Spider-Man: One More Day - Publication History

Publication History

Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada felt dissolving the Peter Parker and Mary Jane marriage and returning Spider-Man to his roots was necessary to preserve the longevity of the character for the next 20 or 30 years. Quesada said he and other previous editors-in-chief had long been seeking an opportunity to begin a new methodology in which to tell Spider-Man stories, but had not found a reasonable way to do so. Quesada said, "It's very easy to un-marry a character, or fix something like that: you just do a huge universal retcon, and say a few events in history didn't happen. But that's really not the way we do it here at Marvel." But that ended up being exactly what they did. The Marvel team found their opportunity in the events of the 2007 Civil War mini-series, which resulted in the unmasking of Spider-Man's identity to the public. Quesada knew J. Michael Straczynski was planning to end his run as a Marvel writer, so he personally approached Straczynski to propose "One More Day" as his final project.

The ideas for "One More Day" began to develop almost two years before its release, at one of Marvel's creative summits for creators and editors. Quesada, Straczynski, Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, Jeph Loeb, Tom Brevoort and Axel Alonso developed the concept between them, and Ed Brubaker and Dan Slott added more at the next summit. "One More Day" was announced as the concluding storyline of Straczynski's run on Amazing Spider-Man in early 2007, and Quesada was named as the artist for the storyline. Although Quesada had become more selective in choosing projects to do as an artist since becoming editor-in-chief, he felt compelled to do the art for One More Day because he felt very close to the story, and because since he had been talking about the project for so long, he felt he "needed to put my money where my mouth is."

While no plot details were given, Marvel issued a promotional image in February that consisted solely of the line "What would you do... with one more day?" against a background of spider webbing. At a panel at the San Diego Comic Con in June 2007, Joe Quesada gave few details about the story, but described it as "a Peter-MJ story." At the same panel, Marvel editor Tom Brevoort announced that Amazing Spider-Man would become the sole main Spider-Man title, and would be published three times a month.

Due to Quesada's known dislike of Mary Jane and Peter Parker's marriage, fans began to speculate he intended to dissolve their marriage in one form or another. Quesada felt that 1987's "The Wedding!" story happened due to an editorial decision, and that Jim Shooter mirrored events Stan Lee had planned for the Spider-Man comic strip in order to maximize any publicity generated.

Straczynski surprised many when he publicly revealed: "There's a lot that I don't agree with, and I made this very clear to everybody within shouting distance at Marvel, especially Joe Quesada... there was a point where I made the decision, and told Joe, that I was going to take my name off the last two issues of the OMD arc. Eventually, Joe talked me out of that decision because at the end of the day, I don't want to sabotage Joe or Marvel, and I have a lot of respect for both of those." Quesada explained this disagreement with Straczynski, stating that their rift was primarily over the "methodology" of how to erase Peter and Mary Jane's marriage, but Straczynski was on board with the editorial mandate of undoing the Parkers' marriage.

Various Marvel writers, including Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, Ed Brubaker and incoming Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott had a hand in developing the story. During the course of the story's development, Quesada claims that he and Straczynski made plans to resurrect Gwen Stacy alongside Harry Osborn in the final chapter. This plot twist was discarded after numerous Marvel editors and writers lobbied for the character to remain dead. According to Quesada, Straczynski's original script for the storyline's fourth issue involved changes to continuity going as far back as 1971. Peter would have helped Harry Osborn get into rehab for his drug addiction immediately, which would have allowed a number of rewrites. Mary Jane would have remained in a relationship with Harry, Gwen would not have been killed and ultimately Peter's marriage to Mary Jane would not have taken place. Quesada realized that these changes would have far-reaching consequences for both historical and forthcoming storylines, so he made the decision to change Straczynski's story. While Peter and Mary Jane were to have remained a couple for the purposes of back-story, they were simply not a married couple. Quesada also described "One More Day" as an emotional climax of sorts and resolution for the relationship between Peter Parker and Tony Stark, who had developed a father-son-like bond during "Civil War". However, Quesada hinted the paths of the two characters could cross again in the future due to planned storylines for Iron Man.

Quesada, answering questions for Comic Book Resources, said every story that happened in the Spider-Man canon still "counted", with the only change being that, due to the world's newly-revised memories, Peter and Mary Jane did not marry due to some unknown incident and the official unmasking of his identity to the public during the 2007 Civil War mini-series has been forgotten. A "back and forth" developed between Quesada and J. Michael Straczynski in separate interviews and messages, with Straczynski outlining some of his original plans for the "retcon", and conversations he had with Quesada about the storyline. Quesada said, "We're committed to preserving as much of these stories as is humanly possible," but he added the changing of certain elements is inevitable. For example, he sees the storyline in which Mary Jane was pregnant as never having happened. Also, Spider-Man lost the organic webshooters that he gained in the "Avengers Disassembled" storyline, and the other spider-like powers that he gained in the 2005-2006 storyline, "The Other." Quesada commented that in removing those powers and bringing back Spider-Man's mechanical webshooters, he was returning "an element that felt needed to be brought back into Peter's world," and that the "mechanical webshooters demonstrate Peter's ingenuity and overall smarts."

Quesada sees Peter's making a "deal with the Devil" as a villain (Mephisto) taking advantage of someone at his weakest moment. This, he feels, is a better resolution than Peter and Mary Jane getting divorced, which would indicate "they gave up on their love, that their life in love together was so awful, so stressful, so unfulfilling that they had to raise a red flag and walk away from it. They quit on their marriage and even more tragic, (they) quit on each other. Instead, we had them make a deal with the devil. 'Cause that isn't as bad." Quesada went on to say, "Peter and MJ didn't quit on their love, they sacrificed it to save a life, that to me is a pretty heroic story. But then, I'm an idiot."