Latest CBR Poll shows over half of Spidey fandom still perfer him married

21 Comments

1. Honestly, while I loved Brand new day and the stories following, I miss Peter and MJ being together. But thanks to recent events, it looks like they might be getting back together soon.

2. Grow up, Whistler. Marvel royally fouled their flagship character by having him enter into covenant with a sadistic demon, deliberately flipped the bird to thousands of fans who had already made it clear they opposed dissolving the marriage, and created a c*****y meta-structure in which Peter Parker became a semi-incompetent, disrespected, morally dense dweeb. Then polished it off by lying to customers, cursing at customers, and mocking customers. Marvel is being run by obnoxious teen boys, and ASM is the manifestation of that.

3. My God. It was 4 years ago and it’s a freaking comic character. GET OVER IT!!!!

4. Married. I’m probably in minority, but I’m of the mind that no super-hero can survive on action alone…and for the none action part to be enjoyable, you need people that you like to fill it. So far, and cause of me being set in my way, they’ve failed to fill the spot belonging to MJ and a knowing aunt May.

   Actually, I’m more a fan of MJ now than I am of Spider-man. Lucky me, there is a very good Spider-Woman fanfiction with MJ as Spider-woman being written, so I’m not starved of Super-hero stories.

5. I still love my ASM Annual with the wedding. Whether it was Superman or Spider-Man, I liked the fact that they got ‘older’ and married. This showed a progression to appreciate as I also got older. With OMD/Brand New Day and the DC reboot, I stopped buying new comics on a regular basis because both formulas wiped out what had come before and I felt a little alienated.

   If Spider-Man does get remarried, it would be a strong argument to get me back into the fold.

6. MARRIAGE ALL THE WAY!!!

7. I think Jack Brooks has gotten a pretty good angle on it. As time progresses, marriage fans continue to stop buying and even dropped comics completely, let alone going to CBR to vote. I know at my LCS, many Spider-Man fans never returned. I am one of the few that continues to get some Spider-Man (Ultimate and back-issues).

   To me, with all the fans going away, I am surprised that such a pro-Marvel website like CBR had a majority dismiss their new direction…

8. Think they’ll retcon the retcon?

9. I am with Slash on this one. Regardless of whether the original poll included Superman in the mix it is still a mostly pointless comparison. Like Slash after the nightmare that was OMD I tried for about a half dozen issues and then dropped the title. And eventually all comics. Heck, I haven’t even came here for close to six months now, but I was bored and thought I would get a glimpse of what atrocities Joe Quesada deems as quality story telling now.

   Therefore, Slash and I represent a population who might be sizable and support the marriage, but no longer care to pay Marvel for the drivel they are trying to pass off as entertainment now. What amazes me is that so many current readers actually do support the marriage.

10. I stopped buying Amazing Spider-man after the first few issues of Big Time. Soon after that I stopped buying comics generally. There were only a few issues of Amazing Spider-man that I enjoyed since Back in Black. Now I only visit this site once in a while to see how things are going with Spidey.

11. Thanks for the reminder that the 2000 poll combined Supes and Spidey, and so it isn’t a legitimate benchmark. I also agree that a lot of pro-marriage fans have all said whatever they wanted to say, a lot of of them stopped buying ASM (and other Marvel titles), and I think a lot stopped going to CBR as the mods there allowed Marvel employees to talk any trash they wanted with no board rules needing to be follow; so I assume a lot of pro-marriage fans didn’t bother to vote. They’ve already voted — with their wallets.

12. I think Marvel needs to have Peter and MJ discover what happened with Mephisto, then Peter to kick his butt and them to get back together. They don’t have to get married again. But knowing they were married and remembering the continuity would be massive step in fixing this.

    It also solves the problem of retconning the retcon, bu not doing it and still addressing it.

    Then us marriage fans can have Peter and MJ remember their marriage and be together while the non-mrriage fans get them not actually married along with the bonus possibility of external romantic tension since Peter and MJ wouldn’t need a divorce to break them up.

13. : )

14. You know, posting in a mostly Pro-Marriage environment, it’s actually surprising to see just how close these numbers are. It is a reminder that not everyone is in love with the marriage, I mean hell… JMS, one of the people who wrote the marriage the very best, was intending to end it to bring back Gwen Stacy at the end of OMD, if I recall correctly.

