19 Years Ago This Month, Marvel Made Their Own Dark Knight Returns

One of the things about superhero comics that can be pretty annoying at times is how often things get copied. Whether it be cover images (Uncanny X-Men #136 and Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 both aping an old Batman cover, which itself pays homage to Michaelangelo’s Creation of Adam) or the way that everyone makes their own versions of popular characters or how everyone has some kind of dark future. Marvel and DC are both guilty of this kind of thing, and 19 years ago, the House of Ideas decided to take inspiration from one of the greatest comics of all time: The Dark Knight Returns.

The Dark Knight Returns is a seminal moment in Batman history, and has been given credit for partly spearheading the maturation of the comic medium. Its story took Batman to a dark future, one that could only be solved by putting on his cape and cowl to take the fight to the streets. Marvel lifted this idea in 2006 and writer/artist Kaare Andrews gave readers Spider-Man: Reign, a story that did TDKR in its own way. However, instead of creating a story that is listed among the best of all time, readers got something completely different. Spider-Man: Reign is extremely divisive, but I’ve always felt that it was completely over-hated and is actually a great story that really cuts to the core of Spider-Man as a character.

Spider-Man: Reign Became Known for One Mistake

Spider-Man: Reign completely lifted the status quo behind The Dark Knight Returns and dropped it on Peter Parker, with a few differences, mainly that Bruce Wayne is rich and powerful and Peter isn’t. They both live in a city devoured by crime, and the book uses the news media to talk about the changes to society. Peter and Bruce are both retired, with Parker followed around by a silent Mary Jane (which will become very important later). He puts the mask back on to help some people being attacked, which begins the main plot, as Peter has to deal with his old enemies and a plan to take over New York City.

It’s not one to one obviously — Reign is mostly funnier than dour, because Peter is funnier — but the moment you start reading Reign, you will definitely get TDKR vibes from it. Andrews does his best to tell a story that defines Spider-Man, bringing back numerous Spidey villains, giving readers some cool little subplots involving J. Jonah Jameson, the Sandman and his daughter, and the city rebelling against the powers that be because of Spider-Man’s example (that last one is from TDKR). There’s some excellent action, and the main plot is really cool. If that was all there was to it, this story would almost certainly be better remembered than it is. The Doc Ock scene is one of the coolest things you’ll ever see. However, it’s time to talk about the radioactive sperm in the room.

Mary Jane is a presence throughout the book, always with Peter. He talks to her, she says nothing, and there’s something not right going on. Eventually, we learn that she’s dead, and not really there (except in that way that someone you love who died is always with you). It’s not one of Spider-Man’s enemies who had killed her though, it was Peter himself. See, everything about Peter is radioactive, and the fluids he exchanged with his wife gave her cancer and she died. Peter had to live with the guilt of knowing that his love quite literally killed her.

On the one hand, this is the most Spider-Man thing ever and it honestly isn’t all that out there for a dystopian future superhero comic. I’ve always loved the scene where Peter breaks down while talking to his wife’s corpse. It’s a touching, powerful scene that gets to the core of Peter Parker. However, for whatever reason, this was a road too far for most fans, and it’s the main reason that Spider-Man: Reign is talked about on the same level as “One More Day”. Honestly, it’s a somewhat silly idea, and you can argue that it’s fridging, but it works for the story. This is Spider-Man; these sorts of things happen to him. A big part about the story is Peter letting go of all of the excuses he’s used to hate Spider-Man, to realize that he needed it. By the end, there’s a sense of triumph to the whole thing that I don’t think would be there without the death of MJ and really makes up for the darkness of the book.

Spider-Man: Reign‘s One Mistake Kept It From Being a Best of All-Time Spider Story

Marvel doing The Dark Knight Returns with Spider-Man was inevitable. Spidey can be a dark character, and there’s so much to unpack about him as he gets older. I remember the first time I read Spider-Man: Reign in ’07. I was rarely on the Internet, so I just thought that everyone liked the story as much as I did. I was shocked when I found out that people hated it, and even more shocked when I found out why. Over the years, the fridging argument has made more sense than anything else, but I’ve always been a little disappointed by people’s reaction to the story.

Comics copy each other all the time. That’s just the way it works. New things definitely come along, and then they get milked. Spider-Man: Reign milks the same cow as TDKR, but it’s done in such way that it’s a Spider-Man story. It’s a cool story about an older Peter Parker, brings in his rogues gallery, and tells a very Marvel version of TDKR. It’s not on the same level, obviously, but I find the hate it gets to be overstated. The Spider-Man fandom is quite toxic at times, and even good things get hate. Spider-Man: Reign was a big swing, and it’s mostly seen as a miss, but I think that it’s more of a hit than most people realize.

What do you think about Spider-Man: Reign? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!

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