AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #638

ONE MOMENT IN TIME Part 1 & 2

The questions have been haunting readers throughout Spider-Man’s Brand New Day and now the answers are here in four double-sized issues! What really happened at the wedding of Spider-Man and Mary Jane? What does Mary Jane know about Spider-Man today? How did ONE MORE DAY affect the Marvel U? Joe Quesada and Paolo Rivera are here to pull back the curtain and fill in every blank…but the answers may come at a cost to all that Peter Parker loves. This 4-part arc will hold answers, resolutions, and set up the course of Spider-Man’s life for years to come…

…and all will be revealed with a whisper.

And in Part 2, it’s Mary Jane’s turn to come clean. What secrets has she been keeping? And who REALLY saved Aunt May? You may think you know the answer, but you’re about to find out the truth!

WRITER: Joe Quesada & Stan Lee
PENCILS: Paolo Manuel Rivera, Joe Quesada & Marcos Martin
COVER BY: Paolo Rivera

Price: $3.99
iFanboy Community Pick of the Week Percentage: 0.7%

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  1. Very excited for this.

  2. i’m very cautious on this one… not gonna put too much expectation, especially after the awesome Gauntlet and Grim Hunt arcs.

  3. I wish Marvel would leave this alone. The pro-marriage peeps are never going agree with Joe Q. Marvel just aren’t selling a product their interested in (which is a little silly of them. Spider-man Forever maybe?)

    I’m in for this because what I’ve picked up of BND I’ve mostly enjoyed, plus when people complain about it, I’ll have my own opinion first.

    I think OMD was the worst story every written, needs less editorial "ideas" more "actual plot". Sins Past was a well written, story that didn’t work. One More Day was just silly.

    Hopefully this will answer all the questions people have.

     

  4. I’m looking forward to getting answers finally….I just hope its not really stupid :p

     Also, I really like this cover!

  5. These questions have not haunted me throughout Brand New Day. I have been haunted by the question, "What if they go back and try to explain all this?" I have an open mind, but not open arms.

  6. Havent read it since BND and won’t start now.  Rather spend my money on Ultimate Spiderman.  I know some people love this title and I respect that, but I choose to spend my $$ on other titles after Joe Q and his band of merry writers couldn’t get creative enough to improve Spiderman without erasing years of history.  Just my thing.

  7. I’m one of the ones who thought that OMD was a horrible from a place of storytelling and character, but it gave us the past few years of BND, which have been amazing. I liked JMS’s Peter Parker, MJ and May, but I kind of hated his Spider-Man. I’ve absolutely loved almost everything about the relaunched series. 

     I think that Quesada will do a good job here, since he knows how rabid the fanbase has been about this issue. I also think he took it on himself because he feels like he dug this hole, and he didn’t want to put the head on any of the wonderful writers that are currently on the book. I’m looking forward to it, and I’m expecting to enjoy it.  

  8. Avatar photo captamerica101 (@Autobot_Hunter) says:

     Does anyone else think this feels like one more day part two?

  9. @captamerica101: Starting to feel that way, yes.

  10. I’m not sure how pro marraige the anti-OMD people are as they are anti editorial mandates and recons. I think the average reader is marture enough to deal with a Spidey divorce or even MJ’s death. But instead they pretty much told us that the last twenty years of Spiderman never happened.

     When the clone saga came out I was young and I really didn’t understand what the fuss was about. But the other day it finally hit me. Marvel basically told their readers that there years of investment in stories didn’t happen or weren’t real. OMD did the say thing. I still read amazing when something catches my eye. But is was and is a lap in the face. Hopefully. OMIT brings closure. 

  11. @lukerpher: I dunno, from the e-mails we get and the people posting on the internet, for a lot of people it is about the marriage.

  12. Yes!!  That Gauntlet rubbish is finally over?!  I was so about to finally pick up Amazing Spidey again for the first time since the Rhino arc until you said it was OMD #2.  I never read OMD, so I’d be really confused…

  13. One More Day actually had excellent art and a well told story, people just wanted Peter to stay married.  Though the story was not "Horrible."  You either go with it, or don’t.  Horrible quality would be something like "Ultimatum," etc.

