Powers & Panels Show - Spiderman - One More Day - Episode #7

From the cosmic chaos of World War Hulk 💥, the heartbreak of The Death of Superman 🦸, the breaking of the Bat in Knightfall 🦇, the dystopian nightmare of X-Men: Days of Future Past 🌀⚡, and the psychological terror of Kraven's Last Hunt 🕷️🔥 — Blaze and Zoey are back, and this week they're swinging into one of the most controversial, heartbreaking, and universe-rewriting moments in Marvel history: One More Day 🕷️💔

It's the story that erased a marriage — and divided a fandom forever. 😨

Mary Jane Watson. Peter Parker's wife, his partner, his person. And Aunt May — the woman who raised him, dying from a bullet meant for Spider-Man. 💔 The Kingpin has always lurked in the shadows of Peter's world, but in Amazing Spider-Man #544–545, it's not a supervillain who delivers the final blow — it's a deal with the devil himself. Mephisto. The result? A gut-punch of a story that shattered the life Peter Parker had built, wiped his marriage from existence, and reset one of Marvel's most beloved characters in a way fans are still arguing about today 🪦. No heroic sacrifice. No clean ending. Just loss — complicated, controversial, and permanent. 😰

Blaze and Zoey dig into what makes One More Day one of the most talked-about — and debated — stories in Spider-Man history: the impossible choice at the heart of the story ⚔️, the fierce fan backlash that followed publication 🕸️, J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada's creative clash behind the scenes 😈, and why this 2007 storyline still sparks arguments more than 15 years later 📖✨

🛒 SHOP THE STORY: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Support the show by grabbing these classics at the links below:

📖 Read the Comic: 🔗 Spider-Man: One More Day Hardcover → https://amzn.to/4oqqZ7U 🔗 Spider-Man: One More Day Paperback → https://amzn.to/4eACs17 🔗 Spider-Man: One More Day Omnibus Vol. 2 → https://amzn.to/4usGAFe

🎵 MUSIC CREDITS: Music from #Uppbeat: https://uppbeat.io License code: HUS7OXD9DBYXOCNO

🎙️ Next time on Powers & Panels: stay tuned for another deep dive into the stories that defined comics! Subscribe so you don't miss it! 🚀

