One More Day

Sometimes you get so wrapped up in a story that when it’s over you have a hard time letting go, so your brain tries to draw connections where probably none exist. Like how I can’t stop thinking that Cameron the Terminator Girl on “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” is future-John Connor’s lover, or in the new Spider-Man comics whenever they show Mary Jane I can’t help but thinking that she knows and because she knows, this weird “start-over,” for-the-kids, fake reality will be over soon.

Let me back up! (Spoilers ahead, so watch ya step, kid.)

So, you have your Peter Parker, who is your Spider-Man. Then you have your Mary Jane (the lovable MJ) Peter/Spider-Man’s love interest and, since 1987, his wife (not yours).

I’ve not been a reader of Spider-Man, and, actually, the “One More Day” arc that I’m about to talk about is the first time I’ve actually read a Spider-Man comic. But I kept up with the lore, and like to say I know my way around the web. But, after reading “One More Day,” I can’t help but feel cheated, as if someone slapped me in the face and said, “NOW you want to start reading Spider-Man? Take this! Haha, everything that’s happened in the past 40 years is GONE!”

The plot of “One More Day” is essentially just that… one more day. One more day of what? Good question.

The answer: Peter has one more day with Mary Jane, because they have made a deal with the Devil (literally) that their marriage will be erased from history so that his Aunt May will live.

That’s right. They gave up their marriage so that Peter’s 90-something year old Aunt won’t die from the gunshot wound meant for Spider-Man.

…

Hmmm.

The “One More Day” arc lasted four issues, and I kind of thought that maybe this will mark the death of Aunt May. That’s the way I wished it would have gone. Instead, they erase Peter’s marriage to MJ and therefore anything that happened because of it. The Devil also erased both of their memories of it ever happening. Peter’s now a bachelor again and lives with Aunt May, effectively hitting the reset button on the Spider-Man comic and starting over (giving new readers a nice place to “jump on.”)

Of course, all of this didn’t happen all-of-uh-sudden. They had some time to think it through. Surprisingly, it wasn’t even Peter who made the final decision, it was Mary Jane, who claimed that their love was so strong nothing could break it, and if it was meant to be they’d find each other again. The most emotional part of the story came with this…

…which is exactly how they spent their one more day. All day. Morning ’till night. [tear]

The Devil made this deal because he’d be denying God the true love He brought together, and he’d hear the agony of MJ and Peter’s souls crying for each other. Aunt May living was of little consequence to him.

But the part of my brain that “won’t let go” to the idea that the older, wiser, married-and-in-love Spider-Man might still be alive somewhere, hangs on this little frame… something whispered to the Devil by Mary Jane, right before everything is made official…

…of course you can’t read it, and so it sparked all kinds of internet theories kind of like Lost has been known to do from time to time. It hasn’t yet been revealed exactly what MJ said, but a few people think it’s this…

“If it means he’ll be happy, I want to remember everything.”

So if you only had one more day with the person you love most, before you knew both of your memories would be wiped and you wouldn’t remember each other, what would you do? Make the most of it? Go get ice cream? Or hold onto each other for as long as possible?