  14. Bear with me this is gonna be long.  I was never opposed to MJ and Peter breaking up if it happened organically, say for example MJ can’t handle being on the run anymore and divorces Peter so she can live her own life.  OMD was like using a sledgehammer when all you needed was a screwdriver. 

    That said there’s been some pretty good stories that have happened since. Shed, Grim Hunt, New Ways To Die, the Rhino two parter are great, but it wasn’t all POTW material the moment OMD ended.  BND started off pretty rough and there have been some stinkers over the last few years.

     That said the only way I’m gonna consider picking up OMIT is if this gets really, really good reviews.  With the rumors going around that ASM won’t be 3x a month anymore and that Spidey and MJ will be back together in some way by the end of OMIT this might be worth looking into.  Otherwise, I’m not gonna pay 3.99 to be disappointed again like I was at the end of OMD.

  15. @robbydzwonar

    You should really check out the last two arcs, they were fantastic….but then again I liked the Gauntlet as a whole…… as far as OMD goes all you really need to know is Peter and Mary Jane were married, then Peter made a deal with the devil (Mephisto) to save Aunt May (who had been shot by an assasin hired by the Kingpin) that erased Peter and MJ being married from ever happening….oh and Mary Jane whispered something into Mephisto’s ear that we never found out….so then BAM, Peter and MJ not married, Harry Osborn is alive and well, and no one remembers that Peter Parker revealed that he was Spider-man (except somehow MJ still knows). 

  16. I think I figured it out!

    OMD/BND for me = S.W.O.R.D. cancellation for everyone else

     

  17. @Cubman987 Go back and check dude.  It was never said who made the deal with Mephisto and as they were both there and you stated the MJ whisper I’m more likely to believe she made the deal than Pete. 

       As for the change in general….everyone quit your bitching they are comics everything goes back to the way you like it just be patient!  Hal Jordan is Green Lantern again, Barry Allen is the Flash again, Mutants are being born again,Tony Stark is no longer a 15 year old kid(Look it up it’s horrible),  and Pete & MJ will be back together again.  The reason I know this is no matter what happens in the book  a few years down the line some editor will come in and say…"Pete and MJ should be married. That’s how it was when I was young." and change it again upsetting all the newer fans that have no concept of that relationship. Those are my 2 cents.

  18. @DamonS23: I agree with your premise.  In all seriousness, do you think that Marvel will ever acknowledge the existence of the spider-baby (i.e., Pete and MJ’s kid from the end of the clone saga)?

  19. @ctrosejr

    If there’s a good story to tell, why not.

    Remember in 1987 DC’s published Son of the Demon where we had rumors of Batman and Talia’s lovechild. Nearly twenty years later we have Damien and we’re happy.

  20. @ctrosejr Have you ever heard of a little title call Spider-girl?  She has been floating around the MU for a while as to weather or not she become a part of the on going cont. I don’t know.

  21. The writers on this book are what really intrigue me. Joey Q and Stan the Man. color me interested as hell

  22. @Smasher: Exactly!  I think enough time has past (in real time) that we could actually bring back the spider-baby, especially if they dealt with the fact that she was kidnapped by Norman Osborn.  Of course, for the baby to exist, Pete and MJ had to have had sex.  Did Mephisto also undo their sex lives or just their marriage?  I’m saying the baby could still exist.

    @DamonS23: To your point, Spider-girl is not in the 616, so while I appreciate the subtle acknowledgement that Peter and MJ had a kid, I don’t think that counts.  I haven’t read too much Spider-girl, do you know if they ever explained her origin in that title?

  23. I hope they do their silly continuity-clean up quickly and just leave Joe Kelly to keep writing amazing stories. On the heels of Grim Hunt, I can’t help but expect this to be garbage, and for it to sour me overall on spider-man.