Music from #Uppbeat: uppbeat.io License code: HUS7OXD9DBYXOCNO

Music from #Uppbeat: uppbeat.io
License code: HUS7OXD9DBYXOCNO

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:30

We're back! Welcome back to Powers and Channel, it's your comics universe, old and new. Episode 7 is here! And I have to say, I'm still glad that we are in the Spider-Man neighborhood of things. And we asked you a hard question a couple weeks back. And the question was whether Peter Parker and Glenn Stacy had a future, whether without the map, they could have made it. And you answered, and the word responses in the comments split almost exactly in half. Which is the most honest possible outcome one could expect. Because the honest answer is we do not know. We will never know, and I think a lot of you felt that. Some of you said yes, that Peter without Spider-Man is just a brilliant kid queen who would have fought through that relationship with everything you have. And some of you said no, that the tragedy that was always inside him, that the yield, the responsibility, and the weight of being Spider-Man, uh, would have found another shape to break him. So I would agree with both answers. I think both of them are right. And I mean, again, we will never know. So the other thing about this is that that just makes Len Stacy's story still relevant. So before I go any further, I do want to bring in my trusty sidekick, Zoe. Um, she has always great takes, and looking forward to hearing what she has to say. So hey Zoe, welcome back. We're on episode 7. Let's still be in the Spider-Man neighborhood of things. And I'm gonna get your take on that quest from last week. And also, it's always great to see you. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Hello, Blaze! Good to see you, and wow, we are back. Okay. Okay, first of all, I am still not okay from last episode. I want you to know that I was not prepared for this now. I was told this would be comics. Nobody told me it would be a philosophy lecture about the randomness lost delivered via sequential or I had to go for a walk. I went for a walk because of comic books from 1973, and I am not embarrassed about that. The listener who said Peter without the mask would have found another way to lose her, that he would have driven her away, or she would have been hit by a bus, or the universe just does not let Peter Parker have nice things. That person got inside my head and has not left. That is a genuinely bleak worldview, and I think they might be right, and I resent them for it. But okay. Welcome everyone to Powers and Panels episode seven. We are so glad you are here. And Blaze has told me that today's episode is not going to make me sad. He said, and I am quoting directly, this one is going to make you angry, which is a different thing entirely. And honestly, I'm more prepared for angry.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Okay, people, you heard it. Uh I think Zoe is more prepared for angry today. And that's going to be tested because I want to take a breath before I get into this one too. But for a different reason than our last episode. That last episode was about Greek. This one is more complicated. This one is generally legitimately complicated because the story is not a thing but where a beloved, you know, girlfriend dies at the villain's hands, and when Stacy's death was horrible, this story is a controversy, it's a debate, it's a rupture, and it has been for almost 20 years. One of the most divisive, creative decisions in the history of Marvel Comics. We're talking about one more day. We have also Sensational Spider-Man 24, and Sensational Spider-Man 41, and Amazing Spider-Man 545. All published uh from October to December of 2007, written by J. Michael Strazinski, with the final issue co-written and plotted by Joe Coseda, who was also the editor in chief of Marvel Comics at the time, and who penciled the entire story arc. Four issues, seven, you know, four issues actually 19 years ago, almost 19 years ago, and the internet has not fully forgotten it or forgiven it. Let's get into it. Okay, so let me tell you about a story that did not break Peter Parker. It erased him. Not the man, but the marriage and the history behind that marriage. 20 years of continuity, uh compressed and dissolved by a deal with the devil, a literal devil. And the reason this story is still fought over everywhere comics are discussed is because the people who hated it and the people who defended it are both you know responding to something real. One more day, four issues, and we're gonna cover that today. So before I tell you what happened, I need to tell you what had existed because one more day does not make sense, not as a story, not as a controversy, unless you understand what it dismantled. Now, Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson got married in amazing Spider-Man annual number 21 published in 1987. So they were they've been married essentially for 20 years before One More Day uh came out. And by the time we arrive at 2007, that