It begins with a line so pretentious it makes me want to punch my computer screen – “Tune your ear to the frequency of despair, and cross-reference by the longitude and latitude of a heart in agony.” Can you taste the vomit in the back of your mouth yet? Geez, even in the much-maligned third movie they just gave Parker floppy hair and eyeliner to ‘tune’ his inner emo. Here, he’s babbling high-school poetry around his inner monologue as he has a good whinge about someone having the good sense to put a bullet in Aunt May. Calm down, I’m not advocating the mass culling of pensioners, it’s just that she is clearly an actress. Or a Skrull. Or a clone of a Skrull actress, invented by the Scarlet Witch and secretly working for the Soviets. Comics are awesome.
Away we go…
After a brief interlude to introduce a red bird outside the building, we get to see the unhappy trio of Peter, MJ and May as the former couple watch over the latter in her hospital bed. Despite everything that’s happened to her, Quesada’s dodgy art leaves May looking the best of the bunch. Peter’s mouth has turned into that of Beaker from the Muppets, while his right hand is a miniaturised version of the Rock of Gibraltar. As for MJ’s feet, well…
Doctor Fine and his well-kept moustache enter next. Medical care is expensive, May has no insurance documents, she’ll get moved to the Mortuary Ward, Sicko, Michael Moore, down with Big Macs, guns are bad, use more hemp, self-satisfaction, et cetera. Thankfully, Fine has a raging man-on for Spider-Man and can somehow see through Peter’s fool-proof disguise, i.e. his own face, which was plastered all over the worldwide media a few weeks earlier. Fine agrees to stall the hospital ‘them’ and Peter goes to bum some spare change off of Tony Stark.
So the next 14 (fourteen) pages see Peter breaking into Stark’s place to look for pretty pennies, then having a big ol’ scrap with Iron Man, which basically breaks down like this:
“You’re a dick!”
“Well, yeah. So are you though.”
“Shut up! Hate robots!!”
“Bitch, please.”
“I WEB YOU GOOD!”
“Ew. Dude, what’s wrong with you?”
“Err, I dunno. See you later.”
None of this makes Peter Parker seem at all heroic. At least, not unless some over-excited magician changed the definition of ‘heroic’ in every dictionary to mean ‘whiny cunt’. He chose to come clean to May about being Spider-Man, he chose to move in with Stark when things turned bad, he chose to wear the Iron-Spidey costume, he chose to work for Stark, he chose to support the Superhuman Registration Act, he chose to unmask himself in public, he chose to refuse to register, he chose to become a fugitive, he chose to wear the black costume even though his wife hated it, and he chose to refuse to simply go back to Stark for his family’s safety. This fight scene and the storyline in general would have been far stronger if Peter had acknowledged that he made a mistake in supporting Stark and registration, yet compromised his beliefs to stay on that side because it was the right thing to do for the people that he loved. Then they could still have had May get shot but then it would actually have been Stark’s fault because his security would have failed her. Hell, they could even have spun it out into a lawsuit against him by the Parkers, complete with special guest court appearances by Jennifer Walters and Matt Murdock. But that wouldn’t have been at all plausible, would it? Not nearly enough magic involved.
As it turns out, Stark drops $2 million into Jarvis’ bank account and sends him off to the hospital to see May. Jarvis’ affection for May is now full-on love apparently, while all it took for Stark to change his mind was a photograph of happier times with the Parkers. They must be fast workers because the Parkers probably only lived in the New Avengers pad for about six months at best. Anyway, Fine assures them that they’ll make May as comfortable as possible in her last days. This prompts some heavy-handed foreshadowing from Peter…
So, with the same red bird that’s been loitering by May’s hospital room window following him, Peter heads off to see if Dr Strange can help his Aunt out through the arbitrary cunning of MAGIC. Actually, it’s Spider-Man that goes, not Peter. Despite foregoing his costume when he went to see Iron Man earlier, since OMG NOT ENOUGH TIME SHE’S OLD AND STUFF, he apparently has time to don the red ‘n’ blue now. Perhaps MJ finally finished doing the laundry.
