Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Marvel Comics, Spider-Man | Tagged: peter parker, tom brevoort

Tom Brevoort Explains Why You Won't Get A Spider-Man Marriage Again

Marvel Comics' Executive Editor Tom Brevoort explains why you just won't get a Spider-Man marriage ever again.

In his most recent Substack column, Marvel Executive Editor, SVP and X-Men Group Editor Tom Brevoort was asked by a reader "In your opinion, is there a threshold that a book like Ultimate Spider-Man (or Renew Your Vows, or Spider-Girl, or any of the other "Peter and MJ are a married couple" projects through the decades) could reach that would cause editorial to say "okay, Amazing is losing to this other book, clearly the thing the audience is responding to is married Spider-Man, we should bring that back into main continuity"?"

This is pretty much a rephrased version of a question that certain Spider-Man fans, who want the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson restored in the Marvel Universe after it was deleted by Mephisto in the One More Day Spider-man story by Joe Quesada and J Michael Straczynski, back in 2007. Eighteen years later, it still rankles with a very vocal part of the fanbase. And Tom Brevoort decided to answer… "If I was a smart man, I would let this deadly fastball go by untouched. Make new mistakes, right? If I was a smart man…" Never be a smart man, Tom, please. He continued;

"You never say never, but I don't believe that there is any such threshold because that's not what publishing ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN or RENEW YOUR VOWS and the like is all about. Those aren't test cases, they are alternatives for those who desire those alternatives. But I believe that we've concluded decisively that the best platonic ideal of Spider-Man is one that is unattached, and that conclusion isn't going to be changed by a particular alternate interpretation momentarily performing well. And AMAZING SPIDER-MAN has been consistently our best-selling regular title for a decade and a half, so another book selling better than it isn't cause for concern, it's cause for celebration. but ASM sales continue to click along just as they've consistently done, so pointing to ULTIMATE and concluding that the one and only factor contributing to its success is coincidentally the one factor that those fans would like changed about ASM is working backwards from a desired conclusion."

So Marvel Comics has concluded that an unmarried Spider-man in the 616 is what you are going to get. But don't worry folks, he goes public domain in 2058. At which point, you can have as many single, married, or polyamorous co-habiting Spider-Men as you can shake a webbed-up stick at…

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