marriage is low-bearing because it's not a subplot, it's part of the architecture of who Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, is Mary Jane Watson is not well, Mary Jane Parker, I should say, as they're married, is not just his wife. She is the person who was there after Gwen Stacy, the person who knew the worst of him and stayed. Their relationship has been tested, it's been strained, nearly broken, and rebuilt across two decades of stories. And what has emerged is the partnership between two adults who genuinely choose each other, and that is very rare in superhero comics. That is something real, and for a significant portion of the Spider-Man readership, that marriage is the reason they kept reading. So now we jump to the context, okay, behind what all uh led to some of these things happening. So we're we're going into prior to one more day, Marble had run a company-wide crossover event called Civil War. And the premise was the superhero registration act, a law requiring all superpowered individuals to register with the government and reveal their identities. Okay. Okay, so now Iron Man supported registration, Captain America opposed it. The Marvel Universe was literally split down the middle, and Spider-Man, in one of the most consequential decisions of his life, was publicly unmasked on national television in support of Tony Stark's pro-registration position. Peter Parker, who had protected his secret identity for his entire career, because protecting it also protected the people he loved, stood in front of cameras and told the world his real name. So the fallout was both immediate and severe because within the Marvel Universe, this made Peter and his family the targets. A sniper. Now, Aunt May, who is in the Spider-Man mythology, the closest thing to a sacred figure, as she is Peter's last living connection to his childhood, to the Parker's, to everything that made him who he is before he was bitten by that spider, and the dead uncle and the mask. Now she is elderly, she is warm, she has spent decades loving Peter with everything she has without knowing the full cost of what he carries. And now she's in the hospital bed in a coma, dying. And there's nothing Peter can do. Every doctor, every resource, every hero in the Marvel Universe, he has asked them all. There's no medical answer. The bullet is in the place, no surgeon can safely reach. She is going to most likely die. Now that is where we begin. Not with the mask, not with a battle, not with a villain monologue, with Peter Parker sitting in a hospital corridor watching the woman who raised him dying because he made a choice he thought was right and someone he loves is paying a price for it. The guilt is not a metaphor, it is specific and it is crushing. And that is when Mephisto Mephisto shows up, excuse me. Now, for those of you who don't know, Mephisto in a Marvel universe is effectively the devil. Not a metaphor for the devil, a literal demonic entity who deals in souls and who has across decades of Marvel storytelling been one of the most dangerous figures any hero can encounter precisely because his power is not physical. He does not punch you, he offers you things. He finds the thing you want most and he offers it to you, and the price is something you cannot afford to pay. Now he has appeared in Silver Surfer stories and ghostwriter stories and countless Marvel Tales as the embodiment of the corrupting deal maker. The price he asks is always, always worse than it appears. Now, Peter and Mary Jane have exhausted every option. There are no miracles available, Aunt May is dying, and the clock is running out. And Mephisto appears to both of them together with an offer. So Amazing Spider-Man 544, the issue opens with Peter in full crisis mode, not a Spider-Man, not in a costume, not fighting anything or anyone, just a man in the hospital corridor who is losing his aunt and he cannot stop it. And what Strazinski does in the opening pages is something that takes real confidence as a writer. He slows everything down. There's no action, there's no villain. There's just Peter Parker exhausted, sitting with the weight of knowing that someone he loves is dying because of a choice he made. The unmasking uh during Civil War was his choice, his fault. That framing is not subtle and is not meant to be. So before Mephisto ever enters the picture, um, Peter does what Peter always does. He tries everything. And I want to walk you through this because the creative team put real work into showing the full extent of Peter's desperation, and it matters for understanding why the deal feels possible at all when it arrives. He goes to Tony Stark first, Iron Man, the man um Peter publicly stood beside during Civil War, the man whose side Peter chose when he unmasked. And Tony cannot help. The resources of Stark Industries, the most advanced medical technology in the Marvel universe, none of it is equal to what happened to Aunt May. Tony is not different. He is genuinely sorry, but sorry does not change the prognosis. Next, he goes