I'm going to re-post this from another thread--just for the hell of it. It's from page 22 of the previous Spider-Man thread and likely to get overlooked:
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Originally Posted by spiderman196
WWED. What Would Erik Do? So Mr. Larsen, if you wanted to alter a character from over a decade of marriage, how would you have done it?
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It depends on what you want the book to be and who you want to be in it and what you want to do. In the case of Spider-Man, they wanted a few things:
1: They wanted Peter Parker to be single again and play the loser beats that they used to play.
2: They wanted to ditch the organic web-shooters because--let's face it--they only introduced them because of the movie and who wants to have it look like they're taking direction from the movie? The movie is supposed to be an adaptation of the comic book not the other way around.
3: They wanted Spider-Man to have a secret identity again.
4: They wanted Harry Osborn back on the scene.
These are all reasonable things to want. There's nothing there that's unreasonable. They want the book to be more accessible--they feel having the hero be married to a model takes too much away from the basic concept of "Charlie Brown in tights" and they want to attract newer readers.
The marriage worked early on because it wasn't treated like a real marriage. There was no baggage--no chores--no turmoil--MJ was "Spidey's girl" and they were young and in love. But the honeymoon couldn't last and years later you had money troubles and heartbreaks and they didn't seem young and in love--they seemed like an old married couple, set in their routine--and when MJ went from struggling actress on a daytime soap to supermodel--the dynamic changed too much. With Aunt May dead--the dynamic changed even more.
But that's in the past.
Here are real solutions that don't involve Mephisto:
1: Have Peter and MJ get divorced. She can't take the pressure any more--living with Peter is giving her nightmares--he's always in danger--always getting hurt--Peter's always late for stuff because of Spider-Man and every time she can't help feel that THIS will be the time that he never comes back--and she just can't stand it. It's all too much. She files for the divorce. She leaves him. He becomes that much more of a loser. He could try to make things right--promise to give up the tights and all that but--great power and great responsibility and all the rest and he has to save somebody and she goes through with it.
And Spider-Man getting a divorce would be big news--in the real world--but Marvel has always prided itself on realism and a divorce is a realistic solution--not a "comic booky" solution. Marvel would get a LOT more mileage out of a tastefully handled divorce than a hastily executed mind-wipe.
If the powers that be had mandated that within three months time--nobody in the comics will refer to Peter Parker being divorced and will instead simply refer to him as being "single" or "on the market again" the net result really could have been the same--the same stories could have been told--only the back-story would have been a lot less confusing. And let's not forget--people call an ex-girlfriend an "ex" and they call an "ex-wife" an "ex." If the guys in charge don't want the divorced stigma--it can be written around in a way that doesn't spell it out clearly and as far as the public is concerned--he's a single man. They don't have to say it didn't happen--but they don't have to say it did over and over again either. Marriages "split" and couples "split" and if you remember that they were married "split" means something different to you than it does to a reader that never knew they were married. Peter could still miss MJ--she could still miss him--they could still talk about "getting back together"--they could even question if "this might lead somewhere" if they did.
Handling this would mean being clever--and being smart--and it's not at all impossible to do.
2: Who the hell cares? Spider-Man gets hit by a beam of radiation and the blasted things dry up and he goes back to his old web-shooters until his organic ones kick back in and they never kick back in. End of story.
3: All it would take is a big news story about the reveal having had been a hoax (as they did years earlier with Captain America). This could have been similarly put to rest. Spider-Man could be seen publicly saving Peter Parker--maybe somebody pretends to be Spider-Man for a time and that confuses the matter--maybe he gets Daredevil to play the role but the Genie can certainly be put back in the bottle. And, like I mentioned earlier, any time it was brought up all it would take is for some character to say, "Yeah, I'll bet you still believe Milli-Vanilli sang their own music and Iraq was responsible for the attack on 9-11, too." and that would make it clear that everybody thought it was a hoax. Peter could even be "that jerk that was trying to have everybody think he was a superhero" a couple times to ease out of it and have some fun and gradually, it goes away.
If having MJ not know is important--Peter could "ease her pain" and have a Dr. Strange or somebody mess with her head and that could plague him for years--but that makes it magic on a limited scale and there could be real feelings, guilt and consequences involved.
The trick would be to convince the few people that REALLY DID KNOW (other superheroes) that Peter NO LONGER HAS THE POWERS and SOMEBODY ELSE is behind the mask now. And that people thinking "Peter is still Spider-Man" puts him in danger--and for them to accept the cover up and hoax as either "real" or "necessary."
4: Norman came back--and Harry could too. Same serum--same cure--and there it is. After Norman, I think accepting the resurrection of Harry isn't that much of a stretch--the Goblin serum has been shown to have certain properties--it's small wonder nobody was camping out at Harry's grave-site after Norman returned, all things considered.
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Originally Posted by spiderman196
How do you think Marvel should respond from here?
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Honestly?
My first thought--stick with it--what's done is done--they backed off from the Clone Saga and the cure was worse than the disease...
But...
I really do think it SHOULD become undone--I think Mephisto's scheme SHOULD unravel and bits and pieces get discovered and the word get out. I think the "Spider-Man is Peter Parker hoax" can still be played out during that time--and I think Peter can break up for real with MJ--because of all this--but I think stubbornly sticking with the new reality leaves too much of a bad taste in readers' mouths and it makes the characters' history and back-story, ultimately, too convoluted. I think they can still get to the same place--and I'd even argue that they SHOULD get to that same place--but "as is" this thing is a mess.
The biggest problem is that it's hard to play some of these same notes again--that "Aunt May is too fragile to handle the truth about Peter being Spider-Man" or that "Peter needs to protect his secret identity in order to protect his loved ones" when we've seen both of those played out in print. After the marriage and the efforts made to undo it--why should we, as readers, believe any relationship he has in the future will ever lead to him getting married again?
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Originally Posted by spiderman196
Bye & bye, Ive missed the Dragon & glad for his return!
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I'm still working on it. It's no easy task having a full-time job and trying to produce comics. I think Image is doing better books than we'd done in years and I'm very happy with how I've been able to help the company grow and thrive-- but I wish I could devote more time to doing comics and Savage Dragon. I have a lot of stories to tell and there just aren't enough hours in the day. I'm working on Savage Dragon #135 as we speak.
And some folks may wonder why I'm butting my head in here at all. I'm the publisher of another company and I haven't worked for Marvel in years--but first and foremost--I'm a comic book fan and at one time a lot of these characters meant a lot to me. Spider-Man was, at one point, a big part of my life and I had a ball contributing to his story. Those days are long gone but I still go to the comic book store every Wednesday to buy new books. I don't follow everything I used to follow and a lot of the characters I loved are strangers to me now but I care--I really do--about comic books and about all of this stuff.
Any event which has readers vowing to never set foot in a comic book store again or leaving in disgust impacts all of us.