Anyway, Strange is too preoccupied with rambling on endlessly and without any particular point to pay him much attention. The one lucid remark he makes (basically, in the style of Allie the Weather Guy from Family Guy, PEOPLE GOTTA DIE) is met with only excessive whinging and self-pity by the friendly neighbourhood webslinger. Bored, perhaps a little disgusted, and in need of some privacy to finish with the mystical porn he was watching before this rude interruption, Strange gives him a doohickey called the Hands of the Dead that allow him to visit numerous people all at the same time. So, in one impressive double-page spread, Spidey gets to ask Beast, Reed Richards, Doctor Doom, Hanky Pank Pym and others for help. Finding none, Spidey mopes some more, finally driving poor Strange to drink. As the good doctor goes off to raid his drink’s cabinet, Spidey grabs the unguarded Hands of the Dead in order to plunge into the past and try to prevent the shooting from ever happening. You’d have thought that a self-professed Master of the Mystic Arts would know better than to leave something called the Hands of the Dead just lying about for any ol’ loser to use. At the very least he should give such things a more mundane name, like Shaped Object #A00PL.7036(b), so that they seem less alluring.
It’s also worth pointing out the interesting header on this page. On one side there is a closed eye, the red bird flying away, and the head of a statue of a woman with her eyes shut. On the other side, the eye is open, as are those of the statue, while the red bird is peering down into the panel, observing Spidey reaching into the past. Perhaps the bird is mindful of Strange’s warning, which Spidey certainly wasn’t:
Anyway, it turns out that being in the past really isn’t all that useful if you are non-material. Nobody can hear or see him and he can’t touch anything, so Spidey merely continues the self-flagellation by seeing May getting shot again. Oh, and getting beaten up by weird, Venom-by-way-of-Mordor creatures called Nightwalkers. Strange comes to the rescue just in time but has to take him somewhere else in the past to avoid meeting his own Strangeness in the present… so, uh, where did this Strange come from and what is the ‘present’ one doing? Time travel causes headaches. It’s all MAGIC though, so it’s okay. The end result of all this is that they wind up in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #42, which is of course really issue #483. Geez, even the numbering is convoluted. If you can’t recall the issue in question, go here. Strange promptly returns them both to the present anyway, which rather renders the last four pages pointless, and points out in plain language the bleeding obvious again. People die. When they do, it’s their time. Accept it. Stop fighting it and just be there with her or you’ll regret it forever. Credit goes to JMS for a well-written piece of dialogue.
Steeling himself up to head back to the hospital, Spider-Man doesn’t notice that he is actually following that red bird as he heads into an alleyway. Turning the corner, he encounters a red-haired, green-eyed young girl claiming to be able to change destiny. This girl, who says she has a smart dad but prefers her beautiful mum, not only leads Spidey down the alley towards a chance to change things but offers up some words of scathing accuracy:
She runs out of sight and Spidey is too slow to remember he’s got superpowers, so instead of using them to find her he just asks some fat bloke on a park bench if he’s seen her. This guy looks remarkably like Jim Ross. He delivers a rather unprompted speech about how he’s a gaming nerd because the real world is too boring to allow him to really be a hero, but that those who do get to be heroes are of course happy with that role and require nothing else to be satisfied. Next up for the discombobulated web-head is a rich bloke in a sharp suit who says to have seen the girl and offers him a lift in his Rolls Royce. He speaks of making his fortune from various patents but that he would still trade it all in for that girl he knew in high school, the one that truly loved him for who he really is but somehow slipped away from him. As lightning crackles around the streets, he directs Spidey towards his destination… except the young girl isn’t waiting on him; instead it’s a grown woman in a red gown lurking in the shadows. She speaks of alternative timelines, of the intangible twists of fate that alter everyone’s lives in an infinite array of imperceptible repercussions. The lonely gamer and the lonely billionaire are but two examples of how alternative Peter Parkers turned out…
