Previous Post > ... I would argue that one bad comic book can nearly deep-six an entire company, especially when the book in question is the flagship title of the line. > No, not everyone shares the same opinion of this story, and no, we don't know for sure how it will turn out, but a) every single one of the most widely circulated rumors about how it would turn out have been proven correct so far, and b) the vast majority of response online - and the response I've heard offline, from my area retailers and fellow shopgoers - has been negative so far, and the negativity cuts across all lines of fandom. Whether the fans prefer 616 or Ultimate, "classic" Marvel or the Quesada era, even single or married Spidey, almost all the responses to this story that I've seen have included some variation of "This is unbelievably, unforgivably stupid." > Hell, you should be as pissed about this as anybody, because if this was Paul Levitz dictating an Authority storyline to Mark Millar, I'm pretty sure you'd be the first one to call bullshit.

... After Spider-Man literally talked to every single scientist, magician and superhuman healer in the Marvel Universe, he wasn't able to find anyone who could save Aunt May's life from a gunshot wound - IN THE MARVEL FUCKING UNIVERSE, where so many people come back from the dead that it's become a career for many of them - and then, Mephisto showed up out of nowhere (no, not an exaggeration ... he actually just appeared in the third issue of the four-issue arc, with no build-up or foreshadowing whatsoever), and told Peter and Mary Jane, "I'll save Aunt May's life, but only if you allow me to RETCON YOUR MARRIAGE!!!"

Okay, he didn't use the term "retcon," but otherwise, that's almost exactly a word-for-word quote.

It's sadly amusing to note that Mephisto was seriously considered as one of the ways that Marvel could dig themselves out of the hole that the "Clone Saga" had become, but even Bob Harras deemed that idea too retarded for public consumption.