One More Day

""Sometimes I wish I owned a copy of One More Day, just so I could throw it against the wall.""

- Linkara

A "big storyline" (released in 2007) in the Spider-Man universe.

Due to Spider-Man revealing his secret identity at the urging of Tony Stark in Civil War, an attempt is made by the Kingpin on Spider-Man's life. Peter, naturally, escapes it due to his spider-senses, but dear old Aunt May takes the bullet. Unfortunately, this is a fatal wound, and May is going to die. After putting back on his old black costume and going on a Darker and Edgier Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Kingpin, he webswings up and down the Marvel Universe trying to find someone, anyone, who can help him. Unfortunately, none of the super-scientists, magicians (one of whom is also a surgeon), mutants, or techno-wizards can fix a single bullet wound.

Then Mephisto shows up, to offer Peter and Mary Jane a Deal with the Devil. He'll heal May, but rather than take a soul in exchange, he'll take their marriage. Yes, that's right -- the entire purpose of this arc was to Cosmic Retcon the Spidey marriage. Ostensibly, it's because "the suffering of two souls in love, forever denied each other, is far better than the soul of one who has given it up nobly in sacrifice of another." Peter accepts, and...

The series picks up after a Time Skip, under the banner Brand New Day. Not only is Aunt May alive and well, but Harry Osborn is alive and well, too. Peter and Mary Jane - never married in this reality but merely living together - have broken up and are hardly speaking to one another. But MJ may have launched her own superheroing career as "Jackpot". Peter's web-shooters are no longer organic, and Spider-Man's identity is a secret again, and he's a single swinger living with his aunt. Or, to put it another way, a thirty-year-old man living in his (foster) mother's basement.

The storyline has been widely decried for many different reasons; for Executive Meddling that got rid of something only one person disliked (Joe Quesada, Editor in Chief of Marvel); for finding an "easy answer" to the problem of Spidey's secret identity (Quesada specifically said it wouldn't be solved by a "magic retcon", when no two words are more appropriate); for yet another attempt to stop a character from actually changing over time; and for generally feeling forced and painful (J. Michael Straczynski, the writer, almost had his name removed from the last two issues, but relented as a favor to Marvel).

Opinions on the 'One More Day' arc are divided into two camps: the 'Traditional Spidey' camp, who felt that Spider-Man's best years were the ones that showcased his day-to-day troubles, and the 'Progress is Better' camp, which feels cheated. There are even fans (which include Quesada himself) who feel that the frequently canceled-yet-relaunched-almost-immediately Spider-Girl series represents the best example of the marriage being allowed to evolve without editorial intervention...and Quesada, ironically, loves it. Some argue it has become the definitive version of the Spidey mythos; others prefer Ultimate Spider-Man or Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (both of which are Alternate Continuity Reboots).

The newspaper strip version of Spider-Man, which had originally followed the comics in dissolving Peter and MJ's marriage (sans Mephisto; it just told stories that happened before the marriage) has bowed to the pressure of thousands of letters of complaint and retconned the "unmarriage" again. See the article here. Though according to Roy Thomas, who has ghostwritten the comic strip in the past, the story without the marriage was planned to be temporary all along.

This was followed up in 2010 with One Moment in Time (or "OMIT"), intended to clean up dangling plot threads as Peter and Mary Jane finally get talking again and start going over the history of their relationship. Back in what was supposed to be their wedding week, Mephisto quietly releases an apprehended thug and Peter is badly injured trying to recapture him, causing him to miss the ceremony. This leads MJ to reconsider marriage, instead settling for a committed-monogamous-but-not-official relationship.

Fast-forward to the events of One More Day; Aunt May makes a miraculous recovery, but this prompts the Kingpin to take out another hit on Mary Jane's Aunt Anna. When Mary Jane gets hurt protecting her, Peter regrets ever revealing his identity and begs Doctor Strange to make people forget. Strange talks Reed Richards and Tony Stark into helping out, setting it up so that only Peter will remember what happened. However, Peter spares Mary Jane the mindwipe too, but afterwards she tells him she can't deal with putting other people in danger just by knowing Spider-Man and leaves him. In the present, Peter and MJ patch up their relationship - but deciding they're Better as Friends, with MJ telling Peter to get over her and find someone else.

