1. Is it just me or does Joe Quesada write Mary Jane as a selfish raging bitch? I mean, she made the deal with the devil, she laid the ground rules for their future, she has all the cards and is portrayed as loving to take her ball and go home when things don’t pan. I mean, I’m supposed to believe that everything is always totally Peter’s fault for why they didn’t work out? I’m sorry, she knew she was marrying Spider-Man, and given the last twenty years, she’s been through so much worse then the straw that broke the camels back here.
2. Seriously, Mary Jane is the understanding one who knew Peter’s double identity and loved him more because of it, she was his rock. She was not someone who would make the “Spider-Man or me” ultimatum, she was the one who loved Peter enough to never even consider making him choose. She understood that with his sense of responsibility that the choice could never be made, and she ENCOURAGED it! So her telling him he has to choose is just ridiculously forced.
3. When was the last time that anyone used Anna Watson? I remember in the 90’s when Aunt May died she was moved in to replace her, what with Pete and MJ living with her…in May’s house, but then May came back and Anna was gone and seeing her here was just interesting, as it took me back to married Pete and MJ right after the Clone Saga.
4. MJ being a bitch in this story makes Anna’s advice worth while, as she really can’t go anywhere without seeing Peter’s face as Spider-Man is EVERYWHERE. This doesn’t gel with me at all, I mean, yes, MJ is being a bitch and thus doesn’t deserve an easy break up, but they’re pushing the point too hard.
5. I’m going to take an interlude here to say that Paolo Rivera is knocking a homerun on art here, and is telling a better visual story than most Amazing Spider-Man artists I’ve seen lately. It doesn’t feel like second rate Daredevil for a change.
6. Why do people love to pretend like Peter is incapable of not hitting rock bottom when something bad happens to him? Where something happens and then all he can do is be Spider-Man and let Peter go to waste? Sure, there are situations where it works, but by having him give up on his real life everytime he gets moody you really just call the character a little bitch who can’t cope with stress.
7. So wait, now everything is all about babies? And MJ wanting babies? And how her dad was abusive so she doesn’t want Peter to have kids. Yes, she compares him to her physically abusive father. I mean, yes, she also clarifies that she means that the Spider-Man life is abusive to people who love him and yadda-yadda-yadda. She wants babies, but not with him, so she won’t marry him because she won’t have his kids, but they can still….
8. So there’s the retcon. Peter and MJ were never married, and every story to have happened between the wedding and One More Day happened, just without them being married. It took three years, THREE YEARS, to tell us this, and it succeeds in feeling like a cheap way out and a slap in the face to people who wanted some sort of pay off. And hey, here’s a question, does this mean that the Clone Saga never happened, because, I mean, if they didn’t get married because they weren’t having kids, and then MJ gets pregnant, doesn’t that mean shotgun wedding?
9. And then, finally, One More Day. Peter unmasked in Civil War, Aunt May got shot, Peter went all over trying to fix it, and then, May dies! She dies in the hospital while Peter and MJ cry! And then Peter punches her chest until she’s alive again! That’s not a cliffhanger, that’s a bad TV plot, and it continues telling the reader that his elderly aunt is more important then his wife, potential children, or forward moving character development. Apparently he can’t be Spider-Man without Aunt May. Just like how Superman needs Pa Kent….wait a second….
10. There are still two more issues in this arc, but I doubt I’m the only reader who wishes it just never happened. Hell, this arc could have happened three years ago and it actually probably would have worked out better. As it stands, more and more people I’ve spoken to have admitted that they were under the impression that MJ and Peter hadn’t seen each other between their own botched wedding and her return back in Amazing #560. But now we find out that their gap of not seeing each other fits in between….#545 and #560. The actual comic time between these issues? One hundred days.
11. Overall: Cancer/10 This is the definition of a bad book. Yes, the art deserves credit, but the story is a contrived mess of horseshit. The more Quesada tries to sell us on why getting rid of the marriage is important, the more resent he creates for it. The reasons read like a bad soap opera written by someone who so desperately wants back the Spider-Man of their youth that they are willing to ignore and erase forward character movement in an attempt to reclaim a memory from their youth. It’s like Alex fucking Ross is writing it, but at least with Ross people are smart enough to not make anything he does canon.
