Now the space time continuim has been altered; Peter is now a swinging bachelor, his aunt is alive and well (but considering that she must at least be pushing 95, who knows how long that could be), and his best friend/former enemy Harry Osborn is alive for no other reason than to put the Spider-Man series back "the way it should be."
And we have Marvel's head honcho Joe Quesada to thank for this, as it was his insistence that Mary Jane no longer be engaged to Peter Parker. By his own reasoning, Peter Parker should forever remain a highschool attending bachelor with a sweet old aunt, because that's how the audience connects with him best.
The only thing amazing is how utterly wrong and misguided Joe Q is.
Having a loving wife while juggling several jobs is not disconnecting anyone from Spidey, it's literally putting all of us in his shoes. No, not everyone is married (I'll refrain from the obvious comic book reader stereotype, since people in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones), but most of us should know how a marriage works. The best moments of Spider-Man aren't when Peter is self loathing about himself, whether it's meeting the deadline for a new photo for J. J. or stuffing his battered costume in a place Aunt May wouldn't be able to find it; It's when he fears for his wife's safety, or trying to help her cope with the knowledge that one day he won't return after a night of crimefighting.
Therein lies the emotional attatchment, when Peter is more concerned about his wife's happiness than his own, not if he can hit knock out Dr Octopus quick enough to make it in time for his date with Blondie Mcblush. The highschool bachelor angle was significant during the early days of the series, but to undo his progress as a married man balancing his superhero life with his married life as a result of "Magic that needs no explanation", Marvel is basically telling us that change isn't a good thing.
I stopped reading the original Spidey series more than a decade ago, when the whole Clone Saga forced me and several other readers to say "enough is enough" and move on. Even so, as someone who grew up with the Webslinger, I am personally disgusted and ashamed by this sudden development, probably more so than the aforementioned Clone fiasco.
It's bad enough that Joe Q and Marvel want us to believe that Peter is better off without Mary Jane (despite no complaints whatsoever from the fans), or that they used an incredibly hackneyed plot to undo the marriage ("It's magic, we don't have to explain it. Also, Santa Claus will appear and make the X-Men teenagers again."). The two worst things about this devilish debacle are:
1. Change is bad, that's why everything has to be reset. Apologies to all the writers who worked hard on capturing a believable marriage.
2. Peter will wind up back with Mary Jane anyway, Magic will fix everything back to normal. Oh, and Aunt May will still be alive, so everybody wins.
Nothing will ever change in comics. Any time a major event is scheduled, from a character's new costume, a shift in a relationship, or a major death, it all inevitably resets to normal. The question isn't if Peter and Mary Jane will ever end up back together; The question is how long will Marvel run with this sick joke until they get tired of it (because the fans don't even want to put up with the beginning of this "brand new day")?
A fellow outraged fan brought up the Dragonball series as an adequate example of realistic development in a comic book (yes, kids, Goku's adventures started as a comic before moving to Cartoon Network). Five minute screams and outrageous powerlevels (that go well over 9000) aside, Dragonball and Dragonball Z do have a very well written story. Goku begins the series as a naive twelve year old, having lots of adventures and growing older, stronger, and just a little wiser. By the end of Dragonball, he's in his late teens and proceeds to get married after winning the big tournament.
In the start of Dragonball Z, Goku is a full fledged adult with a four year old son, fighting enemies far stronger and far more dangerous than before, risking everything (including his life, and more than once) to protect his new family. When that series closes, he's a full fledged grandfather that teaches everything he learned to the new generation.
Even though dead characters tend to come back to life as often as in western comics, Japan's premier superhero series still had more guts than Marvel in never undoing a major event or having its main character remain eternally young (granted, there is the matter of Dragonball GT having Goku revert into a child again, but the act is undone once the series closes, and was never a part of Toriyama's original manga regardless). I admit I had reservations watching Peter reach his mid thirties at first, but I would have been willing to accept the change as a natural progress of his life.
At least if the writers didn't insist on making such awful decisions.
I think the ultimate tell-tale sign that Marvel didn't have Peter's best interests in mind was the nixing of their unborn child. When the day came for Mary Jane to give birth to their daughter, the child was diagnosed as stillborn and quietly carried away. Even though the diagnosis was a lie due to Normon Osborn's involvement, Marvel had stated that the child would never be brought back into question again, as they simply didn't like the idea of Peter having a child to raise.
So instead of watching Parker take the time to juggle a child into his already full schedule, webbing a small hammock for her while he reminisces with bedtime stories of how he fought the Sinister Six, and overall establishing a stronger emotional connection for readers (including potential new readers), Joe Q thought it would be much better to revert Peter back into a swinging bachelor with no wife and no kid.
Because magic is so much more fun than character development.
I could go on, but I believe the following image, taken from a fan appreciation of the now dead Spider-Marriage, epitimizes exactly what Marvel gave up in order to keep Spider-Man "fresh".
It wasn't Peter's marriage that Marvel gave to the Devil.
It was his humanity.
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