A piece of art has found its way onto the internet that is sure to cause a few gaskets to get blown.
It might be real, it might just be another Marvel ruse, we have no way of knowing yet. Either way, it’s going to cause a stir.
Click through to see the image.
Thanks to The Dude for pointing it out to us.
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…….
Holy crap
Poor Peter. If this is true. But as Joss Whedon likes to point out, stuff needs to have real consequences if you really want people to care. People die. Wonder what Mr. Stark will say about that.
eh I don’t buy it.
lest not forget the fake Cassaday Phoenix cover
and how Quesada admitted in SD that they like to use the web to throw fans off their scent – my guess is this is fake and they’re really going to kill speedball…really this time
Or as Ron has pointed out on several occasions, covers don’t necessarily hold exactly that which is inside. So perhaps this is a rendition of Peter’s greatest fear or something.
Either way though, that’s a great piece visually.
Egad! I wonder if she’ll be buried next to the late Foggy Nelson, whose tombstone I saw on a similar cover earlier this year.
(I ain’t losin’ any sleep over this one just yet.)
Not buying it. I read on newsarama awhile back that although quesada doesn’t like the idea of Spider-Man married, he wouldn’t have them divorce and he wouldn’t kill her. So…
I really like MJ as a character, but now if they want to kill her off in the Spider-Man 3 movie, I’d have no problem watching Bryce Dallas Howard for the next several films instead of Kristen Dunst.
This just seems like to much of an easy out.
BTW, isn’t Foggy not really dead?
Didn’t they kill Aunt May a couple times already? I would love to see this happen, if it were true, just so we can see Peter go friggin ballistic.
Does anyone know who’s art that is?
Isn’t Aunt May a Doombot now?
heh
I was wondering who the artist was too – I assume its McNiven, but I don’t think it is…it almost looks like Scott Kolins
As a Scott Kollins aficionado:-)….I concur. It does look like his art.
Which begs the questions…..Why would Kollins be doing drawing this? If it is his, it might have something more to do with the Beyond mini.
**SPOILERS**
Spiderman died in the first issue so maybe this has something to do with that?
You know, I’ve seen a lot of people say things to the effect of “they’ve killed Aunt May fifty times,” but I don’t think that’s actually true at all. As far as I know, she has “only” died once. There was a weird kidnapping faked-death thing around #200, but it lasted like two issues and didn’t fool anybody.
She may still be a Doombot, mind you. She used to be about as sturdy as a saltine, and now she doesn’t even need to check in with her doctor. I hope she’s not a Skrull.
Wait: I hope she is a Skrull.
BTW, isn’t Foggy not really dead?
Yeah; I’ve been told my sense of humor is a bit dry.
I can’t believe there would be much shock about this. They’ve been saying FOREVER they want Spider-Man single and that they can’t accomplish it by a divorce. And they’ve been telegraphing the move in ASM with all of Peter’s “I’ll kill you if anything happens to MJ or Aunt May” speeches to Iron Man.
Man, I’ll be so happy if this is true…
“Happy” might be a strong choice of words, but you know what I mean.
I know where you’re coming from Conor, I really do.
Life has been waaaaay to nice to Peter lately. Finacial Stability, Aunt and Wife both know his secret so there’s no more hiding it, He lives in the freakin’ Avengers Tower, He’s part of the best Marvel U Super Team, AND he’s the right hand man to Tony Stark.
It’s about time someone took him down a peg, back to the Emo-Peter that we know and love.
(P.S.: Guess who just got let out of Prison, thanks to the agency known as SHIELD?
That’s right. Norman Osborn. Most likely candidate for the killer? I think so.
Maybe peter bought it discount in advance, and it’s very tired of carrying it all the way from the store to the Stark Tower
him and matt are having a contest to see who can have the most dead girlfriends.
I buy it. Makes sense with Civil War and the unmasking. Because it was such a strong deviation from the character that we all recognize as Peter, I think this would bring him back to what we think of Spiderman as…
Lonely, painfully aware of the responsibility of his power, coping with the loss of a loved one. Right back to the Peter Parker that we all remember, except, you know, unmasked.
