Marvel’s Attitude Towards Spider-Man Is Wrong (and I Can Prove It)

Spider-Man is Marvel‘s most popular character. Since his debut in the ’60s, the character has been the perfect example of how great that Marvel’s method of character-based storytelling could be. Fans loved the Web-Slinger because they could understand him; he wasn’t a god like Superman or a billionaire like Batman. He was a normal kid, and that really spoke to a whole new generation of readers. The character became an icon because we could understand who he was; he grew and changed like real people did. He was us, and it was amazing. It was spectacular. It was Spider-Man, and we loved him. However, a lot of things have changed for the hero, especially since 2007.

Like it or not, “One More Day” changed the character forever. The marriage between Spider-Man and Mary Jane had been a favorite of fans, but Marvel editorial simply wasn’t a fan of it. When Joe Quesada and Tom Brevoort took power, the two of them decided to ignore what the fans wanted and got rid of the marriage. Their rationale was that Spider-Man was more relatable and popular when he wasn’t married. However, as someone who has read Spider-Man for almost 40 years now, I say that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, and I can prove it.

Marvel’s Spider-Man Narrative Has Always Had More Holes than Swiss Cheese

When I started reading Spider-Man, he was in his adult phase, married to a beautiful supermodel. And yet, even back then, there were still a lot of the same problems. He had to deal with J. Jonah Jameson’s drama. MJ didn’t always have a good job, and money was still tight. He had to hide his identity from his Aunt May and do whatever he could to make ends meet and fight crime. There was never a moment when I thought that Spider-Man’s life was easy, and there was never a moment when I didn’t feel like I couldn’t be Spider-Man one day. In fact, he was everything I wanted to be, and it was the same for all of my friends.

Marvel likes to say that “grown-up” Spider-Man stories turned off young fans, but that ignores the ’90s completely. The Amazing Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man, and Web of Spider-Man were all top-selling books, moving hundreds of thousands of units a month. Spider-Man #1 from Todd McFarlane sold 2.5 million copies, and was the bestselling comic ever until X-Force #1 and X-Men #1. Even the Clone Saga, which is considered one of the worst things to happen to Spider-Man, sold very well at first, which was part of the problem, leading to the publisher stretching it far past when it should have ended.

It took time for Spider-Man to get back to the heights he was before the Clone Saga, but the Spider-Man books were on an uptick throughout the early ’00s, and a big reason why was because of the marriage between Spidey and MJ. Writer J. Michael Straczynski made the marriage an important part of the book, and it felt right. Sure, Ultimate Spider-Man, which starred a younger Spider-Man, was selling better, but MJ was there, too. Of course, that book was going to sell better, and it had nothing to do with the fact that Spider-Man was a relatable kid; the age of the readership had been going up for years. It was mostly read because people liked the creators, and they wanted to see what changes were going to be made.

People on the Internet say a lot about Quesada and Brevoort’s “true” reasons for getting rid of the marriage. I’m not going to talk about most of those here, because they’re hearsay, but there’s one that I’ve always thought was closer to the truth. They started reading Spider-Man before the wedding (at least Quesada did; I’ve read that Brevoort started reading Spider-Man after the wedding, but I’m not sure). To them, that was the ultimate version of the character, just like to my generation of readers, the married Spider-Man was. They wanted their Spider-Man, and I’ll be honest, it did work for a while. “Brand New Day” sold well, but that was more because Marvel put the best talent on the book and was shipping up to three issues a month. The books didn’t sell because Spider-Man wasn’t married; they sold because A-list talent was putting out A-list stories.

The Change to Spider-Man Has Nothing to do With What Marvel Says

One of the things you realize about superhero comics, especially Marvel, is that the editors are the ones in charge. They don’t need to give any reasoning for any change, and they’ll hire creators who will do what they say. They will keep doing what they want until sales go down to such an extent that they have to change. That’s it. With Spider-Man, they used the example of Ultimate Spider-Man to prove their idea would work better, and it did. For a while. However, anyone who has been in the comic sections of the Internet knows how fans feel about Spider-Man and the changes Marvel made to the character.

Spider-Man being married didn’t tank the sales. In fact, sales were on an upward trend for the character up until editorial messed up the Clone Saga. My generation of readers was some of the last people who could buy comics anywhere as kids at reasonable prices, and we all bought Spider-Man comics, even though he was married. We still saw ourselves in him, and he gave us hope. Married Spider-Man sold 2.5 million comics with one book. Has unmarried Spider-Man done anywhere near that?

Marvel editorial are the stewards of the characters, and they can do whatever they want with them, and we have to accept that. However, I’d rather someone has just come out and said they didn’t like married Spider-Man, rather than make up some story about the character selling better or being more relatable back then. There’s no truth to that at all. The sales of The Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 3) prove that. The majority of readers aren’t kids anymore. We’re people with spouses and kids. Spider-Man is less relatable to most of us than ever, but at least Quesada, Brevoort, and Lowe got their Spider-Man back.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!

10 Strongest Spider-Man Villains, Ranked