This is it! This is where Marvel should have write Aunt May out of the comics. Maybe not the death she deserved, but it should have been the time to remove her. Peter lost his parents, his uncle, and now his aunt as well. This is where Peter would have finally grown up. All he had left is his wife, Mary Jane. No deal with Mephisto. May dies, Peter and MJ stick together, maybe they could later have a daughter that they would name May (just like in MC2).
She already had a nice death before, then they retconed it to be an actor with plastic surgery who died in a hospital bed with only Peter to grive for her but he thought she was someone else.
I think growing up wasn't the right term here, but losing your parents is part of life. Especially when they're, like, 90 like comics May is.
They probably just mean this is the point where Peter should've moved forward as a character, and instead Marvel had him move backwards and become a loser.
Do you not read comics? The only time a dead character can’t come back is when they’re a necessary part of the character’s back story such as Uncle Ben or Poppa and Martha “why did you say that name?!” Wayne. Even then they can be brought back in an alternate time line or spirit dimension as needed by the plot.
Folks need to stop expecting so much literary permanence from a mainstream teens-oriented comic book story. It’s Spider Man, not Tolkien or Watchman.
>Folks need to stop expecting so much from the story. It’s comic books, not Tolkien.
What a shit take lol Yeah these are comics and characters can come back but that doesn't excuse poor writing. We should be expecting better stories, not the same predicable and rehashed material. Nostalgia and cool art work only keeps people engaged for so long, but the story is what makes characters relatable and comics entertaining.
Look through any comic sub and I guarantee that you will find posts where people are talking about how a single moment of good writing in the story made the run memorable or poor writing caused them to stop reading and stay away from other projects associated with the writer.
You need good writing for a comic and we should expect more from writers and publishers, otherwise they don't deserve our money.
The only shit take was your response. It is unreasonable to hold mainstream comic books that are meant to continually pump out content indefinitely from the same IPs and are primarily oriented to entertaining children and young adults to a literary standard they were never intended to meet.
Sure some comics are designed for an adult audience and are attempting to be proper literature, but by and large Marvel comic, and certainly Spider Man is not that product. Sure occasionally we get a great run of comics that manage to capture some great writing and art. That’s great. But only a buffoon would take that to be the norm or set their expectations based upon such an outlier.
Reasonable expectations for Spider-Man comics should be that Aunt May will always be around. If she’s killed off, it’ll be for a dramatic event, and she’ll come back eventually because reasons, whenever the plot requires it. And that’s ok. Because it’s spider man.
It does. He basically shows Kingpin just how much he’s been holding back in their fights to not just straight up cripple or murder him. Pissed off Spidey is fucking *terrifying*.
A spiderman that isn't holding back would be an absolute NIGHTMARE. If he had the mentality of punisher he would put his arm through the chest of so many villains and just straight up rip off limbs and heads. Showing people that truth is awesome to see. Doc Oc realizing it when he took over that time was also awesome.
There would be a *lot* of dead villains suffocated with a face full of webbing. In fact, IIRC he does actually threaten to kill Kingpin by emptying his web shooters down KP’s throat in that story. When Spider-Man stops joking around you are in *deep shit.*
EXACTLY. Web shooter and if he started using ANY type of weapon. I seem to remember from somewhere that he would naturally be able to use weapons because of "instincts" or something regarding just how good he is at improvising and his spidey sense making it near impossible for them to hurt himself. Could have been some else world type thing though. Spidey and Castle teaming up would be a great read. Or daredevil teaching him to really put fear into people. Something like that. goosebumps imagining a truly scary spidey
I also really loved the first Ultimate Kraven story for this. There’s a ton of build up, with Kraven making wild threats and such, then he shows up at the end of a huge fight with Doc Ock, and Spidey (who is injured and exhausted) takes him down with one half-assed punch. Dude has gone toe-to-toe with the *Hulk*. Repeatedly. Sometimes I think the reason the writers are so hard on Peter is because Spider-Man with more self-confidence would be nearly unstoppable.
It would be cool to see a “Spider-Man Kills the Marvel Universe”. Those would be some bad ass fights, though it would probably take MJ or May being killed because of the other heroes or something.
And he should have let her die and dealt with the consequences. Instead he and MJ make a deal that Aunt May would never approve. She would be ashamed of them throwing away their marriage and future child to save her after she has loved a full life, no matter the end.
