Civil War is one of the most important Marvel stories of the 21st century. The event book by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven saw a deadly villain attack lead to the passing of the Superhero Registration Act. This law split the superhero community in two, as Captain America fought against registration and Iron Man fought for it. The book dropped in the summer of 2006 and was the biggest book in the comic industry for months. Marvel had just gotten back into the event game with House of M; that event had massive consequences on the Marvel Universe and Civil War would be no different.
Civil War broke Marvel’s hero community, leading it in new directions that would play out over the span of years. One of the most affected by the story was Spider-Man. Spidey was going through something of a renaissance in the ’00s; Marvel had hired J. Michael Straczynski to write The Amazing Spider-Man and it was leaving behind the stink of the ’90s. The hero finally got to join the Avengers in New Avengers after years of being just a reserve member. Finally, the Sony Spider-Man movies had made him more popular than ever. The events of Civil War had a huge effect on the character and they led to one of the worst Spider-Man stories ever. However, that never needed to happen and we missed out on something special because of it.
Spider-Man joining the Avengers was a huge change for the character and it set him down a new road. While everyone respected Spider-Man in the superhero community, joining the team made him even more important and respected, allowing him to show just how good he really was. He and Iron Man struck up a close friendship, the two geniuses working together and Tony even building him a new costume, the Iron Spider suit, which melded Iron Man armor and tech but in a sleeker, more Spider-Man-like package. When Civil War started, there was very little doubt that he would be on Iron Man side, but issue two saw him used to drop a bombshell – that Peter Parker had been Spider-Man since he was 15.
This is where it all gets interesting. Stark decided to talk Spider-Man into unmasking because he had been all about the secret identity for years; if he unmasked, the public would understand how important registration was. Tony basically used Peter as PR and the minute he started to have misgivings about Stark’s tactics after the Thor clone Ragnarok killed Bill Foster, Shellhead dropped the hammer, leading to Peter joining Cap’s side, with May and Mary Jane in hiding. Aunt May got shot by a Kingpin hired assassin, Peter went a little mad and put on the black suit, and we got the excellent “Back in Black”. Peter was at his lowest ebb, which lead into the disastrous “One More Day”.
From there, we got Mary Jane and Peter trading their marriage to Mephisto, leading into the Spider-Man comics we have today. However, if you look at what we had at the time, a Parker family on the run for a longer period of time could have been awesome. I’m not blind enough to think that this status quo was never meant as anything but a vehicle to “One More Day” and getting rid of the marriage was always the plan – Quesada and Brevoort wanted it gone – but Marvel left a lot of money on the table by rushing right into “One more Day”.
Speaking as someone who was around back then, fans were really excited about “Back in Black” for two reasons – the return of the black costume and what was going to come next. Fans were really excited for this new status quo. Peter’s identity was out there and everyone was in danger from villains. We had a chance to get numerous bad guys coming after the Parker for revenge or maybe attack The Daily Bugle or something like that. We could have a road trip arc, with the Parkers out there on the run. The sky was the limit for Spider-Man comics and yet Marvel couldn’t help but rush to “One More Day”.
Another exciting part of the story that could have been explored more is Spider-Man versus the Kingpin. While he had fought the villain many times in the past, Kingpin had mostly become a Daredevil villain; in fact, Daredevil was just finishing up a long arc involving the villain. This was the perfect time to give readers a long drawn out fight between the two of them. We could have had Bullseye and Typhoid Mary hunting down Peter, Mary Jane, and May. It could have been a solid year of stories that were unlike anything that had happened in Spidey’s book for years. But no, we had to run as fast as we could to get to “One More Day”.
The Amazing Spider-Man, post-Civil War, had J. Michael Straczynski and Ron Garney working on the book. The team had been working on the book together for a while and were delivering amazing stories ever issue. Civil War‘s changes to Spider-Man were some of the most intriguing in the character’s history and fans were excited to see where this creative team would have taken the Spidey and his family in this bold new status quo. “Back in Black” was an awesome story and it could have led to even more amazing tales down the road.
Marvel was always going to get rid of the marriage, but there were other ways to get there. Imagine if they would have held off from shooting May when they did, letting the Parkers run longer or even just putting her in a coma for a while and having Peter and Mary Jane search for help longer, all while ducking villains and Iron Man’s forces. More Parkers on the road, more black costume, maybe stretch the battle against the Kingpin out even more. There was so much potential from Spider-Man’s post-Civil War status quo and we could have gotten way more out of it. While the Spider-Man comics we’ve gotten in the years since haven’t all been bad, maybe there was a better way to get where we are now.
