Uncanny X-Men editor Tom Brevoort seems to be intentionally agitating comic book fans at this point as he tells a reader, “If you just don’t like Spider-Man without him being married to MJ, you can always stop reading.”
I like the idea of a character growing and changing over time.
But let's face it, since the early '90s, Marvel (and certainly DC) stopped doing that. When you do the time-crunching thing and publish a character for 60 years and keep adding new stories while continuously claiming only 10-15 years passed for them in-universe things are invariably going to get messy, convoluted, and not make sense to internal logic. That number of significant events simply cannot happen to a single character in just 10 to 15 years, so it only really works (in a sense) if you presume that you're looking at different alternate timelines without the company (in the case of Marvel) acknowledging the shift. Or, attributing a shift in your own POV to certain events, like the most recent SECRET WARS, and yes, even to the One More Day story arc. In fact, if you buy into it, Mephisto would have to have started a totally alternate timeline, one that greatly resembled the continuity we saw afterwards in many ways, but not in regards to some thing.
In the case of SECRET WARS, we got a reboot that retained most things, except Miles Morales, his entire family lineage, his closest friends & most significant classmates or teachers, and places significant to him like his school had now "always" existed on that timeline. In the case of One More Day, Peter and MJ never got married. And we're likely seeing more than one timeline enfolding in the comics at once but without being officially acknowledged as such, like SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE and his Marvel Knights series.
But if characters can constantly change in terms of general circumstances but are never allowed to age visibly, and a generational thing can't be done in regular continuity, then what we're getting is not general continuity but a series of continuities posing as one.
My point? We should have multiple series running at once. An AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, an ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, a SPIDER-MAN: RENEW YOUR VOWS, a SPIDEY, and a SPIDER-GIRL or SPIDER-FAMILY legacy series (similar to SPIDER-MAN: LIFE STORY, but ongoing), which could place variously aged versions of Peter Parker and company, who were born and started their careers at different points in time, with different versions of classic tales having occurred in their respective pasts, that allow them to provide a semblance of growth & change no matter how much time passes without losing a sense of internal logic or time passage. And to sate all appetites among Spider-fans.
After all, Marvel is already sort of doing that, but often without officially acknowledging it, save for *obvious* alternate reality series like RENEW YOUR VOWS, SPIDER-GIRL, ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, and SPIDER-MAN: LIFE STORY.
Brevoort finally said something true - people should stop reading this subversion of Spider-Man.
I’d fire him immediately.
I like the idea of a character growing and changing over time.
But let's face it, since the early '90s, Marvel (and certainly DC) stopped doing that. When you do the time-crunching thing and publish a character for 60 years and keep adding new stories while continuously claiming only 10-15 years passed for them in-universe things are invariably going to get messy, convoluted, and not make sense to internal logic. That number of significant events simply cannot happen to a single character in just 10 to 15 years, so it only really works (in a sense) if you presume that you're looking at different alternate timelines without the company (in the case of Marvel) acknowledging the shift. Or, attributing a shift in your own POV to certain events, like the most recent SECRET WARS, and yes, even to the One More Day story arc. In fact, if you buy into it, Mephisto would have to have started a totally alternate timeline, one that greatly resembled the continuity we saw afterwards in many ways, but not in regards to some thing.
In the case of SECRET WARS, we got a reboot that retained most things, except Miles Morales, his entire family lineage, his closest friends & most significant classmates or teachers, and places significant to him like his school had now "always" existed on that timeline. In the case of One More Day, Peter and MJ never got married. And we're likely seeing more than one timeline enfolding in the comics at once but without being officially acknowledged as such, like SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE and his Marvel Knights series.
But if characters can constantly change in terms of general circumstances but are never allowed to age visibly, and a generational thing can't be done in regular continuity, then what we're getting is not general continuity but a series of continuities posing as one.
My point? We should have multiple series running at once. An AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, an ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, a SPIDER-MAN: RENEW YOUR VOWS, a SPIDEY, and a SPIDER-GIRL or SPIDER-FAMILY legacy series (similar to SPIDER-MAN: LIFE STORY, but ongoing), which could place variously aged versions of Peter Parker and company, who were born and started their careers at different points in time, with different versions of classic tales having occurred in their respective pasts, that allow them to provide a semblance of growth & change no matter how much time passes without losing a sense of internal logic or time passage. And to sate all appetites among Spider-fans.
After all, Marvel is already sort of doing that, but often without officially acknowledging it, save for *obvious* alternate reality series like RENEW YOUR VOWS, SPIDER-GIRL, ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, and SPIDER-MAN: LIFE STORY.