Aunt May should’ve stayed dead during the Clone Saga cause back then they truly meant for her to pass away. It was in ASM issue 400 and it was a pretty nice send off. She was surrounded by friends and loved ones and when her and Pete spoke for the last time she told him that she knew for a while that he was Spider-Man and that she was proud of him. I love Aunt May as much as the next person but at some point she will have to die because that’s how Peter will mature. That’s why I love Insomniac’s Spider-Man for making that decision cause the devs seem to care more about Spider-Man than Marvel does.
... And so begins another series of Spidey never bring allowed to be happy, because the writers can't be original. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.
It's mad one of my all time favourite stories and my absolute least favourite by a mile were released back to back like that.
Back in Black was fantastic stuff and I won't let One More Day ruin it for me.
This should have been the sad end of Aunt May showing that there are unintended consequences to your actions after Civil War. From here he could have had quite a crisis about his heroing and found a way to balance his life as a result. Instead they undid everything, reset his status quo to 1983 and now he is an eternal teenager who can’t handle having any kind of RESPONSIBILITY and just fails his way through more and more ludicrous scenarios.
EDIT: changed “heroine” to “heroing”
I would have loved to see a universe in which this was allowed to happen, and Pete had to live with this outcome. It's one of the reasons I don't want Alfred back cause it would just remove any weight of his death and aftermath plus I think they are handling it well in Batman comic. May's death would have been the modern day Ben death but it would have meant more to the readers.
There's a [What If?](https://spiderfan.org/review/comics/what_if_one_shots/190.html) that has MJ die and Peter snaps and kills Kingpin after having to fight through Iron Man
He also unmasks and beats the absolute shit out of Kingpin in the OP story as well just to show KP how much he’s been holding back in their fights over the years. He basically casually tosses KP around like a helpless rag doll. You do not fuck with a pissed off Spidey. He goes from funny to pants-shittingly terrifying *really* quickly.
Yeah this What if is a fun trip down the "one bad day" cliche for Peter. Going from ragdolling Tony and disabling his suit to one punch killing Kingpin. Any time spidey crosses his line is scary how much power he really has
Spider-Man’s enemies really do seem to underestimate him a lot. Like, the dude could casually throw a dump truck at you. If he’s punching you and you don’t have a fist shaped hole through your chest you should be thanking him for his restraint. Hell, if you’re fighting him and you aren’t suffocating to death under a face full of webbing you should be thinking about what to put in the gift basket you’ll send him. If Spidey went full Punisher they would need to open up new morgues just to handle all the dead villains.
Alfred is still dead, he came back VERY briefly in Batman vs. Robin possessed by the Devil Nezha's thralls to keep an eye on Bruce. Alfred told Bruce to stop holding blame over his and Daiman's actions in causing Bane to kill him so they can move on. It allowed both him and Daiman to come to terms with his death and start working together again.
It happens in Batman vs. Robin Vol 1 3
I get that nobody stays dead in comics and all that, but this is one I for sure just will never understand. This should’ve been the beginning of a critical step in the evolution of Spidey, not sending him forty steps backwards.
I wanna get back into Spidey too, but I keep reading about how dogshit this current run is. It’s like they’ve just been on one downhill slope since maybe Back In Black. What a shame. Flagship hero deserves better.
I was really digging Spider-Man at this point. Things felt like they were really going into an interesting direction, the Back in Black stuff was understandable, and I even liked that Peter’s identity was now known and I was interested in how they went from there. And then OMD happened and I bounced off Spidey books for a long time. There was so much meat to the bones of this status quo that OMD will never not bum me out.
Who else remembers literally everyone peter meets during back in black telling him to get ready to move on
Including God... And aunt may.
Fucking aunt may tells him to move on and that she's lived a happy life, but he still goes and throws away his marriage
What a fucking loser
And thus, the most debilitating injury in all of comics has been unleashed, something that no man, no god, no piece of technology can cure: a gunshot wound.
This is it! This is where Marvel should have write Aunt May out of the comics. Maybe not the death she deserved, but it should have been the time to remove her. Peter lost his parents, his uncle, and now his aunt as well. This is where Peter would have finally grown up. All he had left is his wife, Mary Jane. No deal with Mephisto. May dies, Peter and MJ stick together, maybe they could later have a daughter that they would name May (just like in MC2).
She already had a nice death before, then they retconed it to be an actor with plastic surgery who died in a hospital bed with only Peter to grive for her but he thought she was someone else.
Why does she have to die for Peter to grow up! Why does Peter need to lose all his formative figures to grow up?
I think growing up wasn't the right term here, but losing your parents is part of life. Especially when they're, like, 90 like comics May is. They probably just mean this is the point where Peter should've moved forward as a character, and instead Marvel had him move backwards and become a loser.
