/ 16 January 2008

Spider-Man loses a wife and upsets comic fans

Spider-Man fans are outraged that Marvel Comics has turned back the clock and dissolved the marriage of its wall-clinging superhero. While followers of the movie version know the character is single with a sweetheart, as far as comic-book fans are concerned Spider-Man has been married to Mary Jane Watson for the past 21 years.

Now, in a plot twist by the publishers Marvel, Spider-Man, known otherwise as Peter Parker, and Mary Jane, make a deal with the devil-like villain Mephisto. The story, in Spider-Man comic number 545, sees the couple’s marriage annulled in return for the life of Peter’s Aunt May, of late stuck in a deep coma.

Suddenly, Peter is once again a 20-something bachelor, nerdy, living with his elderly aunt — and single. His marriage has been, in fact, erased from everyone’s memory.

Mephisto says that he is offering the deal, in which Spider-Man’s identity is also made secret again, because Parker’s relationship with Mary Jane ”is the rarest love of all”, a bond that is ”pure, unconditional and made holy in the eyes of He who I hate most”.

Mephisto says: ”A love like yours comes about but once in millennia and to take that away from Him … is a victory like none other imaginable.”

Marvel claims that a married Spider-Man made life difficult for its writers and had been a source of regret ever since the couple’s big day in 1987.

According to an interview with Comic Book Resources, Marvel Comics’ editor-in-chief, Joe Quesada, said: ”At the end of the day my job is to keep these characters fresh and ready for every fan that walks through the door … while also planning for the future and hopefully an even larger fan base.”

Spider-Man was created by Stan Lee and the artist Steve Ditko, first appearing in August 1962. The hero, while still at school, gains his extraordinary powers after being bitten by a radioactive spider in a science demonstration.

Following Marvel’s latest move, fans are objecting to the ”continuity issues” created by the volte face, saying the change may have the opposite effect to Quesada’s aim.

A writer on the Comics Should be Good web forum says: ”Cloned Spidey? It sucked, but I accepted it and I could explain it to a non-comics reader in a couple of sentences. Mephisto erases memories and changes continuity? Well, that’s a harder one swallow and to explain.” – Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008