One Moment in Time was not received any better than One More Day was. Besides dredging up bad memories of the original story and continuing the various anti-marriage themes, it also angered fans by casting Mary Jane as a Fixer Sue, making her the one responsible for the dissolution of the relationship.

(In case you're wondering about the other Brand New Day changes that were explained outside of OMIT: Harry turned out to have been just hiding. Jackpot wasn't Mary Jane, but someone else entirely who looked like her. And Peter's organic webbing and some other newer powers were explained by Word of God to be unavailable, either due to Power Incontinence or they're part of a Heroic Safe Mode.)


 * Author Avatar: Many fans perceive Mephisto as one for Joe Quesada.
 * Better as Friends: Take two people that have been the Official Couple for decades, and try to set them up as this instead. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
 * Broad Strokes: The events of the marriage years mostly still happened as originally shown; Peter and MJ were still living and sleeping together - they just never made it official.
 * Broken Aesop: Breaks the main aesop of the Spider-Man canon, in that Peter makes the deal to dodge the consequences of his own actions rather than take the great responsibility.
 * In a sense, Peter probably imagines that he was taking responsibility, trying to save his aunts life to make up for a terrible mistake he made that he admits to (this is quite twisted logic, in the circumstances, but still).
 * Canon Discontinuity: Despite his explicit claims that it would not be magically undone, Quesada recently chickened out and had it magically undone.
 * Not sure that counts; while the deal itself was wiped from continuity its results were not. (Aren't Timey Wimey Balls fun?)
 * Comes Great Responsibility: Averted, oh, so very hard...
 * Deal with the Devil: Well, A Devil, but yeah.
 * Death by Cameo: Only by subtext, but still. After the Parkers take the deal, Mephisto taunts them with a girl he says is the child they'll never have now. Now, there are a lot of reasons that this can't be the baby miscarried back in The Clone Saga (and Word of God asserts it's just an image of how MJ pictured their theoretical kid), but Spider-Girl fans were nonetheless not amused.
 * Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Quesada's current explanation is that Mary Jane did without even trying; somehow by her Exact Words the nonexistence of the marriage means Mephisto has nothing to steal and he won't meddle with the Parkers again. We don't quite get it either.
 * Digging Yourself Deeper: With One Moment In Time, the anti-One More Day group is becoming more frustrated with the retcon that MJ is all at fault for the deal. Even people who tolerated One More Day and some who like Brand New Day are becoming exasperated at the constant changes.
 * Doing In the Wizard: At first, all the Brand New Day changes appeared to have happened For Want of a Nail because of the marriage thing. But as they were explained one by one, it became clear that they all happened during a Time Skip and Mephisto's effects on previous canon were minor.
 * Fantastic Aesop: Quesada didn't want to imply a "divorce is okay" aesop, but was just fine with implying the impossible "dealing with the devil is okay".
 * And in the sequel, MJ states marriage without children is just a piece of paper. So, divorce (unless done by Satan) isn't okay but marriage itself is no big deal.
 * Especially silly given that Mephisto is a Jerkass Genie par excellence and he managed to screw people over for decades of comic book history because of how he interpreted their wishes, not how his victims did. What Mary-Jane thinks marriage is shouldn't matter in the slightest, and if it did screw him out of a deal then, since he is Mephisto, he would find a way to enact horrible revenge on her for it, probably via Revenge by Proxy. So they'd be screwed either way.
 * Forgot About His Powers: In a mundane example (for many fantastic ones, see Reed Richards Is Useless), the story forgets Doctor Strange is an actual medical doctor (before becoming Sorcerer Supreme, he was a neurosurgeon). Not that it would matter; since the gunshot was hand-waved as incurable through any amount of magic or skill.
 * Idiot Ball: Again, just about everyone who appears, exception being Aunt May.
 * In Spite of a Nail: One would think that the none-existence of the marriage would at least have charged the outcome some of the plotlines in the Spider-Man continuity. Whatever impact that was, however, doesn't seem to have been very drastic.