  24. @KickAss OMD was well written only in the sense that if you accept everything as told, the voices and moments ring true. I just thought that the decisions – a deal with the devil! – were against the Peter Parker we’ve known for years. As I said, it took us to a great place with great stories, but it was a storytelling decision that undercut the stories that came before it in a pretty serious way. 

    The saving grace, though, is the commentary that came in the OMD hardcover. The point was made that during BND, Peter would seem a bit off, a bit despondent. This was to never be addressed explicitly, but it was noted that the writers should write it as subtext for having just list his wife, his life. 

    Anyway, I’ll reserve judgement, but this is definitely the book I’m most looking forward to this week (aside from the already-released Scott Pilgrim). 

  25. For those OMD/BND detractors, of which I include myself, if Marvel completely un-did OMD/BND with the OMIT storyline, would you be happy?  If Peter somehow awoke from a "dream" (ala Bobby on Dallas) to find his life magically back the way it was, would you be pleased?  

    For those people who like OMD/BND, would the above dream scenario piss you off because it would invalidate the last how ever many years of post-BND stories?  

    If I were to answer my own question, I would say that I would be happy if Peter awoke to find his life restored.  BND has not been that good of a ride for Peter, or me.  Peter’s life has pretty much sucked these past few years.  And, while there were a few great stories (SHED, American Son), I don’t think there is a single story that I would be heartbroken to "lose" from continuity.  And, to be honest, I have felt that BND was always going to be explained away at some point, so I never got too attached, if you know what I mean.  So, yeah, I still want the marriage back. 

  26. @DamonS23

    I don’t need to go back and check, the premise of the story was that Peter made the deal, with MJ agreeing with it….there is no deal if Peter doesn’t go along with it.  Now MJ may have and probably did change the deal somehow with her whisper and I suppose that they can say that the whisper made the deal actually between Mephisto and MJ, but as far as info for what you need to know going into this story what I said was accurate.

  27. @ctrosejr If you haven’t enjoyed the majority of BND, sour grapes about how we got here aside, I don’t really know what to tell you. It’s been Spider-Man at his best. But to just undo all of it with "it was all a dream" or something would be just as much of a slap in the face to fans as OMD was, and it would be even more damaging, since it would further a precedent into a standard. 

    I don’t like that OMD happened, but it did, and now I’d just like for it to make sense in the context of these characters. Because, frankly, what Mary Jane has been in BND is one of the few low points, character wise. I get that the team might not want to feature her too much, since ti would be rubbing salt in wounds, literary and message board, but when she’s shown up, she hasn’t felt like the strong, mature character from the JMS run. She’s had her moments, of course, but it’s mostly felt like she’s a prop, which wasn’t really the case before all this started. 

    I still haven’t gotten to the store to read this, but I just wanted to chime in and say that as someone with what I think are reasonable issues about OMD, seeing it wiped clean is about the last thing I would want. 

  28. Just read it, top of the stack. Color me disappointed. Oh well, maybe next issue will be better.

  29. @kndoubleu: We’ll have to agree to disagree on when Spider-Man is at his best, but I totally sympothize with the position that un-doing OMD at this point would be as bad as doing it in the first place.  Like thermonuclear war, when it comes to fucking with continuity, the only smart move is never to begin.  I guess that’s why I asked the question.  It’s a lesser-of-two-evils type deal.  There’s no right answer.

  30. From everything I’ve read they have no intentions of undoing OMD….they are just explaining it and there is always the possibility that Peter and MJ can get back together and maybe even married again someday but for now I do not believe they have intentions of undoing it.

  31. Yeesh! I went in not expecting to like it, but this was pretty bad. Quesada’s art seemed really shoddy to me this issue, Peter’s face was inconsistent panel-to-panel (one panel Pete looks suspiciously like Quesada) in some panels MJ’s head is wide and round, other long and narrow. The framing sequence seemed to be playing off the flashback, but unless I wasn’t paying enough attention there didn’t seem to be much correlation. But the most disappointing thing is that this was the best they could drum up to keep Peter from the wedding? Dull and uninspired. 2/5 

  32. I missed OMD, but started buying most of the trades of Brand New Day and the gauntlet issues.  The series is probably my favorite superhero title, and this was the first storyarc I was not looking forward to.   I found the interweaving of older story really hard to read, as it felt very disjointed in tone.  I gave it a 3/5.  At least the Marcos Martin art in the back made me smile.

