Marvel hints Peter Parker’s return to marriage – and fatherhood
Marvel Comics has been giving fans a lot to think about lately, with cryptic images teasing revivals of classic storylines and the return of their ultimate crossover. But their newest tease (which comes in the pages of Entertainment Weekly) could be the biggest one of all Spider-Man fans.
The image (seen at right) appears to show Peter Parker, Mary-Jane Watson and an unnamed red-haired child being carried on Peter’s shoulders posing in front of the “spider-heart” backdrop associated with the famous Spider-Man/Mary-Jane Wedding Event from 1987, with the caption “Renew Your Vows” and a Summer 2015 date. The clear – though not explicitly-stated – implication is that the dissolution of Spider-Man’s marriage could be en route to being undone.
In the 2006 storyline One More Day” Spider-Man and Mary-Jane’s marriage was erased from Marvel continuity by Mephisto (the Satan of the Marvel Universe) as payment to save the life of Aunt May, who was dying from an assassin’s bullet because of events spinning out of the Civil War crossover. Though the characters had technically been separated off-and-on for years, the story is easily one of the most-hated developments in Marvel history among fans.
Of note, though: The presence of the unnamed young girl potentially teases the undoing of an even earlier controversial story point: During the much-maligned “Clone Saga,” Mary-Jane was pregnant with Peter’s child. The story’s conclusion implied that her pregnancy ended in miscarriage, but left open the possibility that the baby had actually been stolen by The Green Goblin (no, really). Marvel’s alternate-universe series Spider-Girl imagines a scenario where the baby, a girl named May “Mayday” Parker, is reunited with her parents and takes up her father’s superhero mantle as a teenager.
Is the girl in the image meant to be a mainstream Marvel Universe incarnation of Mayday? Marvel isn’t yet saying, but presumably fans will find out next year.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
