmarry them and, in the same brushstroke, eliminate virtually every story I’d written during those eight years was an editorial mandate, not my choice. I would’ve been happy to continue writing them married until the sun went out. Marvel wanted to unmarry them. That’s your choice, and your right."

>marcos martin's god tier art

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Really? This one is your favorite? I mean, it's not bad, but it's not amazing either.

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It's in a short prose story in the Ultimate Spider-Man anthology. Worth reading if you can find it.

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Fuck off Quesadilla

I think Peter being married was both a natural evolution of the character as well as bringing both another humanizing aspect to him and more problems, as well.

I can see why people hated it, but MJ specifically was perfect for him, and they went through issues and issues of character development before they were even ready for marriage.

Considering nearly every superhero was a single bachelor and they kept rehashing UST as much as possible to get the shekels, it was nice to have a married, relatively happy person, whose marriage was only one aspect of his character. Peter, being always against revealing his identity or being a worldwide hero, was the perfect one to get married. MJ made it work by being a good wife as well, and if they did it again, I would only want it to be her.

Op here, completely my bad.

I was just following this story which stated that JMS wrote who was going to be alive for BND and wanted Gwen Stacy to be one. Editorial felt that would make a lot of stories irrelevant compared to the timeframe of stories when MJ and Pete married so they nixed it. JMS got pissed and left the title.

So based on that story it was completely conjecture on my part in assuming he was against it. it could be possible he was still against it but like any good writer was willing to obediently follow through any editorial mandate.

Reading that FB post however just makes it a bit confusing.

My biggest problem with marriage was how fast it happened. MJ just came back and they decided to get married. Hell, he fucked with Cat like an issue prior.
I know it was because Shooter's weird synergy with newspaper strip, but the fact that Felicia didn't know they were married until fucking Venom told her.

I don't know really know how much time passes between conception and actual publication of a story, but wouldn't it be possible that they were already planning OMD when this annual was published?
Because that would make me feel rather angry

Its def not the best but to me it just hits the right notes that it has a special place in my heart. Especially because I was very fond of the issues MJ flashes back to (their first real kiss at the airport).

I am a sucker for sweet moments that this issue is entirely filled with.

JMS also can change his answers when he wants to. He has like 3 versions of his OMD and how the whole switch happened.
It's not as bad as say Priest, who lies all the time, though.

I don't particularly care about the marriage itself, since I'm not too fond of Mary Jane, but I'm against any runbacks on character development and progression in a medium where that's so rare.

Felicia was being annoying for awhile, and Pete fully realized he wanted to settle down, something Felicia had never wanted. She never even wanted Pete.

Meanwhile, Pete and MJ had been in love for awhile. They really just didn't want to admit it. After MJ had a talk to him about his life stuff, he realized MJ was really the only one that understood him, and just wanted to tie the knot before she ran away again. I doubt he even expected her to say yes. And she didn't. It was only after Pete helped her with her family that she also realized that she loved Pete and he understood her, and they basically just said fuck it. They'd more or less been in love for awhile.

JMS was dissapointed he had to let the marriage go, but he knew six years in advance they were getting rid of it so he was resigned to that,he objected to the devil deal,

I personally like the idea of a married Spider-man a lot. Look, most of us here grew up with Spidey. Many of us are, very soon, going to become fathers ourselves.

They're trying to push Miles really hard, right? So why not have Peter mostly retire, and let Miles take the lead with Peter taking on a mentor role? You can squeeze out years of stories like this:

> Mary Jane and Peter are newly married. (We've had years of stories.)
> Mary Jane is pregnant. Peter is terrified and proud.
> His son or daughter is born. Now Peter is a father, and he has to balance those responsibilities with work and being Spider-man.
> Now his kid is a child, and that changes the dynamic.

You could have YEARS of stories from this. Franklin Richards and Valeria didn't age the Fantastic Four that much, did they?

I'll try to find it. Thanks.

'>That's the story and it works on every single front.

Til it gets boring.
Like it is now.

I've read the newspaper strip for years and don't get half as bored

Oh they were absolutely planning it. A lot of fans believe this is Fraction's version of a "Fuck you" to editorial in showing that marriage can actually work.