  33. The third page was really funny, as it’s a full page close-up of Mary Jane’s weird looking face, which freaked me out when I first turned to it. It’s funny how she askes on that same page "You’re freaked out, aren’t you?" Yes, MJ…I sure was.

  34. today i break my vow of silence …..today i stop reading spider-man…fuck you Quesada the nerve to draw spidey like your fat ass  /// okay im better i quit marvel goodnight

  35. Honestly, I want to see where it goes, but my immediate reaction as I read it was something along the lines of…WTF?????????????????

  36. I didn’t think it was as bad as the rest of you seem to, but I think the reason reactions look like this is that there was a lot of pressure for this arc to be strong, and after one issue, they laid an egg.

  37. Peter parker and MJ are chunky in this.  I love how in the old art MJ looks mature and like a woman, but in the new art she looks younger and with an extra 20lbs of chubby teen fat.  WTF?

    We get it.  Shit was reset.  Stop throwing it in our faces all the time.  Even the people who liked OMD and BND are tired of being reminded that they used to be married before Mephistogeddon took place.

  38. Ironically I thought the new scenes between Peter and MJ was one of the best part of the book. I wish Paulo Rivera had drawn them then there would be one bit I enjoyed.

    No, Rivera’s art was good, the story wasn’t. Peter and MJ talk like a couple who’ve been through a lot, but honestly they work as couple for me, far more than anyone else and Peter. They connect. I wasn’t anti-BND when it started, but this has shown me Peter and MJ should be together, both have personal issues that force them to put on a happy alter ego, but when they’re together, there themselves. JQ in trying to seperate them has made me an Peter/MJ shipper. Also I think at SDCC someone asked "when will Peter and MJ" get back together and they were told to read this 😉 Marvel don’t hint at things that aren’t going to happen. Three years ago I had never read a DC book, but stuff like this is slowly making me a DC zombie, because it’s cop out after cop out.

    The whisper as "don’t bother peter"…why was that such a big mystery.

    Sorry this turned into a rant by mistake. I guess this bothered me more than I thought. The annual pages were nice, shame I already own it. I think I got it for 50p off Ebay 8 years ago.

  39. The more I think about this issue the more I don’t like it…….I guess I need to stop thinking about it.

  40. I did not like that OMD happened, I’ve moved on from that but it’s fair game to bring up not liking it again when stuff like this comes up to bring it right back up.  Interesting idea behind it but I did not like the execution the characters seemed too clunky in it and I did not enjoy it at all especially after all the hype up leading to it’s release.  The story definitely gets 2 stars from me.

  41. Using the art of Paolo Rivera for this arc (as little as it was actually used, that is) is like putting a really gorgeous band aid over a really nasty scar after you’ve picked it open. Stop revisiting the shitty points of Spider-Man’s past. We hate them for a reason.

  42. I’m fascinated by the hate for this. I thought most people were over the whole thing. Oh well, I suppose if you bring up these painful memories people are liable to get angry/upset again.

    I personally have really enjoyed the whole of BND. Can you really imagine Spider-Man being a divorcee? I know I can’t. It would be bloody ridiculous. It wasn’t an elegant way of getting Peter back to his roots, but it worked well enough. 

    AS far as the issue goes, I haven’t read it yet, but I am very interested to see the ramifications of OMD.

  43. @har12quin

    My hate for this has nothing to do with BND, I’ve liked it for the most part.  My hate stems from the fact that the big reveal is absolutely nothing, most of the book is a reprint, and the reason Spider-man doesn’t get married is because a fat guy falls on him…..it was just not well done at all.

  44. This story is absolute scum. OMD was idiotic enough, but O.M.I.T. in just one issue has made the worst story written in comics seem even more deplorably stupid than it was before.

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