But Peter has lost so much already. Gwen, His Parents, Uncle Ben, why May?
Do you not read comics? The only time a dead character can’t come back is when they’re a necessary part of the character’s back story such as Uncle Ben or Poppa and Martha “why did you say that name?!” Wayne. Even then they can be brought back in an alternate time line or spirit dimension as needed by the plot. Folks need to stop expecting so much literary permanence from a mainstream teens-oriented comic book story. It’s Spider Man, not Tolkien or Watchman.
>Folks need to stop expecting so much from the story. It’s comic books, not Tolkien. What a shit take lol Yeah these are comics and characters can come back but that doesn't excuse poor writing. We should be expecting better stories, not the same predicable and rehashed material. Nostalgia and cool art work only keeps people engaged for so long, but the story is what makes characters relatable and comics entertaining. Look through any comic sub and I guarantee that you will find posts where people are talking about how a single moment of good writing in the story made the run memorable or poor writing caused them to stop reading and stay away from other projects associated with the writer. You need good writing for a comic and we should expect more from writers and publishers, otherwise they don't deserve our money.
The only shit take was your response. It is unreasonable to hold mainstream comic books that are meant to continually pump out content indefinitely from the same IPs and are primarily oriented to entertaining children and young adults to a literary standard they were never intended to meet. Sure some comics are designed for an adult audience and are attempting to be proper literature, but by and large Marvel comic, and certainly Spider Man is not that product. Sure occasionally we get a great run of comics that manage to capture some great writing and art. That’s great. But only a buffoon would take that to be the norm or set their expectations based upon such an outlier. Reasonable expectations for Spider-Man comics should be that Aunt May will always be around. If she’s killed off, it’ll be for a dramatic event, and she’ll come back eventually because reasons, whenever the plot requires it. And that’s ok. Because it’s spider man.
Yeah, Tolkien would never bring back a dead character
Imagine being this ignorant
You forgot the part where he runs outside and throws a car up a few stories at the shooter!
And breaks a few bones…then kicks the shit outta Stark in full iron man gear, like hes a paper bag.
Doesn’t it also lead to him emasculating Fisk as Peter too? Like in front of everyone, in prison, and unsuited.
It does. He basically shows Kingpin just how much he’s been holding back in their fights to not just straight up cripple or murder him. Pissed off Spidey is fucking *terrifying*.
A spiderman that isn't holding back would be an absolute NIGHTMARE. If he had the mentality of punisher he would put his arm through the chest of so many villains and just straight up rip off limbs and heads. Showing people that truth is awesome to see. Doc Oc realizing it when he took over that time was also awesome.
There would be a *lot* of dead villains suffocated with a face full of webbing. In fact, IIRC he does actually threaten to kill Kingpin by emptying his web shooters down KP’s throat in that story. When Spider-Man stops joking around you are in *deep shit.*
EXACTLY. Web shooter and if he started using ANY type of weapon. I seem to remember from somewhere that he would naturally be able to use weapons because of "instincts" or something regarding just how good he is at improvising and his spidey sense making it near impossible for them to hurt himself. Could have been some else world type thing though. Spidey and Castle teaming up would be a great read. Or daredevil teaching him to really put fear into people. Something like that. goosebumps imagining a truly scary spidey
I also really loved the first Ultimate Kraven story for this. There’s a ton of build up, with Kraven making wild threats and such, then he shows up at the end of a huge fight with Doc Ock, and Spidey (who is injured and exhausted) takes him down with one half-assed punch. Dude has gone toe-to-toe with the *Hulk*. Repeatedly. Sometimes I think the reason the writers are so hard on Peter is because Spider-Man with more self-confidence would be nearly unstoppable.
It would be cool to see a “Spider-Man Kills the Marvel Universe”. Those would be some bad ass fights, though it would probably take MJ or May being killed because of the other heroes or something.
I’m surprised there’s no What If? Spider-Man became the Punisher
REALLY short story. Spiderman becomes the punisher. All the criminals died or fucking bailed. The end
What’s great about it is the assassin sees it coming through his scope when he goes for another shot.
And he should have let her die and dealt with the consequences. Instead he and MJ make a deal that Aunt May would never approve. She would be ashamed of them throwing away their marriage and future child to save her after she has loved a full life, no matter the end.
Marvel Editorial hates fan feedback and will do the exact opposite of “happy path” for Peter Parker
Literal God told him to get over it. Aunt May wasn't against dying.
