Now, my feelings towards the marriage arent new to anyone. Its not that Im against the portrayal of marriage in the Marvel Universe, heck were having two big weddings this year. But, heres the difference between Luke and Jessica, TChalla and Ororo, and marrying Peter Parker. Peter Parker was designed as a teen property, perhaps the greatest teen property ever created in comics. But as so often happens in comics, sometimes characters move beyond the initial idea of their creation and before you know it, you have problems.
Sure, are Peter and MJ okay as is, sure, but a lot of the drama and soap opera that was an integral part of the Spider-Man mythos is gone. What happens is that we as creators forget that there are always new readers coming into comics, why shouldnt they experience Peter as we did when we discovered him. I mean the marrying was nothing more than Marvels comic division trying not to get trumped by the news strip.
While I always hated the portrayal of the marriage, and by that I mean that for years after they were married they were never really portrayed as truly happy, I dont understand in a way why that was done. I believe it was an attempt by the creators back then to bring back a much-needed tension to the relationship side of Peters world that was now missing because he was no longer single. It was an attempt to bring back the soap opera.
As a single character there was always that possibility that Peter could meet someone new. Now if you have him even consider a new relationship, he would become the most dislikable character in the history of comics, hes a married man and hes Peter Parker. Peter Parker is us - he is our everyman, thats what makes him so likable. In the past, during his single days, he could have been torn by a romantic triangle, not now that hes married. How about that wonderful tension that there use to be between Peter and Black Cat. As it stands she can try to tempt him, but in no way can Peter succumb and still remain a likable character.
Look at all the wonderful story elements Brian Bendis is able to play with withinUltimate Spidey. Everyones loving the Kitty Pride relationship. Sure, we know that most like he and Mary will get back together, but as a single guy, we have so many more options to play with.
Look, I could go on and on, I have in the past and we could argue this amongst ourselves until were blue in the face, but let me ask you this, why is it that in every other incarnation of Spider-Man, whether its the movies, the cartoons, everywhere hes represented, they always show him as single with the exception of one place, the Marvel Universe comic? A character can absolutely grow within his own comic while never ever actually changing and I thinkUltimate Spider-Man has proven that. Hes been in the same grade for five years and nearly a hundred issues.
But, unfortunately within the regular Marvel Universe, the marriage ship has sailed and we are where we are.
...And yes, some characters should not be married while I believe its okay for some. Batman should not be married, no if, ands, or butts, Spider-Man should not have been married. As a property that is attractive to teens, having him married matures him too much and puts us in a bad position. Theres nothing wrong with portraying marriage, but Peter is supposed to be perceived as one of our youngest characters, marrying him makes him feel older.
By the way, if he and MJ had kids that would have just compounded the problem, and Marvel dodged that bullet some time ago. But all that said, divorcing or widowing, or annulling the marriage compounds would only be worse, that would only serve to make both Peter and MJ seem even older. So while marriage for a character is not a bad, it can be a bad thing from a story and property management sense if the character was best suited for being single.
I know that there are people that feel that the characters need to grow and mature, but remember a character can grow and mature while not having to grow up and age. So, how about this, perhaps we take that reasoning literally, how about if we started to publish stories of a late fifties Spider-Man, he has kids and perhaps grandkids? Aunt May is long in the grave and MJ is getting saggy while Peter is getting jowly and paunchy. Now while that may seem ridiculous to someone in their thirties or forties whos reading Spider-Man, imagine the 10 year old kid who is picking up the current Spidey book and wondering why perhapsUltimate Spider-Man speaks to him or her more?
While we can write and create wonderful stories about a married Peter Parker, we could create even better ones about a single one.
But, like I said, that ship has sailed.
NRAMA: In that vein, does being married or being in a serious relationship have to be something that was there from the beginning for it to work with a character? Obviously, Reed and Sue were destined for marriage from the start, but, on your side of the argument, I'd imagine, Peter wasn't... Can you take a single superhero, marry them off, and have it work?
JQ: Sure, but lets look at Reed and Sue. Reed was already a father figure and older when theFF began. Reed and Sue never explored being single with the only real tension provided by Namor when he would appear. Remember, at the core of the FF is the idea of family, thats what makes them the perfect superhero team. By contrast, Johnny Storm was married off and I dont think it was too long before the folks at Marvel realized this was a mistake and figured out a way to make it go away.
Yes, there are single characters that you can marry, but they have to be characters that dont necessarily have their bachelorhood as a prime story point. TChalla is a perfect example. You also have characters like Tony Stark who are known for their playboy ways.
NRAMA: What does a single Peter Parker have, character-wise, over a married Peter? What can you do (beside send him on dates) with swingin' single Spidey that you can't do with married Spidey?
JQ: There is the element of soap opera, simple as that. There are so many more stories and angles that you can go with a single Peter that just arent available to us because of the marriage. There is no denying that during the classic heyday of Spider-Man soap opera played an important part in the telling of his stories. Remember, he had a bunch of girlfriends before even meeting MJ, Gwen, Betty, and Liz.
When you look at good TV soap opera, the relationship aspects of it revolves around romance and break ups and when it deals with marriages it usually deals with romantic tensions that are being put upon those marriages and working at trying to break them apart and they almost always involve cheating and or threat of divorce. You cant do that with Spidey and MJ, you just cant. Could you imagine if we ever told a story about either Spidey or MJ cheating? We would irrevocably destroy one of the two characters by doing it.
NRAMA: You've mentioned this already, but let's reiterate just to be crystal clear - in talking about how marriage may not have been the best thing for Spidey's character, divorce is about 100x worse, right?
JQ: Yup, it would be simply horrible, a 1000% worse.
NRAMA: So - money where mouth is - what are you going to do about it? You've talked about it enough, and you're in charge of the editorial side of things...to put things into Western terms, it sounds like you're riding around with a burr under your saddle. Is it something you're hankering to fix, or is riding with a burr under your saddle just your lot in life and you have to live with it?
JQ: If were going to use descriptive language to talk about this, let me put in as colorful perspective as I can. Its like a burr on my saddle grating on the biggest hemorrhoid youve ever imagined, coupled by the fact that Im riding a smelly horse. What am I going to do about it? What can I do about it? Folks here at Marvel have been wrestling with this long before I took over. How do you fix it, how do you fix it without saying that years of Spider-Man books didnt count? Thats been the lingering question.
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Hobgoblin 2211 is the one who uses them and coincidently, he's in PAD's current arc.
Seriously, one really big problem I can see how does it affect the rest of the Marvel Universe in terms of continuity if they are going with the time-travel idea. I suppose they could always claim that history for all the other characters in Marvel remained unchanged, with the exception that Spidey wasn't married. Also, if it's more boarder scope that just the "spider-marriage" then what else to they believe needs to be altered? Where's the cut-off point? On top of that, you've got the issue of whether or not certain issues no longer count. That was one of the big uproars involved with the clone saga. I suppose the official explanation could be "Well, Peter still remembers all those events from that particular timeline, so for him they still happened, so now he has lived a life that no longer exists a la being married to Gwen and having a son House of M" etc. Even so, unless they plan on restructuring the entire Marvel U this way--and risk being accused of ripping off DC--it would be a real mess.