Of course, the mystery lady in red is actually Mephisto. Even the mystical minefield of MAGIC appreciates a good drag act every now and then. Hungry for misery, loss, despair, hopelessness, pain, regret and sadness, he offers to save May’s life without taking Peter’s soul. An instantaneous trip to a motel room (MAGIC) reveals that he has been making the same offer to MJ at the same time (MAGIC). Or perhaps he was just trying to sleep with her, was spurned, and came up with all this on the spur of the moment. It’s the most plausible reason for him wanting to take their love and marriage away without prior cause. Peter rejects the offer then and there but MJ is curious because, well, Mephisto is buff and has nice pecs. He gives them one more day to decide whether May dies or their marriage becomes forgotten by them and the rest of the world…
By this point it becomes clear just how poorly this story has been structured. Peter doesn’t want his aunt to die, he tries to find help, he can’t get any, only for a hitherto unmentioned deus ex machina character appears and offers to save her life only if Peter gives up something else important to him, even though that something has not been considered whatsoever throughout the rest of the story. They overplayed the strength of the Peter/May relationship at the expense of the Peter/MJ one, or even the May/MJ one, even though the latter is what drives the climax of the story. Instead of a comprehensive overview of the most important people in Peter’s life and the responsibility he feels towards their safety, there’re just three issues of him running around aimlessly until a random solution presents itself through no effort of his.
The story continues with May flat-lining in hospital as Peter and MJ debate the moral dilemma of Mephisto’s offer back at their motel room. I’d have thought that since May was shot in that room they might have moved elsewhere, or at least that the police may have cordoned it off, but perhaps I’m still favouring logic too much for this tale. In any event, MJ does some fine emoting as Peter is taken aback by imaginary anal penetration:
It must be another whimsical bit of mischief favoured by Mephisto. We then delve into that curious comic book trait in which the artist tries to convey the gravity of the situation, yet the reader feels that he is simply taking the piss. For example, take AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #546, page eight:
Panel One – Peter looks at MJ, who has her hand over her mouth.
Panel Two – As before.
Panel Three – As before, but her hand is down now.
Panel Four – As before, but she looks at Peter now.
Or how about page nine:
Splash – Peter and MJ embrace one another.
Or even by page ten:
Panel One – Peter and MJ hold one another, face to face, almost in a kissing position.
Panel Two – As before.
Panel Three – As before.
Panel Four – As before.
Panel Five – As before.
Panel Six – As before, but he tries to talk and she shuts him up.
Hell, even on page eleven there are three replica panels from page ten. Repetition can be a valid method of getting a point across but it doesn’t work for a situation like this, which is both delicate and contrived. Not that there’s much time to kill anyway, since it is now midnight and Mephisto, played with adequate guile by Joe Quesada, arrives to get an answer and deliver some ill-concealed exposition. No, the marriage will never have happened. No, nobody will remember Spider-Man’s identity (well, except for Peter Parker, presumably, although that might have made for a rather unique aftermath). Yes, the girl from earlier was their daughter from the future that will now never be (still no word about their daughter from the past though). MAGIC. MJ accepts the terms because she has a secret to whisper to Mephisto that will guarantee Peter’s life after this will be a good one. Peter accepts the offer because of her coercion and there is just time for some reassurance and a final kiss before midnight passes and their marriage is no more – or, more specifically, never was.
Peter awakes in his old room at his aunt’s old house. He rushes downstairs and wastes no time in coming on to her:
Ye gads. He sings Simon & Garfunkel’s 59th Street Bridge Song, getting the lyrics wrong (it should be ‘morning’ instead of ‘moment’), as he cycles over to a surprise party for Harry Osborn’s return from Europe. Or his return from death, whichever you prefer. Flash Thomson is there, fit as a fiddle and friendly with Peter. We also meet Harry’s new girlfriend Lily Hollister and her best friend Carlie Cooper, who seems rather smitten with Peter. MJ is lurking in the crowd as well but she’s certainly not the life and soul of the party in the way that she once was and leaves early, quietly, and alone. It seems that she and Peter had an argument about something that she has not forgiven him for, although he still clearly cares for her.
Fin.
