So how could this be made good with the LEAST amount of changes to the story, characterization, and tone, etc?

So how could this be made good with the LEAST amount of changes to the story, characterization, and tone, etc?

No way it could have been done because it's erasing some of the best years of the story.

Okay, here's making it better with only one change:

He doesn't lose his marriage and future child by selling it to the devil

Easy, mary jane&aunt may get shot and the only way to save to them is preventing something in the past.

Giving some hope that MJ will come back and peter will meet her again or meet some other girl.

It's a What If...? issue. Bam, kino comic

Make it a "what if?" and never allow this kind of shit in continuity.

kek. Beat me to it.

He chooses to let May die instead.

It's because it logically makes sense as a what if. What If Spider-Man Saved Aunt May? One More Day is a great story of a man at the end of his rope desperately trying to save his love one. Granted there's a lot of nonsense in there like no one being able to fix a bullet wound even Doctor Strange, but if they just handwaved that stuff better it would have been a great story about Peter falling lower than he's ever fallen before. The problem is they made it canon with zero actual repercussions since no one remembers pre-deal

obligatory

I don't know, maybe Madam Web gets a brain tumor that's killing her but boost her powers to Prof X level, last thing she does before dying is erase the worlds memory of Spider-Mans true identity.

Instead of the retarded wanting the marriage thing just do the regular old selling your soul deal. Leave out them talking it over having Peter agree to the deal instantly cause he's desperate and retarded at the moment.
Have Mephesto tell Jane about the deal after the fact.
Have Jane get super pissed off that she won't get an after life with Peter and divorces him because of this.
Bam. You get the separation you get future stories bout Peter owing his eternal soul to a demon and stories of MJ coming to terms with never seeing Pete after death in the afterlife.

It's a simple fix. Switch Aunt May with Mary Jane. He made a deal with Mephisto to save Mary Jane at the cost of their marriage.

MJ wakes up and doesn't remember them ever being married. She sees Pete as her best friend who sat with her in the hospital for some unknown reason.

>no supergenius, magician or a healing mutie can deal with a gun wound
It would still suck, albeit it won't destroy years of characterization.

Insted of Aunt May's life it was Mary Jane's life,
Like

"You're wife is going to die soon of Breast Cancer but I can cure it."

Parker takes the deal but then finds out
"Oh, did I not mention what year the cancer was going to take her?"

He, only gives Peter one day to think about the deal, but if he mentions it to her the deal is off. Have something like Mary mentioning a lump, shit like that.
Have Parker's daughter in the future be a thorn in the side in the devil, have an actual reason for this.

Aunt May dies.

Losing her creates a rift between Mary Jane and Peter

Peter becomes too focused on his crimefighting as a way to cope, MJ dives in to her modelling work.

Eventually, both realize that they just don't love each other like they used to, agreeing to a divorce while remaining friends.

he says no.

TOAA appears, bitchslaps Mephisto with his dick and banishes him somewhere else then calls Peter a little faggot and scolds him for not taking his advice

It's literally like they decided to do Metal, and then instead of making it a dark Multiverse, they literally made it canon in the main one.

Aunt may dies.
It's really only a few changed pages at the end.

Make the wound more serious so it becomes more believable that she couldn't be saved. Have time stop moments before she dies of a crushed head.

Fuck that's perfect.

Peter was really a clone the whole time

easy at the end of the ark peter tells Mephisto to fuck off and he partly excepts aunt Mays death
as something he cant change

Instead of making a deal with Mephisto Peter makes a deal with Cyttorak. In exchange for Peter becoming his avatar on Earth he grants May invulnerability, keeping her safe from Peter's enemies for as long as he remains Cyttorak's pet. Peter himself doesn't get much of a power-boost because of it being concentrated on keeping May safe. If the marriage must end then it ends because MJ can't be with Juggernaut-Pete.

There really is no way unless you change the story in such a way that you may as well consider it a different comic.
You can't have someone die to a gunshot slowly in the hospital bed in the Marvel Universe, not when you share space with literal warlocks, techno-deities and super-geniuses.
Someone important I mean

why does Peter care so much about his very old aunt dying? everybody dies at some point.

Pete addresses this in the comic.
If May were dying of natural causes he could accept it, but she was shot because of him and he couldn't accept that.

Mephisto doesnt ask for his future kid marriage whatever.

Cue whatever mega event involving mephisto as the bad guy and before he loses, he summons spiderman to buy him some time while he escapes.

Loki owed Peter a favour from earlier in JMS run,
so have it that Peter goes to Loki for the favour (Aunt May saved and secret identity restored)which Loki does but he does it by removing the marriage without telling any of them about that part. Having Peter tricked into it happening is a lot more in character than a deal with the literal devil.

He didn't sell the child. There was no child. That was Mephisto himself.

Number one: take Mephisto out, entirely. He doesn't belong in a Spider-Story.
Two: have Peter just straight up leave MJ while May's life is still hanging in the balance. Have him say hell always love her but he can't put her in harm's way any more- he can't lose any more.
End the entire story with may still in the hospital, and leave her there for a few months.