Once again, the question of whether or not Spider-Man should remain single has been making headlines in some online media outlets.
As he relates it Pop versecurrent X-Men Editor Tom Brevoort responded to a question about Marvel’s editorial mandates during a panel at Baltimore Comic Con over the weekend. Brevoort responded, “If you work for Marvel, the basic rules are that all characters are Marvel characters and Marvel, as an institution, decides what is right and what is wrong for these characters. So there are certain things you don’t want Spider-Man to do…”
At that point, the audience member who had originally asked the question chimed in with a controversial response: “like coming back.” [together] “With Mary Jane?” Brevoort calmed the tense murmurs of the crowd as they responded: “He can go back to Mary Jane, but he really can’t.” tie the knot “With Mary Jane, those are the basic rules. If you’re going to work on any character, if you’re going to work on Daredevil, you’re going to have to deal with the fact that he’s blind and he’s probably going to be that way for a while.”
The insistence that Peter Parker must remain single and active in the main MCU has been a topic of intense debate for years, coming to a head with the infamous One more day Story arc in 2007. In a desperate plea to keep Aunt May alive for a few precious fleeting years, Parker recklessly gave up his marriage to Mary Jane in a deal made with the demon, Mephisto. Now, Mephisto is no longer itself The actor legally married Mary Jane in the deal; he simply considered the annulment a fair trade by virtue of being the devil incarnate. It didn’t make much sense, but the machinations of gods and demons are beyond our mortal understanding, we’re told. Nevertheless, the arrangement worked wonders for publisher Marvel by getting their star character out of the doldrums of marital bliss and back into the unforgiving dating pool of the Marvel Universe. Readers were generally unhappy with the development.
Despite fan protests, Marvel refused to budge on the decision and Peter and Mary Jane continue to live in sin to this day. Though, as the outlet notes, the couple is back together and legally married in the pages of The Ultimate Spider-Mana series set in a different continuity than the main Marvel line. Last month’s issue of the book was also the best-selling comic of August 2024, beating out the main title, The Amazing Spider-Manwhich came in 29th place.
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