I think it’s a good storytelling point. Osbourne would be the first person you’d think of. Maybe Venom though, as his movie is coming up and he’s been absent from comics for a while.
Oh, and Ron, Speedball’s not going to die. That’s more my hope than a prediction, but still.
I say off with her head! I don’t have a personal hatred for MJ, but I hope this thing is real. If they can come up with something else for MJ, I am all for that too. What does she contribute to Spider-man? Aunt May was the one who convinced Peter to unmask, MJ pretty much sat in the background worrying. In fact that seems to be her only role in the Spider-man books, she worries about him. Yeah, that weighs on Peter when he suits up to fight the good fight, but if that is all there is to MJ then she is has become pretty one-dimensional. Am I wrong?
It’s already been said above that actions need to have consequences or we start to care less about them. Peter unmasked and there has to be a cost. Although, this does seem to be the most obvious price to pay for the unmasking.
Now who should do the deed? I think it would have to be someone who didn’t know Pete was Spider-man before he unmasked. Its makes the death a direct result of the unmasking, which puts some blame of Peter. Norman Osborn has had plenty of time to grab up MJ and toss her off a bridge, but he hasn’t. Besides it would be too much of a repeat of Gwen Stacy’s death. Bullseye was on the cover of Civil War #5 and he has a history of offing the significant others of super-heroes. However, he doesn’t have much of a history as a Spidey villain. Doc Ock? Maybe. Personally, I would like it to be someone who is established, but someone who hasn’t had his chance to shine. The current Venom, who used to be the Scorpion (is that right?) could take advantage of the current situation to elevate his status from a B-villain to A class.
I don’t think that MJ is gonna die, but she gets very badly hurt.
MJ gets hurt during a fight with a villian. Spiderman gets angry, conforts Tony about how his “war” is hurting the people he loves. Tony doesn’t care and says these things happen. Tells Peter to get over it. Peter gets pissed storms out of the room. Captain America sends a “get well soon” card. Peter thinks that he has been on the wrong side and decides to join Cap.
Peter has been on the fence about registration since day one. We know someone is going to switch sides, so this is the event that pushes Peter to Cap’s side.
I think Mike Wieringo agrees with you: http://www.mikewieringo.com/html/Blog.htm
I’m not going to lie, I’ll miss Mary Jane if she dies. The only reason I think it would be best to keep Mary Jane alive is because her death would be a little redundant. Peter’s already had an intimate lover die, so that storyline has been done before. Plus, emo-Peter is always better when he has a fanboy fantasy to cheer him up.
Does anyone think Peter would quit the Avengers over MJ getting killed? Peter is going to need extra help keeping Aunt May safe. He needs the Avengers or SHIELD for that. Could you imagine Hercules acting as May’s bodyguard at her weekly Bingo game? How would you react to a dark Spider-man being the token bitter and disgruntled Avenger?
It would be an opportunity for a great story. And I agree, they have been telegraphing it a bit lately so maybe it will happen. It will be funny to see though if they do this and then retcon the unmasking and leave the mj death because they’ve wanted it all along. BTW, it would be great to see a Tony/Peter fight to the death.
that Peter wins
oh yeah and dead means dead
I was thinking about that earlier: if they killed off Mary Jane in this post-Dark Knight era, I worry that Spider-Man would become the new Nineties Batman. Dark and brooding and humorless and brutal. I mean, a man can only lose so many loved ones to goofballs in masks.
before he goes crazy and wears a beret?
matt murdock
I wasn’t thinking he would go Punisher-level grim. I was thinking he would be a hero with the same principles, but he wouldn’t crack as many jokes.
Which would be the realistic way to handle the death of your supermodel wife.
But would a darker Spidey make fans of the character (and who amongst us isn’t a Spider-man fan) whine because it isn’t the character they know. How could they spin a grim Peter in a compelling way?
If Peter’s wife died and he was anything other than grim, I’d whine and drop the book.
I need emotional realism. You can’t be happy-go-lucky and cracking wise all the time.
I agree that emotional realism is one of the most important components of a well-told story. On the other hand, Marvel tried their hand at the grim, traumatized, pushed-past-the-limit Spider-Man a few years ago and ended up with the Clone Saga; even in the hands of J.M. Demattias he just ended up coming across like a jackass. Belted MJ in the mouth one time, if memory serves.
