Dig on the latest promo for One Moment In Time, which is, I believe, the cover to Amazing Spider-Man #641. Isn’t Paolo Rivera gorgeous?

I’m torn on the current Spidey storyline, One Moment In Time. On one hand, I find it surprisingly grounded in relatable minutiae. The conversation between Parker and MJ that dictates the narrative is absurdly heartbreaking to a giant slobbering mess like me. On the other hand, the entire thing is a knotty attempt at perhaps over-explaining what happened back during One More Day.

I love it, but I feel like I shouldn’t.

As somewhat of a closet Emo Kid and sucker for romance, the heartfelt convo by a shattered couple sprawled about an apartment gets to me. I can’t help it.

[images & words is the comic book pick-of-the-week at OL. equal parts review and diatribe, the post highlights the most memorable/infuriating/entertaining book released that wednesday]

Spoilers Ahead. Forreal.

Sometime ago, Marvel unleashed an event on the Spider-Man universe called One More Day. This story essentially undid years and years of continuity and character development; in exchange for Aunt May’s life, Peter Parker and Mary Jane agree to allow Mephisto to retcon their lives any way he sees fit. Of course, he makes it so that they were never married.

Fugging hogwash.

For the most part, I feel that rewriting character history is a dangerous endeavor. By saying This and that and the other thing never happened, a writer is basically tossing out the stories that fans have spent years reading. The characters don’t really develop and readers can pretty much count on future tales coming to similar conclusions.

I’m going to pause for a second, to add some counterbalance to my tirade. I’m not opposed to reboots or reimaginings of all sorts. In fact, I think that harnessing fresh perspectives to relaunch franchises can lead to products that are better than the originals (see: Battlestar Galactica, The Dark Knight, etc.). But what I can’t stomach is the constant rehashing of tried-and-true formulas.

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Amazing Spider-Man #638
Alright, fuck every other comic that is coming out this week, I want to talk about Peter Parker. This week, the Spider-Man event One Moment In Time is kicking off. The event is in response to the other Spidey event that took place in 2007. That shiz was called Brand New Day. In this wonderful arc, Spider-Man was faced with a choice presented by Mephisto. Mephisto was all like, “Yo, I can save your dying Aunt May. But in return, you will never have married Mary Jane.”

Somehow, and for some reason, Peter Parker decided that this was a solid deal. What a dumb bastard. He chose his rickety old fucking Aunt May, over his gorgeous, accepting supermodel wife? This shit has irked me for some time now. Dude Pete, she ain’t even your Mom, yo. I know, I know, same thing, close enough, blah blah blah. So poof! With a wink and a nod, and probably some magical smoke that makes people disappear and stuff, Mary Jane and Peter Parker were never married.

Somehow.

Why’d it happen?

Well, it happened because Mephisto wanted Parker’s love. Or something. But we know why it really happened: because Marvel had no idea what the fuck to do with Peter Parker anymore. Parker was the character that apparently everybody related to growing up. I didn’t, I was a total X-Men dude. I was more comfortable running around with a pack of mutants, watching Wolverine gut dudes and totally talk smack to Scotty Summers and secretly hitting on Jean Grey.

[As a brief aside, did you ever consider Wolverine’s enhanced senses? Like, what’d they be like in the bedroom? I imagine sniffing a pair of panties with his leet skills is either the greatest thing ever, or he passes out and goes semi-catatonic.]

But anyways, people related to him. Why? Because he was dorky, and disaffected. Because he didn’t fit in, and he had typical teenage angst, and he had a rough go of things. His parents were dead, he kept waking up with webbing in his pants thinking about watching Mary Jane cheerleading at the pep rally.

Peter Parker married to Mary Jane?

That shit changes everything! Parker wasn’t angsty anymore, he wasn’t unfulfilled. He was a middle-class teacher, married to a gorgeous supermodel who accepted him for all his quirks and the fact that he dresses up in tights and fights giant reptiles. Acceptance. Evolution. Before Brand New Day, Parker wasn’t the character that people had grown up to love, who was eminently relatable. He was normal. And apparently that was boring enough, and scary enough, and far enough away from his “roots” as Joe Quesada put it, that they had to use one of the most contrived storyline mechanics I can recall to pull it off.

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