Yeah the thing is they tried to introduce something similar to that in Ben Reilly. However editorial fucked it up in execution.

With that being said I think right now is the most prominent time for this switch over to happen. Just a few years ago people were against a "black" spiderman, now a lot of people either want miles to be the replacement and for peter to settle or are OKAY with marvel going that route.

Unfortunately current Marvel is still bent on the idea that Pete should be single despite already having a likable single Spidey in miles.

If JMS is such a liar, then find JMS's statements about how he hated the marriage.

Pro tip: you can't because they don't exist.

>now a lot of people either want miles to be the replacement and for peter to settle or are OKAY with marvel going that route.
Nigga are you high? No one outside of Bendis thinks that

Sorry let me rephrase that. I didn't mean to say EVERYONE is on board with this idea, but i've seen frequent posts in forums outside of Sup Forums supporting this idea.

There is a loud vocal group that are surprisingly fine with this. I personally have mixed feelings but that's just me.

I like to entertein the thought of an alternate reality where comic book time passage coincides with the real world and present day Spider comics are about 70-year old Grandpa Pete and the adventures of his 33-year old daughter May Parker, the Spider-Woman. Sigh...

My problem is that after the rest, Peter was a 30-year-old-man living in his aunt's basement. That says something chilling about society in general.

His new concept as 'super-rich Spider-man' is both stupid and insulting. Especially since it's Otto (for some stupid reason) who built it. I don't understand why they do this shit with the character.

Thanks for the storytime user. I appreciate it.

Because nothing makes a character feel young and hip like being the CEO of a company

Haha ur not the only one. My headcanon is peter was spidey well on his way to his 40s or 50s wearing the last stand spidey suit as he fought alongside his daughter before retiring and leaving the mantle to Mayday who herself has started a small family (possibly as a single mom since that kinda setup is relevant and less taboo in current society)....

sigh, a fan can dream anyways.

JMS wanted to reset Peter back to the supposed "golden age." Instead of the marriage not happening, now Harry got help for his drug problem right away so his OD didn't happen, so Norman's breakdown didn't happen, so the Green Goblin didn't kill Gwen.

Peter would be dating Gen and MJ would be with Harrry, thus resetting the book the mythic "Peter Archie Parker torn between Betty Gwen and Veronica MJ at the Coffee Bean while commiserating with his best buddy Harry Jughead Reginald."

That's what Marvel editorial really wants. Those are the stories Quesada and Brevoort fap over when they talk about Spider-Man. They want Spider-Archie, but didn't have the balls to actually do it when JMS proposed it.

I think they're missing the point, really. What made Spiderman so fascinating as a character was that he really captured the zeitgeist of youth, and not the happy parts. The sad parts. The parts where your girlfriend moves on. Where your father and mother is growing old and slowly dying - And you have to watch them deteoriate, and will this be the last time you see them?

You see your friends fall to addiction, to vice, and precious things are lost forever as everyone drifts apart. And you have to, somehow, find a place in this strange, chaotic and ever-changing world for yourself.

You are adrift, and all you want to do is to do the right thing.

That does'nt fascinate me at all. I did'nt grow up with that Spider-Man for 20 years. Spidey moved on, as we all should, from that part of life.

Fuck off Quesada.

Honestly, that's way better than the Slott stories.

I like you.

Thats unfortunately what a lot of writers want from Spidey, including Busiek. Which is shocking since this is the guy who writes Astro City! What the hell?!

Personally I understand why they want Peter to stay static. I mean look at other static characters like say Archie or Scooby Doo? They more or less stay the same and are subjected to a hundred different interpretation. Kinda like superman and batman as well.

That's what Editorial wants from Spidey and their characters except also instill the "illusion of change" where nothing significant truly happens.

It just makes me think that maybe DC's annual reboot is probably a better mode of telling stories than Marvel's mode of constant retconning. At least you get a version you can call your favorite and stick to it. Like for me it would be the classic scooby serials, classic archie or the afterlife series and DC pre Flashpoint

Until eventually this becomes pointless as you stop everything from moving forward under the excuse that you need him to never get any personal accomplishments for the story to have a "point".

