And my last word on the Spidey strip
So no Mephisto rewriting history to make Joe Q happy wiping out the marriage to save Aunt May’s life. Just a flashback to the “good ol’ days”. This wouldn’t work in the (allegedly) continuity connected Marvel Universe. Now granted, this isn’t rewriting Peter and MJ into making a deal with the devil, but the result is still the same. Character growth be slagged, challenging writing be slagged, they’re still killing off the Spider-Marriage, aren’t they? The fact that this was the one place I could go to to see an adult Parker succeed where I have yet to, watching Peter balance his Spider-duties and his responsibilities as a husband (would have been new father, too, but the Spider-writers apparently hate babies, too–hopefully exaggerating) and seeing him advance as a character is gone! Now there’s nowhere (except for a side story in Amazing Spider-Man family, not worth the price just for three pages) where Peter has any happiness, and we can see the loving couple. Nowhere that MJ can be seen dealing with being a superhero’s wife (much like police officers, soldiers, and firemen) in a way that’s interesting.
Oh, sure, I hear people saying “now they’re telling better stories”. Well, sure, because they’re not wasting time trying to end the Spider-marriage! Could they not really tell these stories with Mary Jane as his wife? Maybe I’m reading the wrong solicitations every month. It’s sad to see the strip cop out the way the books have, and while I understand the strip wanting to be in step with the books, that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Only Spider-Girl is left for a happily married Parker family (complete with kid, already teen-aged, which takes some of the fun out of it, and yes, Marvel, I want to see Spider-Man changing diapers, because I think it would be a cute moment done right), and they’ve tried to shut down that comic how many times now? Throw this in with how many stories on TV and elsewhere deal with broken homes and ended marriage, and how few have happily married families (like the one I come from, and what I would like to have myself someday), and it just gets me more upset! Why is “marriage” a curse word in entertainment these days?
See, that’s my real complaint here. What do writers, editors, and producers have against marriage in entertainment? Having superheroes make deals with the devil to rewrite years of continuity and tell us how little being married Mary Jane even mattered in Peter Parker’s life (ignoring the very same “real world” Marvel allegedly plays close to) only makes it worse.
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