Now, having trawled through all four parts of One More Day, it is safe to say that this story is a failure on all fronts. For starters, the title doesn’t even make any sense, since at no point did we get to see Peter and MJ spend one last day together as a married couple, reflecting on their life together and the choice they made regarding May. Instead there was merely a prolonged cuddle in a shoddy motel room. Also, as mentioned earlier, there is no grounding for the May-or-marriage decision that they had to make, since Mephisto is hardly a classic recurring villain for Spider-Man and the story did nothing to showcase Peter and MJ’s love or May’s importance to their lives. There was merely a lot of whining about May’s health for three issues and then in the fourth the dissolution of the marriage came across as being less affecting than having a pet dog put down. At no point did either of them even stop to consider what May would have wanted – and it is surely safe to say she would have gladly given her life for her nephew and niece-in-law to remain married. Hell, neither of them even realised that Peter already made the choice when that sniper fired a bullet into the motel room. His spider-sense warned him about the shot and MJ was the one he dived for and knocked safely to the ground, not May. It was an instant instinct, one which would have saved everyone a lot of hassle had he realised it later on. It could also have been an excellent basis for future Spider-Man stories. Say Mephisto still appeared and still made this offer, yet the Parkers never took him up on it. Peter knows that he could has saved his aunt’s life but didn’t. He knows that he could have given up his marriage for her life but didn’t. With all that in mind, compounding tenfold by Peter’s patented self-doubt, how could he have grown to accept the situation, forgive himself, and refrain from coming to see his wife and his marriage as objects of blame? That’s the emotionally epic, tragic, personal and turbulent trials that make for classic Spider-Man stories, not flailing at the big red cosmic reset button and hoping for the best.
However, there is still a way for Marvel to redeem this situation. Presumably, Mephisto has to appear again at some point in the 36 issues of Brand New Day. After all, why bother having someone make a deal with the devil if they get everything they wanted out of it? May is alive and well, Spider-Man’s identity is secret, Peter’s got a happy life full of friends and fun-related activities, whereas really, all Mephisto had to do to uphold his end of the bargain was keep May alive but in a coma, restore the secret identity but give a villain some major and simple clues as to who Spider-Man really was, and have all Peter’s friends infected by a terminal disease of some sort. The devil doesn’t want sympathy; he just wants to be unsympathetic. Mephisto’s future interference, coupled with the established ‘small part’ of Peter and MJ’s souls that knows the truth, not to mention the secret MJ whispered to him and Dr Strange’s presence, means there are plenty of ways to restore the ‘proper’ status quo. Perhaps we’re seeing a new phenomenon at work here – a tempretcon rather than a mere retcon.
If that’s the case, it could very well turn out to be a work of brilliance. They will have put the Spider-Man character through more or less the same wringer as the Spider-Man fans, teasing him with the past before accepting the present as a basis for the future. It seems inevitable that at some point Peter will realise what has happened. At that point in time he will face another choice, one that hopefully he makes without MJ or anybody else coaxing it out of him: to live in the happy lie or to accept the unhappy truth? On one hand he could stay in his relatively carefree and familiar world, complete with Aunt May and the Daily Bugle, with Harry Osborn and Flash Thomson, with a secret identity and a swinging, single lifestyle. On the other hand he could be restored in the relationship with the woman he loves, yet his aunt will be dead, he’ll have lost Harry and the trust of others and he’ll be a fugitive. Consider the theme with the inherent time travel element involved and it’s basically the last episode of Life on Mars. It’s also rather similar to Peter’s memories of the HOUSE OF M universe, only in that instance he had no say in either going there or returning, so at long last that mini-series would provide some useful character motivation for him.
If these two steps backwards into his ‘glory days’ are a deliberate ploy, designed to make the character and the fans re-examine their objectives, with the end goal being to take three leaps forwards and truly experience a brand new day, then One More Day could prove a necessary evil. Hell, they could even wrangle a proper Parker wedding out of it. This is all highly speculative of course. It has to be, since there surely has to be more going on here than utter stupidity and MAGIC.