to Doctor Strange, the sorcerer supreme, the man whose entire purpose is to address what conventional medicine cannot. And Strange, who has pulled off genuine miracles across decades of Marvel storytelling, tells Peter the same thing. There is no magical solution here. The wound is beyond his reach to reverse cleanly. He can offer extensions, temporary measures, but not a cure. Strange is one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel universe, and he is telling Peter Parker that his honor is going to die. That hits hard. So next he goes to Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, the smartest man in the Marvel Universe by most measures, a man who has literally rewritten a law of physics on multiple occasions, and Reed tells him the same thing. Where the bullet is placed, the damage that has been done, the the medical reality of what happened, there is no scientific solution for this to fix it. So at least what not one that can be implemented in the time Auntme has left. So three of the most powerful figures in the Marvel universe, the answer is no, no, no. And this sequence matters because it is not lazy writing, it is the story methodically closing every door before the only remaining door opens up. So by the time Mephisto arrives, Peter Parker has genuinely exhausted his alternatives. The deal is not the first option, it is the last one. Now there's also a time travel element that I want to address briefly because um it is in the story and it is most important. Peter, through means I will not detail here, is able to briefly visit moments in his own past. He sees himself and Mary Jane younger, he sees the texture of what they built together, and crucially, he encounters a future version of himself, an older Peter, weathered and alone, who has lived without her, and this vision is ambiguous. It is not a prophecy, but it is a story asking Peter and the reader to sit with the question: what does a life without Mary Jane Watson actually look like? The answer the story offers is not a happy one. And that context, that glimpse of the alternative future is part of what makes the deliberation scenes that follow feel weighted rather than rushed. And then Mephisto shows up. He does not announce himself dramatically, he does not appear in fire and brimstone, the way Coseda draws these scenes. Mephisto is almost quiet, very controlled, very patient. And the way a predator is patient when it knows the prey has nowhere left to run. He has been watching. He has waited for exactly this moment when Peter has no other options and the clock is nearly out. The timing is not coincidence. This is how Mephisto operates. He does not create desperation, he finds it and steps into it. The terms are this Mephisto will save Aunt May. He will pull her back from the edge of death, restore her to full health, remove the bullet, erase the damage. She will live, she will be healthy, she will not know anything happened. The price of Peter and Mary Jane's marriage. Not a symbolic price, not a metaphorical metaphorical cost. Mephisto will reach into the timeline and retroactively unmake the marriage, not a divorce and erasure. Peter and Mary Jane will never have been married, the wedding will not have happened. Twenty years of continuity dissolved in one action. The people they were together gone. Their history will be reshaped so that they were always just a couple that almost made it. Okay? But two people who who also cared about each other but could not quite get there. And neither of them will remember what was taken from them. They will not grieve the marriage because they will not know it ever existed. Peter's immediate response is refu refusal, excuse me. Flat heart, no. He tells Mephisto exactly what you would expect Peter Parker to tell him: that he does not make deals with the devil, that Aunt May herself would not want this, that the cost is too high. And Mephisto does not argue with him, he does not push, he simply says, think about it, and he leaves. Which is somehow more disturbing than a hard sale. He is not worried, he knows Peter will come back. Okay? And then Peter goes to Mary Jane because this is their marriage, this is her life, too. And this is where Strazinski's writing is at its most honest and most painful. Peter does not make the decision alone, he brings it to his wife, and the conversation they have across several pages in the quiet of the hospital with Aunt May dying in a room down the hall is one of the most genuinely difficult exchanges in this in the story. Mary Jane does not say yes immediately. She does not say no. She asks the hard questions. What does it mean to accept something from Mephisto? What does it say about who they are if they take this? Are they trading their marriage for Aunt May's life? Or are they trading their souls for the illusion of having done the right thing? So there's a version, okay, where in the the that in the next two issues that is generally powerful, okay, because it it's a big drama. I mean, their deliberation is not a