 * This has less to do with the marriage not having an impact on the continuity, but the creators merely not wanting to explore the changes. It's much harder to rationalize that the marriage didn't have an impact if you can just say that the stories wouldn't have changed, and just leave it at that.
 * Or just that the marriage was all Joe wanted to retcon.
 * Laser-Guided Amnesia: At Peter's urging, Dr. Strange, Tony Stark, and Reed Richards somehow combine science and sorcery to erase everyone's knowledge of Spidey's identity (though people are aware that they once knew who Spider-man was). Keep in mind, these are the same people who could do jack about a gunshot wound.
 * Love Cannot Overcome: Mary Jane breaks up with Peter, not because she can't handle being in danger for knowing Spider-Man, but because she can't handle putting other people who are close to her in danger because she knows Spider-Man.
 * Mind Screw: What with all the retcons and stuff getting 'clarified' it's starting to get very confusing.
 * Momma's Boy: What Peter ultimately comes off as, considering how obsessive and selfish he is in wanting to bring back Aunt May, despite the assertion from her and everyone else that he should let her die in peace.
 * Certainly over-played and contrived as far as the story is concerned, seeing as Marvel killed off Aunt May once before and Peter seemed more-or-less fine with letting her die peacefully.
 * Moral Dissonance: According to Joe Q: it's okay to forget all about responsibility, save a woman who wants to die and be with her long-dead husband who she has missed, make a deal with the devil, oh and being married makes you boring.
 * Just to elaborate. Peter makes a deal with Mephisto. You know, big demon guy? Makes deals with people and then screws them over (people that Peter has met and worked with and is therefore perfectly aware of the screwings over)? The deal in question? He wipes his and his wife's minds, aborting their unborn baby in the process, just so his aunt who, even in terms of comic book aging is older than the Bill of Rights, can recover from a gunshot wound to live for a couple more years before finally kicking the bucket. And to add insult to injury, she only got shot in the first place because Peter revealed his true identity to the public, making it the exact scenario he has been harping about for bloody years as to why he specifically shouldn't take off his mask. In other words, Aunt May was shot because of Peter's mistake and he's unwilling to take responsibility for his actions.
 * Reed Richards and Tony Stark apparently erasing Spider-Man's identity from the memories of everyone on the planet. Didn't they just fight a war with some of their former friends just to make sure that nobody could do that?
 * Reed Richards Is Useless: Fridge Logic mixed with Idiot Ball. So you mean to tell us that Reed Richards (and Tony Stark, and Hank Pym...) is somehow now unable to heal a gun wound? Really?
 * Not just Richards, but EVERY scientific mind and mystic in the Marvel universe is unable to heal Aunt May. Hell, not even Elixir of the New X-Men can help, and his sole power? Healing people. And not just healing people--it's controlling every cell in your body. From a distance. Elixir healed a guy after the dude's heart was torn out. Something that, logically, should have been instantly fatal... May was just shot... By a bullet. That didn't kill her instantly. There is no reason such a wound should be beyond his power. Elixir could literally have revived May over the phone. Oh, but there's more, much more. See Peter goes to Dr. Strange first...Dr. Strange who can literally make Gods, omnipotent beings from other universes like the Outer Gods, due his bidding by just saying so. Dr. Strange said he couldn't heal Aunt May. Dr. Strange, who can summon Gods and omnipotents at will, who is in personal direct contact with a pantheon of beings whose entire purpose is being nice guys and helping humans, could not heal a simple gunshot wound (also: He's a surgeon). There are no words to describe how hard someone has to try and fuck up this badly.
 * And just to hammer the point home, some of those selfsame people that were useless when it came to gunshots were able to pull Laser-Guided Amnesia out of their rears in One Moment In Time.
 * And CPR manages to save Aunt May, even though between Peter's super strength should have crushed her, and CPR onto a person with an open or barely stitched wound would pump the blood out.