15. I still prefer them married, but at this point, I would be happy with Peter and MJ just being in a relationship. I’ve still enjoyed a lot of the stories since OMD, but I’ve definetly missed MJ and it’s nice that she’s starting to be in the comics more.

16. Who cares?
    Oh, forgot I’m merciless ;p

17. Honestly, I think we marraige fans are in a good place right now, thanks to sites like the Crawl Space, the Spider-Man Newspaper Stirp, where Peter and MJ are still married, has a higher profile than ever, and next year won’t just be Spidey’s 60th anniversary, but also the 25th anniversary of his marraige, so rather than get all depressed about how Marvel won’t be acknowledging it, I’m excited about how the daily strip is going to go about things. We should be happy with what we have, a consistent representation of the Spider-Man we want, however small in presentation, and we should be trying to edcuate readers burned out on discussing the marraige about the strip so they can enjoy it too.

    This current era of Spider-Man may go on for over a decade, but deep down I don’t think it’ll be regarded as a memorable era. People only remember the 1990s for Spider-Man 2099 and The Clone Saga, people only remember the 2000s for the wrong reasons like Mackie’s dire run and Sins Past, I just don’t think the “Brand New” era has left any memorable stories, characters or events that the majority of generations will reflect on fondly. Unless you are a Spider-Man authority and a proper geek, you won’t know who Carlie Cooper is, as the mainstream video games still have Mary Jane as Spidey’s top gal, and the latest Spider-Man cartoon will again have MJ as the top gal. So long as these factors are still in play, no new era that promises game-changing sweeping alterations to Peter’s status quoe or love life will stick. Mary Jane is just too iconic to replace.

    Eventually, nostalgia will kick in and we’ll get the marraige back, and who knows? Maybe someone will decide to give Peter and MJ a kid after that and we can finally get around to telling FRESH, memorable stories that do what the classic comics did…grow the characters up and keep moving them forward. I know I’ll live to see that day, I just have to be paitent.

    The most memorable Spider-Man stories I’ve read over the last decade have all been from Spider-Girl (Mayday), my loyalty has been more to Peter’s growth, and eventually, a like-minded person will be in power. I’m not saying Peter shouldnt be Spidey, we’ve been down that route, but he shouldnt be a man-child with relentless job and relationship problems either, sooner or later, he goes from being an “everyman” to being a failiure…and nobody can relate to a failiure.

18. Technically CBR isn’t comparing apples to apples here. The 2009 poll was in regards to Superman AND Spider-Man being married, and they got the 70% by adding 58% (preference for both Sup and Spidey to be married) + 12% (preference for Sup not married and Spidey married). My point is that if CBR is going to compare the numbers btn the polls from the two years, they need to have asked the identical question and kept it strictly to Spider-Man (or Superman for that matter). Voters may have felt stronger about Superman’s marital status and less so about Spidey’s, which would have impacted their voting in either direction. I wouldn’t have tied the two (Sup and Spidey) together b/c I think it distorts the voting making it hard to say whether the number’s really dropped.

    If we assume that the point i just made doesn’t matter and that you can trust these poll numbers, then I’d guess the numbers dropped from 70 to 57 for the simple fact the marriage fans have left the building and don’t care enough to vote anymore. In any event, the real number probably lies somewhere between 57-70% which is a majority no matter how you dissect it…

19. Even though the marriage still probably won’t come back, I think we can at least take some comfort in that with the last few issues of Spider-Island, Marvel has apparently:

    A. Acknowledged how important Pete and MJ’s relationship still is.

    and

    B. Pretty much admitted defeat in regards to forcing Carlie Cooper onto the fanbase.

20. For four years we have been told that the marriage was somehow bad for Spider-man
    For four years we have been told that readers couldn’t relate to a married Spider-man
    For four years fans of the marriage have been publicly mocked, ridiculed, and insulted by Marvel representatives
    For four years fans of the marriage have been dismissed as nothing more than a handful of internet malcontents
    For four years fans of the marriage have been told to shut up and ‘get over it’

    But after four years of Marvel aggressively pushing their brand new single ‘all about youth’ Spider-man
    We discover…
    Fans of the marriage are not a just a tiny vocal minority to be dismissed and ignored

    Marvel may not want to acknowledge it, but…
    There are still thousands of us out there
    And we are still the majority!!

21. People have accepted that Marvel’s not bringing it back and just moved on. And going back with a continuity eraser and changing how it happened. My guess is because they don’t want Disney to find out?