formality. These are two adults who love each other sitting with an impossible choice and refusing to make it easy. Um Peter argues that Aunt May should not die because he a mess, that she is paying for his choice, and he cannot accept that. Mary Jane pushes back at what cost. Every version of this conversation ends the same way. There is no good answer. There's only the choice and the weight that will come from it. And then Mary Jane goes to Mephisto privately. This detail matters enormously because it does not get enough attention where she goes to him alone. She makes a demand, she tells Mephisto, if you want the marriage, you give something back in return. Not to her, but to Peter. She asks that some measure of luck, some residual grace, some quality of fortune that Peter has spent his entire career burning through be returned to him, that he be allowed some of the good life that he has sacrificed for everyone else, that the universe cuts him a small break. Mephisto agrees immediately without negotiation, and the reason he agrees so easily is the reason the whole deal is so disturbing. What he actually wants is not the marriage certificate, it is the love itself. The genuine, extraordinary, hard won love between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. That is the rarest thing in his experience. That is what he is collecting. He says it plainly. So which, you know, if you let yourself engage with it as a demonic fable, and you should, because that reading is the most interesting one. It's genuinely chilling because Mephisto is not interested in paperwork. He's not interested in a legal technicality. He has found something real in a universe full of performance and pretense, and he wants it for himself. The horror of the deal is not the mechanism, it is the mechan what the mechanism reveals about what Peter and Mary Jane had together. So Peter and Mary Jane do agree to Mephisto's deal together, hands touching in the last moments before the deal closes, and there is a child, a vision of the daughter they might have had, a little girl, who appears to them in that final moment and tells them it is okay, that she understands that she. This is a detail that was intended to be poignant and landed for a significant portion of the readership as the most devastating moment in the entire story arc. The child they never had, releasing them from a promise to erase her from possibility, a person who does not exist, yet forgiving them for ensuring she never will. And then the deal closes and everything changes. Amazing Spider Man number 545, the final issue. The world has been reset. Peter Parker wakes up in his old bedroom in Aunt May's house in Queens. He is not married. He and Mary Jane are not together. Harry Osborne, who died in regular continuity, is alive. The unmasking during Civil War has been erased. Nobody knows Peter Parker's Spider-Man. Aunt Maya's downstairs making breakfast. And the next issue of Amazing Spider-Man launches, excuse me, a new era under the branding of Brand New Day. So Peter Parker got everything Mephisto promised. Aunt Maya's alive. His secret identity is restored. His best friend is back. And something is missing that he cannot name, cannot locate, cannot grieve, because he did not know he does not know it's gone. He is haunted by an absence he has no language for. And somewhere, Mary Jane Watson is living the same quiet wrongness, the same sense that the world is almost right but not quite. And neither of them knows why. That is the deal. That is what was exchanged. That is what the story left behind. So I want to spend some time on what was actually happening behind the scenes because One More Day is as much a story about Marvel's editorial direction in 2007 as it is a story about Peter Parker. And understanding the context does not excuse the execution, but explains it in ways that matter. Joe Caseda became editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics in 2000, and from relatively early in his tenure, he had a stated position on the Spider-Man marriage. He did not like it. His argument, which he made publicly and consistently, was that the marriage was an anchor, that it aged Peter Park in a way that made him harder to write as an everyman, that the relatable loneliness and romantic longing that made young Regers connect to Peter was incompatible with him being a married man. He wanted Spider-Man single, he wanted the character returned to a place where a romantic possibility existed again. So this is not an indefensible indefensible editorial position. You can't you can disagree with it, and many people do loudly, but the argument has internal logic. There's a sent version of Peter Parker whose appeal is bound up in the sense that the good things in his life are always just out of reach, always conditional. Marriage changes that equation. Marriage, if written honestly, means someone has chosen to stay. And Casey to believe that cost too much of what made Spider-Man Spider-Man. But here is where the behind the scenes becomes significant.