The truth is people are just salty and want things to stay exactly the same because that's what they wished life had been, and use the fictional characters as their anchor to the past.

You suck Slott

The problem with coming of age stories is that characters can only come of age once.

So the choice is to either allow the character to continue to grow (and it's comics, it's 22 pages a month, that can take a long time) or you freeze them in amber.

Lee made a conscious decision to allow his characters to grow as opposed to DC, who froze them at the time.

I understand Marvel's desire to now take the amber route. But it also undercuts why their characters were so popular in the first place.

Jms is not a reliable narrator of his own story. His recollection of events is... often not in line with the verifiable elements of reality. And he loves to be loved by fans.

The reason he was really unhappy with OMD is he wasn't allowed to retcon about half of everything starting from right before Harry ' s death.
Maybe he was a fan of the marriage, I believe that's true- but don't take anyone in comics at face value about shit like this.

Sauce?

Lee did freeze him at College age for a very long time. He mandated the whole "illusion of change" in all is characters including the FF when he realized he struck up a gold mine with Marvel.

It's the exact reason why we remember the iconibility of batman or superman or even fucking archie. They are constant frozen story engines that churn out the same crap interpreted in different ways.
In the end that's exactly what modern marvel has kinda become and that's exactly what the editorial staff wanted of their characters.

> forgets DC and Arche sales are in the crapper because they took this route.

> forgets DC and Arche sales are in the crapper because they took this route.

LOL this. He forgets the appeal of Marvel was that they weren't static. That's what made them so famous.
See Claremont's run from the 70s to 80s for further proof.

>that post also forgets DC and Archie are now aping Marvel's character growth

plenty of young men in the late teens or twenties are married, engaged, or in long term relationships

This, I was this close to marrying a chick that I hate and I was 18.

>I leave this particular topic by referencing two icons of young girls' literature - Nancy Drew and Judy Bolton. You've probably heard of Nancy but not Judy. Both were fictional teenage detectives who got their respective starts long before the aged MadGoblin (yes, that is true). Nancy Drew, who first appeared in the early 1920's, was a pretty blond who was forever 16 years old, lived in a completely fictional town, had a rich lawyer daddy who placed no curfews or restrictions on her behavior whatsoever, and gave her a nice car to tool around in to solve mysteries. Several different writers in the series recrafted the older books to reflect modern times, and the newer editions clearly have Nancy as a hip, funky girl of the 21st Century, though no less spoiled or improbable as she was decades before. Judy Bolton, on the other hand, lived within limited economic circumstances in an area that was clearly based on a real town (Coudersport, PA if you need to know), aged, married, and was even (gasp!)pregnant with twins as the series was unceremoniously brought to an end in the 1960's as the publishers of the aforementioned Ms. Drew ruthlessly moved to eliminate all of Nancy's competition for young girls' readership. Even though many readers of and experts on children's fiction believe that the Judy books were superior to the Nancys, Ms. Bolton is largely forgotten, living on only in the hearts of her die-hard fans. The ageless, improbable Nancy Drew lives on and continues to make money for her publishers, however - more than 80 years after her debut.

From spideykicksbutt.com

In short, Icon status is important. Even I have heard of Nancy Drew and not Judy Bolton.

also add in the fact that DC and archie are beating marvel, there you go.

The belief is that you take away stories with a married Peter because most writers are lazy and relationship drama is a cheap source of story fuel. They're wrong, of course, but that's the reasoning. A lot of them are also just plain NOT MUH fags and want Peter to be what he was when they were kids i.e. young and single with his pick of any number of beautiful women (Liz Allan, Betty Brant, MJ, Gwen for most of those people, maybe Black Cat as well) that he can rotate between for unlimited potential relationship drama without having to commit to any one of them.

There's really no argument against a married Peter beyond laziness and NOT MUH shit. If they could DO anything interesting with a single Peter then sure, I can buy the argument that it's a better choice but what have they done since the break up that's necessitated Peter being single? A couple of bad relationships that went nowhere because nobody liked the characters in question is really it so it can be argued that Peter being single has been a detriment to the character since he lost a great supporting character and gained worse ones like Carlie Cooper or Sajani Jaffrey.