The three main questions are: 1) how important is it to Spider-fans that Peter be “likable” or “enjoyable company”? 2) How important is that to the essence of the character? 3) How well can the current writers write a Peter like that?
It would be very easy for this particular move to wreck Spider-Man as a character, even worse than marrying him off in the first place.
You know what I miss more and more? When Spider-Man had, like, a supporting cast. No, Jarvis doesn’t count. I miss the Bugle, and Peter’s neighbors, and the girls he was going out with and his circle of civilian friends. This “yessir, Mr. Iron Man sir!” crap has really gotten old.
It would be very easy for this particular move to wreck Spider-Man as a character, even worse than marrying him off in the first place.
I don’t believe that showing someone grieving and angry over the death of his wife is wrecking a character, at all. It would be emotionally dishonest to portray him any other way.
Some might argue that Spider-Man has been wrecked for years…
Okay, I would argue that.
I prefer the Ultimate Spider-Man 1,000,000x more than the “real” Spider-Man.
I don’t believe that showing someone grieving and angry over the death of his wife is wrecking a character, at all. It would be emotionally dishonest to portray him any other way.
I agree with that, IF you tell that story in the first place. I think my ability to articulate is failing me today. What am I actually trying to get across here?…
To put it another way: the only true way to deal with the murder of Mary Jane would be to write Peter as grieving, angry, short-fused, emotionally wrecked, but is that really the Spider-Man story anybody wants to read for two years? Like, Ed Brubaker could have Daredevil get the Captain Universe powers and fly off to Asgard to help Odin repel an invasion by the Brood, and in his hands it could be a very compelling, well-written story, but it’s not what people buy Daredevil for. I’m just wondering how much of the reaction to this possible Spidey story might be, “This is well done, but my God it’s depressing. This is not what I liked Spider-Man for; if I’d wanted this, I would have been reading the Punisher or Batman.”
It probably sounds like I want to put characters in static boxes and demand nothing but the familiar from them, but all I’m really trying to say is that even a good writer writing emotionally true stories can stretch a character until it breaks. You could get some good Spider-Man stories out of this MJ possibility (and much more plausible ones than my pitch for Space Daredevil) but it would also be very, very, very easy to screw up.
I see what you’re both saying here.
On the one hand, change is good, and it’s one way to get things moving with the character.
On the other hand, there is a reason that people like Spider-Man and it’s precisely because he isn’t like Daredevil. I don’t want to read a bereaved Peter Parker for 2 years at all. There are enough characters like that. However, if you off MJ, he’s got to be sad about it for a while. There’s no other way around it that makes sense.
Given all that, it’s a very fine line. But then, I’m not sure what stake I have in this, in that I don’t normally buy Spider-Man books. I’m only buying ASM during Civil War. I have every issue of USM though, so what does that say about the need for a change?
I’m not saying Spider-Man needs to change, just that if they kill off his wife they better show some realistic emotions for a while.
Oh! What if it’s just this?:
http://newsarama.com/WW_Chicago_06/Marvel/reign/andrews.html
Jimski, you got the point across that I was generalizing, thank you. I would like to believe very real stories can be told through comic book characters. I like to believe they can be treated as human beings and not only archetypes. I think comic book story telling has been working towards that for a long time. Does the current cast of Spider-man writers have what it takes to write an angry and hurt Peter Parker? One that we can feel sympathy for and not be irritated by. Do we want them to take the character in that direction or are there some parts of his psyche we should never see? If grim and dark Spider-man cannot be done, then maybe there is little left in the character to evolve. I like to think these characters do not have a point where they peek. A time when all of the stories that can be told through the character get told and there is no where else to go. Giving Peter a family didn’t work very well at the end of the Clone Saga, but when it appeared in Spider-girl fans didn’t object. The Clone Saga has been retconned (and we are all happy with that), but when that happens a certain degree of legitimacy gets lost. It makes the characters seem more like a product/property than a piece of fiction.
I am going into teaching and this is the kind of thinking that I do. At some point I would like to use comics to teach story-telling and character development. I am preparing to make an argument for comics in an English lesson that can convince my principal to let me do it.