unknown 25:29

J.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Michael Zruzinski, who had been writing Spider-Man since 2001 and whose run is widely regarded as one of the best of the modern era, has publicly said that he did not want to write one more day as it was ultimately executed. He was deeply unhappy with the editorial mandate to unmake the marriage through a deal with Mephisto. He requested his name be removed from the final issue, a request Marble declined. He has said that he delivered his scripts and that he did the work, but that the story as published was not the story he would have chosen to tell. The final issue in particular bears Crusaders plotting fingerprints most heavily. The significance that is not just gossip. It means that what readers experienced was a story in genuine internal tension. A writer executing a mandate he disagreed with, an editor inserting himself at the creative level, and a result that carries the marks of that conflict. The deliberation scenes in the middle issues feel real because Strazinski was writing them with real ambivalence. The final issue feels very different. It feels rushed, conclusory, reaching for emotional notes the preceding three issues had, not fully prepared, because it was shaped by a different hand that had a different agenda. Now Strazinski's own preference, as he described it, was to have Mary Jane be the one who initiates the separation. To have her tell Peter that she loves him, but she cannot live with the fear of what his life costs to people around him, and that to have, you know, and that would be a real adult devastating breakup. No devil, no magic, just two people who love each other and cannot make it work. That story would have ended the marriage without erasing it. It would have respected the 20 years, it would have let the grief be real. We did not get that story. So one more day is depending on who you ask, either the worst single creative decision in the history of Marvel comics, or um, you know, a a very uh a very necessary reset that allows Spider-Man to breathe again. So I mean this is a this is a thing that has been very divided very divisive um even all these years later. So um there you know, there this is not hyperbole on either side, those are actual, sincerely held positions, and I'm going to give you both of them honestly because the story earns neither easy dismissal nor easy defense. So let me start with the case against it. And I do want to be very specific because the case against One More Day is not simply I like the marriage, the objections are structural, but first the mechanism, having a character make a deal with the devil to undo their own history is at its core a story about a hero choosing to not live with the consequences of their choices. Spider-Man's entire moral architecture is built on consequence. The death of Uncle Ben, the death of Gwen Stacy, the relentless weight of responsibility that Peter carries because he understands more than almost any other character in comics that inaction has a cost. One more day asks you to accept that this same Peter Parker will voluntarily erase 20 years of his life, including his marriage, to the woman he loves, to undo a consequence he set in motion. The argument is that for love for Aunt May makes it incomprehensible. The counter-argument is that Peter Parker, of all people, should know that the magical erasure of consequences is not actually a solution to anything. So secondly, we got the devil. The fact that Peter and Mary Jane take the deal and that the deal sticks means that the devil got exactly what he wanted from two of Marvel's most beloved characters. There's no reversal, there's no long game, he wins, and the story as published does not treat this as a tragedy, it treats it as a fresh start. So now we have a third point, which is the erasure versus the ending. As uh Strazinski himself said, there is a version of ending a marriage that respects it. Divorce is a story, separation is a story, two people who love each other failing to make it work is one of the oldest and most human stories there is. What One More Day does instead is reach into the past and say it did not happen. And that is not just an editorial decision, it is a statement about the value of those twenty years of story and says this continuity was not real enough to deserve a real ending. That is the thing that bothers the fan base and that they have not forgiven. Now the case for it, because there is one, the brand new day era of Amazing Spider-Man, which launched directly after One More Day, produced some genuinely excellent Spider-Man comics. Written writers like Dan Slott, Mark Gungenheim, Bob Gale, and Zeb Wells brought a renewed energy to the title. Peter Parker felt young and alive and in motion again. New characters entered his world, the storytelling possibilities opened up in ways that the marriage had arguably foreclosed. If your position is that the finished product matters more than the mechanism that produced it, and if you look at the body of work that followed, the reset accomplished what was intended to accomplish. There's also an argument uncomfortable to make, but worth making, that serialized superhero comics are not novels. They are ongoing, collaborative, editorial-managed commercial enterprises. Characters do not belong to any single writer. They are maintained across decades by rotating teams with different visions. In that context, a line-wide reset is not uniquely scandalous. Uh, Marvel and DC have done far more sweeping continuity revisions in a year since. One More Day is not in the grand scheme of corporate comics, the most aggressive rewrite in history. It just hit the thing the audience cared about most with a tool that felt wrong for the job. So the ongoing legacy is this Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson have never been fully remarried in the main Marvel continuity as of the time of this recording. They have come close. There have been storylines that address the one more