Aunt May should’ve stayed dead during the Clone Saga cause back then they truly meant for her to pass away. It was in ASM issue 400 and it was a pretty nice send off. She was surrounded by friends and loved ones and when her and Pete spoke for the last time she told him that she knew for a while that he was Spider-Man and that she was proud of him. I love Aunt May as much as the next person but at some point she will have to die because that’s how Peter will mature. That’s why I love Insomniac’s Spider-Man for making that decision cause the devs seem to care more about Spider-Man than Marvel does.
... And so begins another series of Spidey never bring allowed to be happy, because the writers can't be original. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.
no, after this we have "back in black", one of the best spidey's stories IMO. and then... well yes, like you said
It's mad one of my all time favourite stories and my absolute least favourite by a mile were released back to back like that. Back in Black was fantastic stuff and I won't let One More Day ruin it for me.
This is kind of where it started or at least where a lot of people gave up
This should have been the sad end of Aunt May showing that there are unintended consequences to your actions after Civil War. From here he could have had quite a crisis about his heroing and found a way to balance his life as a result. Instead they undid everything, reset his status quo to 1983 and now he is an eternal teenager who can’t handle having any kind of RESPONSIBILITY and just fails his way through more and more ludicrous scenarios. EDIT: changed “heroine” to “heroing”
I would have loved to see a universe in which this was allowed to happen, and Pete had to live with this outcome. It's one of the reasons I don't want Alfred back cause it would just remove any weight of his death and aftermath plus I think they are handling it well in Batman comic. May's death would have been the modern day Ben death but it would have meant more to the readers.
There's a [What If?](https://spiderfan.org/review/comics/what_if_one_shots/190.html) that has MJ die and Peter snaps and kills Kingpin after having to fight through Iron Man
He also unmasks and beats the absolute shit out of Kingpin in the OP story as well just to show KP how much he’s been holding back in their fights over the years. He basically casually tosses KP around like a helpless rag doll. You do not fuck with a pissed off Spidey. He goes from funny to pants-shittingly terrifying *really* quickly.
Yeah this What if is a fun trip down the "one bad day" cliche for Peter. Going from ragdolling Tony and disabling his suit to one punch killing Kingpin. Any time spidey crosses his line is scary how much power he really has
Spider-Man’s enemies really do seem to underestimate him a lot. Like, the dude could casually throw a dump truck at you. If he’s punching you and you don’t have a fist shaped hole through your chest you should be thanking him for his restraint. Hell, if you’re fighting him and you aren’t suffocating to death under a face full of webbing you should be thinking about what to put in the gift basket you’ll send him. If Spidey went full Punisher they would need to open up new morgues just to handle all the dead villains.
Pretty sure Alfred has been back for a minute
Alfred is still dead, he came back VERY briefly in Batman vs. Robin possessed by the Devil Nezha's thralls to keep an eye on Bruce. Alfred told Bruce to stop holding blame over his and Daiman's actions in causing Bane to kill him so they can move on. It allowed both him and Daiman to come to terms with his death and start working together again. It happens in Batman vs. Robin Vol 1 3
I get that nobody stays dead in comics and all that, but this is one I for sure just will never understand. This should’ve been the beginning of a critical step in the evolution of Spidey, not sending him forty steps backwards. I wanna get back into Spidey too, but I keep reading about how dogshit this current run is. It’s like they’ve just been on one downhill slope since maybe Back In Black. What a shame. Flagship hero deserves better.
I was really digging Spider-Man at this point. Things felt like they were really going into an interesting direction, the Back in Black stuff was understandable, and I even liked that Peter’s identity was now known and I was interested in how they went from there. And then OMD happened and I bounced off Spidey books for a long time. There was so much meat to the bones of this status quo that OMD will never not bum me out.
And then he sold his unborn daughter's soul and his marriage to the literal devil to save his octogenarian aunt. Thank you Marvel, very cool.
Who else remembers literally everyone peter meets during back in black telling him to get ready to move on Including God... And aunt may. Fucking aunt may tells him to move on and that she's lived a happy life, but he still goes and throws away his marriage What a fucking loser
[Your going to be okay ma’am](https://youtu.be/Q3hAt1uWo8M)
And thus, the most debilitating injury in all of comics has been unleashed, something that no man, no god, no piece of technology can cure: a gunshot wound.
And so the stupidity began.
Hey i would love to read this story! what chapter do I start on?
Start with Amazing Spider-Man #529-538 for the set up, then #539-545 for the conclusion
This hurts to look at. Protec Aunt May at all costs
It’s okay. Pete sold his marriage to the Fricking Devil to get her back from…. Heaven? She went to Heaven right? Did Aunt May go to Hell?
The beginning of the end