*First off, the highlight of this issue has to be Paolo Riveras illustrations, which not only evoke a sense of nostalgia, but are only wonderfully detailed without being excessively so. On the other hand, Joe Quesadas art, while beautifully colored, has no uniformity at all. Sometimes MJ is gorgeous and slender, other times shes homely and dumpy. Sometimes Peter is lean, other times putting on pounds, and at one point looks like a dead ringer for Joe Quesada himself.
*As for the story, a word which I can think of that best describes it is choppy. First, it is finally revealed what Mary Jane whispered to Mephisto. All it comes down to is MJ will get Peter to agree to the deal on the condition that Mephisto promises to leave Peter alone for the rest of his days. For something which was made out to be such a big deal in One More Day and the promotion of this story, this revelation winds up being anti-climatic at best. Whats more, because this is proceeded by actual dialogue from One More Day itself, it winds up being nonsensical and redundant.
From there, we shift to the present, in which MJ comes over to Peters apartment in an effort to try and re-establish their friendship. Not only is this heart-to-heart talk between these two characters long overdue, but this scene could also be interpreted as an admission on Quesadas (and Marvels) part that MJ, even though having been brought back as a supporting character in last years 600th issue, has been criminally short-changed up until this point. So, its nice to see that this could be a sign of MJ having more involvement in Peters life again. Although, the two of them wondering what their lives would have been like if they had gotten married is a bit much, considering that the readers HAVE seen what it was like and Marvels official word has been that all the stories, save their marriage, still happened virtually the same anyway.
The rest of the issue is a flashback to the time of Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 in which the Peter and MJs wedding took place. And for two-thirds of this issue, it literally IS the Annual, since Quesada has chosen to cut-and-paste actual pages from that very issue by Jim Shooter, David Michele, and Paul Ryan, along with his new scenes penned by himself and illustrated by Rivera. Granted, Quesada does a capable enough job weaving in the new material with the old, despite the sharply contrasting art-styles and dialogue between the two (even though it is still an incredibly lazy way to tell a story, which mostly winds up not being his anyway). However, three of these new scenes just serve to underscore what the Annuals story already was--that both Peter and MJ were having doubts about getting married--and thus comes across as unnecessary and pointless padding.
*That leaves us with the new scenes that actually deal with how Peter and MJ didnt get married according to the new continuity. Thanks to the intervention of Mephisto in the form of a red pigeon magically opening a cop car (um, okay?), one of Electros goons, a guy named Eddie Muerte, escapes. This leads to him going after the cop who arrested him and the cops wife, with Spidey forced to save them both. As a result, Spidey (despite his spider-sense giving him fair warning) gets hit in the head by the crook with a cinder-block. As he gives chase, Spidey attempts to save Eddie from falling off a building, but because hes still dizzy from his head injury, he misses snagging the building with his web and falls to the ground. However, he saves Eddie by using his own body to break the crooks fall. And because hes unconscious with a fat and equally unconscious felon on top of him for literally hours, Peter never showed up at his wedding, causing the guests, and MJ herself, to think he jilted her at the altar.
Again, just so you understand: Spider-Man missed his wedding because he was knocked unconscious by Electros fat slob of a stooge falling on top of him. Are you $%^&ing kidding me!?
To be fair, it makes sense that Peter would have been late to his wedding as a result of something Spider-Man related; furthermore, its definitely in keeping with the concept that he is a hard-luck hero. But after almost three years, THIS was the best Quesada and company could come up with? Its not only uninspired, its outright laughable--and not in a good way.
I understand that while some readers would much rather Marvel get as far enough away from One More Day as possible, that story created a lot of lingering and unexplained questions that needed to be addressed. Also, I dont envy Quesada with having to do the thankless task of attempting to revise Spider-Mans history in a way which explains how we came to the post-Brand New Day era while at the same time maintaining the integrity of the earlier stories. But based on this first part alone, is shaping up to be a very disappointing and unsatisfying story. Granted, its not nearly as terrible as One More Day, but then thats like saying Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a better movie than The Last Airbender. At the end of the day, its still mediocre. Hopefully, in part two, we wont have to endure reading reprinted material to pad out the story.
t:
(Or is "Rumpy Bulge" the alias of that rather rotund Electro henchman whose favorite past-time involves sitting on superheroes on the day of their wedding?)
