BETWEEN THE PANELS: WHY SPIDER-MAN SHOULD STAY A SWINGING BACHELOR - INFYNITEX

SOURCE : http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/03/between-the-panels-why-spider-man-should-stay-a-swinging-bachelor

You may have noticed that Marvel has announced quite a few new comics that'll be tying into Secret Wars this summer.Several dozen, in fact. But aside from X-Men '92, none of these new books have attracted as much attention as Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows. This series (from current ASM writer Dan Slott and artist Adam Kubert) will showcase a world where Peter Parker never made his controversial deal with Mephisto and sacrificed his marriage to Mary Jane in exchange for Aunt May's life. Not only is this Peter still married, he and MJ even have a daughter. Between the concept and creative team, Renew Your Vows is easily one of my most anticipated Secret Wars tie-ins. That being said, it wouldn't be in Marvel's best interests to use Renew Your Vows and the potential post-Secret Wars continuity reboot as a chance to reintroduce a married Peter Parker in the core Marvel Universe. That ship has sailed.

I can respect Marvel’s intentions with the One More Day storyline. The main argument being that Spider-Man is, at his core, an everyman hero. Readers need to be able to relate to him. He has to remain the perpetually unlucky loser who never quite finds professional success or lasting romance. It was argued that you simply can't tell certain types of stories with a married Peter Parker (though the same could be said about an unmarried Peter). And certainly, Marvel's love of synergy must have compelled them to revamp Spider-Man to better match the versions seen in Hollywood and in animation.

It’s the execution that makes this story such a black mark on Spidey’s career. Marvel was so afraid of somehow tainting Spider-Man with the stigma of divorce that they concocted an incredibly convoluted and asinine method of wiping his marriage out of existence. Somehow making a deal with the devil is supposed to make Peter more identifiable than simply going through the same ordeal millions of married couples do. The reaction to this storyline was so negative that some fans still refuse to read the current comics.

Regardless, that story happened, and what’s done is done. One More Day was a bad method of achieving a good end. The resulting Brand New Day status quo reinvigorated Peter and his world. It offered a fresh start for readers. It brought new talent to the pages of Amazing Spider-Man. It resulted in all sorts of excellent stories like The Gauntlet, Spider-Island and Superior Spider-Man. ASM is in such a strong place right now that it routinely outsells the various X-Men and Avengers books and even Marvel’s most heavily hyped event comics.

Suddenly switching gears and reintroducing a married Peter Parker would be like trying to solve a problem that no longer exists. The marriage is gone, and Peter and MJ simply don’t have that connection or spark anymore. It would merely derail all the work Slott and other writers have been doing for the past seven years. It’s worth noting that the marriage was controversial in the beginning because it was so forced and out of the blue. The two characters were married not because it was the immediate logical extension of their romantic relationship at the time, but because Marvel wanted to maintain parity with the Amazing Spider-Man newspaper strip. There's nothing sexier than a corporate-mandated marriage.

There's a lot to be said for an unmarried Peter Parker. He's not like Superman, where there's clearly only one woman he's destined to wind up with. Peter has had several great loves, and seeing him try to maintain these various relationships while being compelled to suit up and put his life on the line every day is part of his everyman appeal. Inevitably his relationships falter, whether because he can't commit to an ordinary life or because his girlfriends get tossed off bridges by insane billionaires.

The trick is ensuring that Peter doesn't remain so fixed in his role as the bumbling everyman hero that he never grows or evolves. He can't simply spend his entire life fighting the same villains and taking photos for the Daily Bugle and racing home to give Aunt May her heart medication before she shrivels up and turns to dust. Perhaps marriage isn't the answer, but Peter does have to act his age. That's something the post-One More Day comics have been very good about. Peter and his supporting cast have evolved in appreciable ways these past several years. Peter has embraced his scientific background and started his own company. Aunt May has gotten remarried and built a new life for herself. Even Doctor Octopus went on a prolonged hero's journey and found redemption on the other side. That's to say nothing of books like Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Gwen that have pushed the Spider-Man concept in new and compelling directions.

The point is to always move forward rather than keep looking back. What I resent most about the Spider-Man franchise over the past couple decades isn't the bad stories like the Clone Saga or One More Day, it's the potential that was wasted and the good storylines that were abandoned. We never saw Peter properly deal with the fallout of House of M and the revelation that, deep down, he may have preferred Gwen Stacy to Mary Jane. The impact of his public unmasking in Civil War was quickly swept under the rug. Two of the best Spider-Man comics of the last 20 years have involved Spidey finally revealing his identity to Aunt May, only for both to later be undone in different ways. Bringing back the marriage would be no better. It would force writers to abandon the character's current momentum in favor of restoring an arbitrary status quo.

If Renew Your Vows proves anything, it's that there is a need for alternate universe stories and different takes on popular heroes. Maybe it's not a good idea to bring back Spider-Man's marriage, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy this glimpse of a different Peter Parker for a few months. With all the different alternate universes in the comics and all the incarnations of Spider-Man across film, TV, and games, there's no need for each and every version of the hero to be identical. What really makes Spider-Man the ultimate everyman hero is the fact that everyone can find some incarnation of the character to love.