Last week, in the newest issue of Venom (as part of the Death Spiral event) Torment, a new villain, killed long maligned character Paul Rabin. And there was much rejoicing from the Spider-Man community.
For those familiar, you’ve certainly developed your own opinions of the character. For those who don’t, the briefest of primers:
-During the One More Day storyline, Peter’s and MJ’s marriage is erased from reality by Mephisto in exchange for May’s life and reverting Peter’s identity reveal.
-After more than a decade of living separate but interconnected lives, it looks like they might be getting back together.
-Smash cut, 6 months later, and not only are they not together, Mary Jane is with some dude named Paul and they have two little kids.
-You learn during a flashback story, that MJ and Peter got zapped to another, apocalyptic reality. There they meet Paul, who’s father was responsible for said post-apocalyptic reality.
-Peter finds a way to get back to 616 but only he an make it through (MJ foreces him to go and leave her behind). When he does make it back to the other dimension within the next week, it’s been four years for Mary Jane.
-In the interim, she and Paul found some orphaned kids, bonded, and developed a romantic relationship, tied together in their shared trauma.
-They all come back to 616, and it’s quickly revealed that the kids were an illusion created by Paul’s father.
-Mary Jane becomes the hero Jackpot, using a slot-machine themed magi-mechanical gauntlet.
-Then she becomes Venom. Blah blah blah.
So if you already didn’t like the fact that OMD took away their marriage, then got your hopes up that it would be “fixed,” of course the mere presence of Paul Rabin would feel like a direct affront. Who is this man-bun wearing mother-fucker keeping MJ and Peter apart?
When they take in Dylan Brock after Venom War, the fandom reaction was that “we” were going to have to put up with more of him. Oh no! Then Mary Jane and Paul break up? Oh yeah!
Maybe now that he’s good and dead, this will be the turning point for all of them!
The pivot point for all of this is the marriage of Peter and Mary Jane itself. Which plays a little different when you stop for a moment to realize that this marriage in question ranges from “kind of weird” to “…complicated…”
When Peter proposes to Mary Jane in Amazing Spider-Man #290, they they aren’t even really dating. They had dated before and she had turned down one proposal already, then she sort of disappeared from the story for a long time. She came back (#143), revealed she knew he was Spider-Man, then they had a little bit of a romantic something maybe (mid #170s), but never a definitive turning moment into something exclusive. During one of the cohort books, (Spectacular Spider-Man) he’s still in a situationship with Felicia a few months past the proposal in real-time.
When this big proposal happens MJ says, “I thought we were just friends.” Peter replies with “we’ve been more than friends for awhile” as a counter. But that still means it was a poorly defined relationship. Certainly not one with the stability you’d want to build a solid marriage on. They’re married by the next annual, less than ten issues later.
Then you consider the alleged real-world circumstances of why they dropped this story beat when they did. Stan Lee was going to marry them in he newspaper strip, and editorial wanted it to happen in the comics first and turn it into a whole event. Thus a more rushed delivery.
So the marriage started messy both in and out of text. But also examining their relationship as someone who’s been married twelve years myself…oof…
There are a quite a few panels through the 1980s, in particular, where he doesn’t speak very kindly to her. At the same time she also comes across pretty vapid at times, so you sort of have to chalk it up to 80s writing. That all generally gets better through the years.
But Peter and MJ are also defined by a hard central conflict: the balance between Peter’s civilian and superhero life. And that would be fine if that wasn’t such a constant, never ending cycle driven by Peter’s need to save everyone and fix everything.
Anyone who’s read Spider-Man comics for any length of time knows how susceptible Peter’s narrative is to stagnation. The “status quo” can be the worst enemy of all comic-dom, but the Spider-Man office is a top perpetrator for better or worse. So too did MJ and Peter’s relationship fail to progress under that meta-narrative umbrella. They never really get through this central conflict and find a sensible compromise that they’re both happy with.
Even the One More Day storyline itself is a symptom of Peter’s refusal to grapple with the guilt that turned him into Spider-Man to begin with.
So while I’m definitely in the camp of “One More Day was not a good way to approach splitting them up as couple” it did sort of free Mary Jane from the purgatory of that relationship. Her time working for Stark, in particular, gave her a lot of space to do some new things for herself as a person and refreshed their relationship. Being out from under Peter’s shadow gave her more space to grow as a character. Which would have been really good for them if they ever got back together in the narrative.
So where the fuck does Paul fit into this?
I’m not crazy about the Jackpot powerset. I think it’s kinda…eh…but it did make Mary Jane a superhero in her own right however you feel about that sort of thing. So once they get back to 616, Paul becomes to Mary Jane what Mary Jane was to Peter…only kind of better at it.
Paul becomes what Mary Jane could have been if the people writing Spider-Man in the 90s and 00s ever thought to properly elevate her from “wife waiting at home” to “cohort in crime-fighting.” Instead of positioning himself in the role of protector, he uses his glyph knowledge and powers to give Mary Jane the ability to protect herself.
MJ’s out there busting up bad guys and Paul’s directly helping her do it. He’s her man in the chair. They make it an active joint effort in a way that is fulfilling for both of them. There’s a much more complex feminist critique here about MJ getting her powers though a man’s intervention, but they are much closer to equals than she and Peter ever were.
On top of that he’s nice to Peter. He tried to create a friendship with him. He takes in Dylan at Mary Jane’s request with very little resistance. He’s really not written to be a bad dude (which is probably why people don’t like him, let’s be real). From a meta-textual perspective, his worst crime is being a little bit boring and shoe-horned in at a weird time in the narrative. In text, they had a much more natural lead up into a partnered relationship than MJ and Peter ever did. It came with manipulation, but they bonded over the course of multiple years.
After Mary Jane becomes Venom they start to break into the same cycle that she and Peter did. She’s out all night without communicating. He doesn’t know where she is. Etc. Etc. A whole bunch of other problems. Then she sort of realizes this isn’t working, so she breaks up with him. Even then, he still looks after Dylan despite the fact he really has no loyalty to him.
Together, they bypassed the cycle instead of getting caught in it which is much more interesting.
Then when he dies he gets the privilege normally reserved for female romantic interests and occasionally parents: the fridge.
Man’s out here tearing down the patriarchy right and left.
The point being that if after she’s done being Venom editorial does decide to put MJ and Peter back together like everyone wants and they don’t fuck it up and they actually take consistency of character into mind, all of the shit she’s going through right now would make a new relationship with Peter better. She would have a better understanding of where Peter’s coming from having been in his shoes. And, hopefully, Peter would learn from both the fake OMD “missed wedding memory” and his time watching her relationship with Paul from afar. And if that meant they didn’t fall into the same cycle as the first version of their marriage, that would make for a much more interesting story that actually seems to move forward.
And you’d have dear Paul Rabin to thank for part of that.
Pixels and Pins Studio 