So your eighty-something aunt is dying and despite all your superpowers, the only way to save her life is to make a deal with the devil that will essentially erase your marriage to a hot redhead from the entire worlds’ memory. This ever happened to you?
Well, it’s happening to the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man in his current titles. And the move is the coup de grace of J Michael Straczynski’s controversial run on the title (in which Spider-Man unmasked to the public, spouted mystical mumbo jumbo to Spider-Gods, and Gwen Stacy was retconned into the Green Goblin’s baby mama . . . don’t ask). Marvel editor-in-chief, Joe Quesada, has long expressed hatred for the Spider marriage, and we’re only one issue away from finding out if he’s going to get his wish and take care of that pesky Mary Jane Watson (cue Quesada twirling a thin swarmy moustache in classic villain style).
Per my usual approach, I’m not writing to take sides in the issue; although, it’s safe to say that the majority of fans are hugely unimpressed with this possible move. And not to recap all the reasons this is kinda . . . well, dumb . . . but it’s worth mentioning that the idea could maybe possibly technically work. But to rob Spidey of his marriage with a plot device as overused and uncreative as the "deal with the devil" (actually Mephisto, a satan-like demon who’s Marvel’s equivalent of the big bad) is probably the cheapest way to accomplish it. Hell, even Straczynski has publically admitted distaste for the story that he’s basically being forced to write!
I’m more interested in the current fan response across bulletin boards, blogs, and other pockets of the net. Let’s make this clear: the dissolution of the Spidey marriage is not set in stone. In fact, this could all be a huge fakeout (one that’s technically working on a financial level; Spidey titles are selling more than ever). Not that the story’s possible trickery is stopping the fans from engaging in their favorite past time: complaining, debating, and dropping threats of "I"m never going to read another Spider-Man comic again!" If you think I’m about to diss this behavior, you would be wrong. As I have written elsewhere, I read this often hyperbolic behavior as a sign of invested interest meeting the discourse possibilities of the web. To dismiss any of this behavior as "too much free time," or "caring too much about something not real," is to miss one of my central running theses: that entertainment is far from simplistic escape or something to ease the mind away from the "real" world. Entertainment and fandom is part and parcel of the "real" world, a place of invested interests where identities are partially formed, sociality is established, and a scattered postmodern world is made sense of. And part of that world is frustration, anger, anxiety, and yes, hyperbole. Why? Because it does matter, it really always has, but the web has finally fostered a place for these conversations to happen beyond the confines of your immediate circle o peeps. The fact that so much text and emotion is being spilled over a story that isn’t even over yet only proves this case to be more true.
Getting back to specifics, it’s fascinating to see the subject of marriage getting so passionately discussed in this manner. It often seems like marriage really only gets discussed in our current popular culture landscape when it’s a bunch of right-wingers trying to preserve its supposed "sanctity" by barring certain people’s rights to it. Marriage fights, breakups, scandals, and affairs get the most play in the news and in fiction. There’s room and need for that representation, and I’d never make the silly argument that the ruins of marriage portrayed in pop culture are the reason for the ruins of marriage in fleshy meat space. Still, it is refreshing to see people debating about the benefits of marriage, the importance of marriage to someone’s character, and how the sanctity of even a fictional one is compromised by hitting some cosmic reset button. And not just any people, but comic fans. Those often stereotyped as overweight, socially inept, fantasy obsessed, mom and dad basement dwelling comic fans. Hell, if we care, there must be something important going on here!
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