 * Possibly justified by the fact that God appeared to Peter and told him to be with Aunt May as she passed on; it was simply her time to go, she had accepted this, and maybe, on some level deep down, they felt that.
 * Retcon: Of course OMD is obviously a huge one, but OMIT applied a retcon to OMD. Remember how both Peter and Mary Jane had to agree with Mephisto's deal... O.M.I.T has, surprisingly enough gone out of its way to retcon it into Mary Jane making the deal despite Peter's objection.
 * Retraux: In OMIT, the flashbacks to the time of the (canceled) wedding are drawn as similarly as possible to the original "The Wedding!" storyline. Given Quesada's OMD art got lazily re-used, this comes off as a nice change. Of course, it's weird when past-bride-to-be MJ gets her cell phone.
 * And when Spidey references the "But I did just stay at a Holiday Inn" joke from the present-day's ad campaign... in a time set years before that campaign started.
 * Shaggy Dog Story: Thanks to One Moment in Time, the entire arc gets turned into this.
 * Shipping Tropes:
 * Anchored Ship: The official status of Peter/MJ between One More Day and One Moment In Time.
 * Ship Sinking: The whole point of the story was to break up Peter and M.J. in the eyes of the fans. It has failed miserably; people are less inclined to Abandon Shipping than ever.
 * Ship Tease: Promos for One Moment In Time and afterward suggested that Peter and MJ would rekindle their relationship after being estranged since One More Day. Given that the whole thing had become a touchy subject, fans felt that their chains were getting yanked - and they were right. OMIT ended with Mary Jane and Peter becoming friends again, but she told Peter to get over her or else he'll miss someone else that's perfect for him. (One suspects Reality Subtext here; Quesada telling the same to readers. No dice, Joe.)
 * Super Loser: Enforcing the "loser" part.
 * Superheroes Stay Single
 * Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Double subverted; Spidey reaches out to a long list of super-friends (including a group with a healer who rebuilt a guy's heart from nothing after it got torn out by a Satanic sorcerer--no relation) only to come up empty: see Reed Richards Is Useless up above.
 * This Loser Is You: Several of Quesada's comments about the storyline and the reader's reaction to it -- for good or ill -- have been of this nature. Needless to say, the fanbase has been less-than-impressed in many cases.
 * Too Happy to Live: The Parkers - We can't have them Happily Married! Then where would the love triangles come from?
 * True Love Is Boring: See above.
 * Voodoo Shark: With OMIT done, Quesada claims that One More Day was retconned out of continuity and Mephisto never made a deal with the Parkers - so he never saved Aunt May; she got better thanks to Peter's love and determination. Really, Joe? After everyone up to God himself told Pete that she's as good as passed on, no more, ceased to be, pining for the fjords...
 * A Wizard Did It: Quesada infamously responded to objections about how the magical retcon works with "It's magic! We don't have to explain it!"
 * The problem with this, however, is that while you don't have to explain every little detail about whatever kind of magic(s) that the Marvel universe uses, it still has to have rules.
 * More specifically, Mephisto does not have that kind of power. He might be one of the most powerful supernatural beings in the MU, but even he can't just change history for shits and giggles. If he did, the universe would be FUBAR. This only reinforces Marvel's (and DC's, for that matter) bad habit of turning magic users into convenient plot devices.
 * Time Travel and time alteration in the Marvel Universe is easy; Doctor Doom could have done it without minimal effort, and unlike Mephisto he is not a Reality Warper Eldritch Abomination. Beings weaker than Mephisto have done stuff like this, and on far bigger scales with much more profound changes to the Marvel universe. Its a pretty mundane feat for a character who used to annihilate galaxies from his chair and fought Galactus to a near stalemate. It's not FUBAR because there are even more powerful entities regulating what he can and cannot do- he can create alternate universes, but he can't force people to surrender their souls, or create timelines where they have done so. But he can alter history if someone asks him to, and can get their soul if they sell it to him in exchange.
 * Yo-Yo Plot Point
 * Younger and Hipper: The objective behind the whole sorry story was to make Peter fit this trope again. The results are... less than satisfactory.