I understand Joe Q a little more now

Let me make it clear that the title Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane does not exist. Peter Parker did not meet Gwen in high school. Peter Parker did not meet every, single, freaking person no matter how fleetingly, who would later become a feature, significant other, hero, villain or aquantaince in his life in high school. Reading that title is like suffering through Flintstone Kids Syndrome, where characters that were clearly introduced initially in their adult personas nonetheless show up in their incarnations as children, and as old established friends. The same thing happened in those awful A Pup Named Scooby-Doo cartoons.

That said, after reading a bunch of my old Spider-Man comics I understand a little more why Joe Q wants to make Peter Parker single again, through one means or another.

One of my favorite Spider-Man eras is the one all about College Freshman Peter Parker. This is the kid who was now a young adult, hung out at the Coffee Bean and tried to figure out where his life was going. This Peter Parker was interesting and sales on the book showed that kids and college students agreed.

In this era Gwen Stacey was a new girlfriend and Mary Jane was a predatory party-girl. Norman Osborne was a pal and not yet a pill-popping psychotic. Peter tried to do the right thing but was often his own worst enemy. His other life as Spider-Man sapped resources and time away from his social life, making him appear to friends and family at times to be careless, frivolous or selfish. What money he made by choreographing crime photos was usually re-directed to other ends. If his half of the rent was due, Peter would often spend it on some expensive web-fluid additive that allowed him to capture the Lizard by putting it to sleep.

A miserable, stressed-out Peter Parker makes for good stories. Many writers forgot this and made the error in turning him into a depressive whiner that actually made me want to strangle a fictional character and put him out of my misery. I'm not a fan of the Get-Along-Guy Bendis-era Spider-Man. I much prefer the Spider-Man who worries about how he is going to afford to eat dinner even as he is punching out the bank-robbing villain the Kangaroo. You can still do that with a married Peter Parker. While I liked the single Peter Parker that was then and this is now. So maybe I understand what Quesada is going for in his proposal to change Peter's marital status. I don't agree with it but I get it.

Tags: Spider-Man Marvel Comics