The Christian angle certainly raises a question.  If the undoing of the marriage is something Mephisto does to stick it to "God", I guess "God" is some ineffectual figure that is unable to do anything about it?

***********

That's one problem with the "One More Day" scenario that I don't like (and many others have mentioned): the villain (or the "Devil", if you like) comes out on top here. Mephisto gets exactly what he wants at the end of the day, which isn't how it's supposed to work.

Having said that, I don't blame Peter and Mary Jane for making the decision they made - they didn't really have much of a choice. But they shouldn't have been put in that position to begin with.

I wouldn't read too much into the Christian/religious angle, either. For all his fire and brimstone, Mephisto is just a comic book bad guy and I don't think Marvel was making any sort of religious statement. This is simply another in the long line of "Faustian bargain" stories that have been around for centuries, right down to "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by Charlie Daniels.

QUOTE: Johnny Blaze made a similar deal, and see how well that worked for him?

Yeah...he got turned into an angel.

<<So you think he just decided that he wanted Peter to revert to his 1970's status quo in the past year?  Quesada has been bad mouthing the marriage (and therefore the status quo) for about two years. >>

He's been bad mouthing the marriage since he was EIC. He was just trying to figure out a way to get rid of it that didn't involve divorce or death.  Quesada didn't think that either were viable options because he thought they aged the character.

<<Besides, even if we assume that Mephisto is the devil, Lucifer, Satan, the fallen angel... then I still don't have a problem with MJ and Peter dealing with him. They didn't give him their souls. They didn't kill any person (and I don't count a hypothetical daughter from a possible alternate future as a person, sorry). They gave him their marriage, something that could easily be regained. They were faced with a single decision: One person dies, or no person dies.>>


That's how I feel and I am normally the king of moral indignation.  You read over and over and over that he made a deal with the devil.  Yeah, but what was the deal?  If the deal is to kill Norman Osborn so May can live, then I'm morally outraged.   They're sacrificing what matters most to them so May can live.  They didn't sell him their souls.

That doesn't mean that I'm in favor of it or disagree that they come off as naive thinking that a deal with the devil works out in the long run.  Just saying that it hasn't tainted Peter's character irrevocably for me.
I can't say the same for some other characters. BTW, I'm Catholic.

<<That's one problem with the "One More Day" scenario that I don't like (and many others have mentioned): the villain (or the "Devil", if you like) comes out on top here. Mephisto gets exactly what he wants at the end of the day, which isn't how it's supposed to work.>>

Agreed.

<<Having said that, I don't blame Peter and Mary Jane for making the decision they made - they didn't really have much of a choice. But they shouldn't have been put in that position to begin with.>>

Agreed. If Quesada was that bound and determined to
get rid of the marriage, there were better ways to do it.

I can point out absolute facts to support my stance that charachters do NOT have to be teenagers to appeal to young readers.

You are right, but the one detail that you are missing is that an older character's personal life is not as central to the character as is Spider-Man.  Captain America is almost 100 years old in continuity.  If a major part of the comic was centered on Steve Rogers' personal life then the book would not appeal to young readers because his frame of reference are the 1930s. 

Spider-Man is the first super-hero where fighting super-villains went side-by-side with getting his homework done on time as his major problems.  Once you replace "getting his homework done on time" with adult problems, then it is no longer as appealing to a younger audience.  A kid is putting up with reading the adult problems to get the point where he fights a villain as Spider-Man.  And if you remove the personal problems outright (having a Spider-Man title with no Peter Parker), then it is not the same character.  Conclusion: you cannot age this character without possibly losing younger readers without fundamentally changing the character. Its a delicate balancing act. 

I can point out that the comic book industry has always had a very large component of older teenagers, young adults, and adults as part of their success. Comic books that only appeal to 12 yr olds like JB thinks he should be writing for have never achieved the success as the ones that appeal to the broader spectrum of readers.

We have Kids, Older Teenagers, Young Adults and Adults.

The original Peter Parker was written with elements that appealed to all of the above.  Even some of the elements that was aimed more at kids or high school students appealed to Young Adults and Adults because they were all kids and in high school at one point.

The adult Peter Parker, (either the married one or the Brand New Day one) was written with elements that do not appeal to kids as much as it does to the other groups. 

Which one has the greater chance to appeal to a broader audience?

People who want their entertainment to change as they change should be seeking new entertainment, better suited to their needs. Otherwise, it's the guy with the wife and kids complaining that his sportscar isn't any good for taking the family camping or picking up groceries.

Will new readers be more inclined to pick up and stay with a book that has the charachter at point "A" in their life, attitude, etc and tells stories exclusively in that niche.....

or

Will new readers be more inclines to pick up and stay with a book that has the charachter at point "A" in their life, explore what that means to the charachter and how they act during the stories, then show them moving on to point "B", tell stories from that perspective, then procede to point "C" etc.

There is a flaw in your logic here.  With Spider-Man, point A was the 1960s, point B was the 1970s and point C was the marriage and beyond.  Any new readers have already missed out on points A and B and are only seeing point C.  That's the problem.  Since a new reader can come in at any time, then the first option is the only one that can satisfy both new and old readers.  The second option is designed to satisfy only the old readers.