day continuity directly. Readers have waited and advocated that and if the editorial position at Marvel has shifted over time, that there have been public statements and hints and near misses. The wound is not fully healed, but the conversation has continued, which is in its own way a testament to how much the marriage mattered. Now, a story that nobody cared about would not still be generating this much feeling, you know, this all these years after. So I want to say one thing about Jay Michael's Strazynski's run overall, because one more day should not define it. I mean, his amazing Spider-Man stories from 2001 to 2007 introduced some of the most interesting ideas the character has seen in years, including the controversial but genuinely interesting totem storyline, a mediation on what spider that spider bite actually means, or whether Peter Parker was chosen or random on the deeper mythology of his power. It restored Gwen Stacy to a position of central importance. It gave Peter a teaching career, a sense of adult momentum, a life that felt like it was going somewhere. That run deserved a better ending than what it got. Strazinski knows that he has said so, and the readers know it too. So if you want to read it, and I think you should, specifically so you can have a fully formed opinion about it, the collected edition is titled Spider-Man One More Day and is available in trade paperback and on Marvel Unlimited. Read it in one sitting because the four issues are designed as a single story and the pacing does matter. Then read the first arc of Brand New Day immediately after and decide for yourself whether what was lost was worth what was gained. Now I'm going to hand it back over to Zoe because I told her this one would make her angry. And I do stand by that because I do want to hear where the anger lands, because there are multiple places they could go, and I do not want to predict it. So I'm gonna give this back to Zoe. Zoe, take it away. Uh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Okay. I yes, I am angry, but it is a very specific kind of angry, and I want to describe it correctly because I think it matters. First though, Mephisto. I have to say something about Mephisto because I looked him up, and this man this devil, this literal marvel Satan, is wearing a red cape and a horned helmet and has purple skin and looks like a Renaissance festival. Rejected him for being too on the nose. He looks like someone described the concept of evil to an art student who had never experienced it. He looks like he was designed by a committee whose only brief was make him look bad. And this is the entity that convinced Peter Parker to give up 20 years of marriage. The most powerful villain in Spider-Man history was apparently a man in a Halloween cape, and I cannot, I cannot get past the costuming choices in this run of comics they are genuinely sending me. But okay, here is where my anger actually lives. It is not with the decision to end the marriage. I can understand, I can even almost accept that a creative team might look at that marriage and decide it needs to change. Relationships end, characters evolve, fine. My anger is with the retroactive erasure, with the choice to say, this did not happen. Because this did not happen is not an ending. It is a deletion. It is a storytelling equivalent of someone going through your family photo album and removing the pictures of someone you loved. The love was real. It was on the page for 20 years. You do not get to make it not real by going backwards. So the version Strixinski wanted to write. Where Mary Jane says, I love you and I cannot do this, and it is a real goodbye. That is devastating, but it is honest. That story I could sit with. That story I could grieve properly. What we got instead is a story where Peter Parker makes a deal with the actual devil, and the takeaway is supposed to be a fresh start. That is not a fresh start. That is a haunting Peter Parker is living in an apartment somewhere, not knowing why something feels missing. And the answer is a wife he no longer knows he's had. That is the most Spider-Man thing that has ever happened to Spider-Man. And it is also genuinely upsetting, and I do not fully know how to feel about it. Okay? Question number three. And I want to know what you actually think. If you were the editor, if you had the power to end the marriage, but you had to choose how, do you take the deal with Mephisto? Or do you let Mary Jane end it herself in a real breakup and carry that grief into the next era of stories? Which version of the ending respects Peter Parker more? Drop your answer in the YouTube comments. I genuinely want to see where people land. I will be back with you all in another two weeks, and please, people. If someone named Mephisto wants to make a deal with you, don't walk but run away in the opposite direction as fast as you can, Blade. Back to you to wrap it up.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

That question is the exact right question. I do think there is a clean answer, but I think people's answers will tell you a lot about what they believe superhero stories are actually for. Thank you for listening to Power Companels. I am Blade Izoid, and we will see you in two weeks for episode 8. I will say we are staying in the Spider-Man block for one more episode. And episode 8 is one that I have been looking forward to since we started this run with Spider-Man, because it is the story that put Peter Parker back together, or tried to at least. After everything we have covered, the bridge, the deal, the eraser, we owe him something that moves forward. So episode 8 is going to give us that mostly. So until then, keep reading, keep thinking, and remember, some deals you're not made with the devil, some deals you're made with yourself and apply it when no one else is watching. Those are the ones that matter. Honor them. So until then, uh be safe. Please like us, please subscribe, and we'll see you guys soon. Guys and ladies, we'll see you soon.