Marvel seems to be backing away from some of the continuity changes that resulted from One More Day, now saying that some of the changes that seemed to be a result of Peter's deal with Mephisto were in fact things that happened subsequently in the gap between the end of One More Day and Brand New Day. This includes Harry's return from the dead and everyone forgetting Spider-Man's identity.

Here:

>1) If everything in continuity happened, except for the "I do", how come dead people are back? (Basically a Spider-man continuity question, what did OMD change, although I'm guessing, that's the definition of upcoming story lines.)>

I think people are more vexed by this than they would typically be, and it's really our fault for folding a number of things together and doing it all at once rather than parsing things out. But we wanted to get to the "meat" of the new status quo faster rather than slower, and nobody wanted to go through six months of "try-to-explain-stuff" stories to start out with.

People come back from the dead all the time in comics, and all the time in Spider-Man comics. Norman Osborn was dead for years, and now he's alive. Aunt May was dead, and now she's alive. Pick any villain--dead, then alive. Happens all the time. Putting One More Day aside for the moment, if we just did an issue in which, on the last page, there was a knock on Pete's door and Harry Osborn was standing there, back from the dead, nobody would think twice--you'd just wait for the backstory, and you'd either buy into it or you wouldn't buy into it.

That's precisely what's happening here. Harry's return doesn't have anything to do with Mephisto's deal, and the circumstances surrounding it will be revealed and covered in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #581-582. So yes, everything in continuity happened except for the wedding.

And here:

>Does Peter remember that he revealed his identity to the world? If so, how come he doesn't wonder why the whole world forgot? If not, then that seems to be a lot more changes than just undoing "I do."

Posted by superscribe on 2008-10-08 14:45:47>

You're making a couple of understandable leaps in logic here based on what little we've shown so far. But as with the earlier Harry Osborn example, this is actually quite simple, and will be very easy to understand once we get to telling the story of specifically how this happened. But for now, all you really need to understand is that Spidey did unmask to the world, and then, during that gap of time between the end of "One More Day" and the beginning of our run, something occurred to erase this knowledge from the minds of everybody on Earth (with the exception of Peter himself.) Peter makes passing reference to this during "New Ways To Die" when he first encounters a Norman Osborn who doesn't know he's Spider-man and thinks to himself something along the lines of, "That thing we did is working! He no longer has any idea who I am!"

So Peter knows exactly what transpired to eliminate knowledge of his identity, and that this action wasn't caused by Mephisto but by something else. (Which makes perfect sense when you think about it, in that, in a world in which Peter was never married, there wouldn't have been a deal with Mephisto in the first place--there would have been nothing to bargain for.) And that puts us right back to where we started: one thing has changed, and that is the marriage not happening. I realize this can be tough to grapple with given that we haven't actually covered a lot of this ground in print yet, but that was specifically because we all felt that spending the first year doing stories about the fallout from "One More Day" would have been like pulling teeth for everybody involved, fans and creators alike. But the story if the identity erasure is planned, and you should see it in 2009.

Now, i'm characterizing it as Marvel backing away from the earlier position. Brevoort is saying that this was the plan all along. I don't really believe that. If it is true, they did a really poor job of managing what was already a controversial reboot by adding confusion-fuel to the fire. But either way*, i am liking this new/clarified status quo a lot better. I have absolutely no investment in the marriage per se, and i agree with a lot of the points about how the marriage was a mistake. But i don't like continuity reboots and what they did with Brand New Day was an unprecedented and dangerous act for Marvel continuity. If you have events in your continuity that are clearly mistakes, you have to live with them, or find ways to reverse them that work within your continuity.

In other words, i disagree with this:

I've heard assorted people say that it would have been better or more acceptable if A) Loki had been behind "One More Day", B) Peter and Mary Jane had just gotten a divorce, or C) fill in your own eventuality here. But I think that's a crock. I think that if we'd gone any of these routes, there'd be just as many people upset with the story, and just as many people saying that version A, B or C destroyed the character, raped their childhood and offended their sensibilities. I don't think the problem people have is with the methodology so much as with either the elimination of the marriage itself or with their feelings that the time and money they've spent on twenty years worth of Spider-Man comics was all wasted - and those sentiments would still be present in any of these other scenarios, to one extent or another.

I may not be representative of the larger fan base, but i doubt i'm too far off. There's always going to be a negative reaction to retcons of any kind, but i think the level of outrage over this one in particular had less to do with the reversal of the marriage and the fact that it was a wave-the-fairy-wand continuity reset.

This 'clarification' or whatever you want to call it makes the impact of the continuity reset a lot smaller. Even though this gets them to the same end place, it's a slightly better way of getting there. By backing away from the "big reset" (again, my suspicion/interpretation), Marvel is signaling that they've learned a lesson. And/or i think the Spidey-Marriage is the one thing that Marvel editorial & corporate felt so strongly about that they were willing to push the reset button on and take the heat for. Either way, i think the danger of Marvel becoming "Crisis" prone is reduced from my earlier fears.

Taking this one step further, though, and now seeing how they're handling some of the "subsequent" elements of the reboot (i mean things like Harry's return and Spidey's ID) i wonder if Marvel could have gotten away with doing away with the marriage a little more subtly. Maybe 6 months of stories with Peter and MJ having major trouble with their marriage, with a re-emphasis on their youth (due to the sliding timescale) and then something like this:

"Hey, what's this article? 'Public official arrested for marriage fraud? Oh my god, MJ, that's the guy that married us!"
"What does it say?"
"It says he was arrested for faking the marriage licenses for people he didn't feel should be getting married, and not really filing the license with the state. People of mixed ethnicities and... people who were very young."
"Oh my god, Peter! We were so young when we got married. Do you think...?"
"We'll have to call and find out, MJ, but maybe... maybe if he did to it to us..."
"...yeah. Maybe it would be for the best."

And then close the loop with a heartfelt issue and then never talk about it again.

Is it stupid? Unrealistic? Yes. But compared to the devil showing up in your living room and doing you a favor...?

Anyway, that's done with. At least One More Day didn't turn out to be as big as it seemed.

*While i was writing this, Brevoort came out with another installment of his Q&A and printed the following:

>How come everyone claims the only thing changed by Mephisto was the undoing of the marriage; while Spider-man's bio on Marvel's own web page clearly states that the wiping of people's memories and the return of Harry was caused by Mephisto.>

Because nobody involved with that bio bothered to check with the folks actually working on the comic; the guys who wrote it drew their own conclusions based on what had appeared in the books. Thanks for pointing that out, by the way - I've since spoken to the people in our online department and gotten that bio corrected and updated. It was an error.

Damn pop-ups!

On your suggestion (and any other that suggests not mentioning it again ever): Someone will mention it. They just will. They'll need to explain the explanation and bring them back together.

Someone could do that with the Mephisto thing, too. Mark my words, one day Mephisto will fly into battle against Dr. Strange shouting "I'll eat your marriage!"

That would be awesome!