…Spider-Man: One More Day?

This fix is about Spider-Man: One More Day and how it can be retconned away while also explaining away another horrible Marvel Comics storyline.

Now, in One More Day, Peter Parker makes a bargain with the demon Mephisto to save his Aunt May’s life at the cost of his marriage. Reality is rewritten so that Peter and Mary Jane never married and are currently broken up.

However, for some unexplained reason, in this rewritten reality, most of Harry’s friends have vanished.  Flash Thompson has returned to being the bully who makes Peter’s life miserable.  And for some strange reason, Harry Osborn is alive and well.

Events in general seem to be geared toward making Peter’s life as comically, unbelievably horrible as possible.

He can’t get a job.

His roommates hate him and/or Spider-Man.

Aunt May marries J. Jonah Jameson’s father.

Jolly Jonah becomes Mayor of NYC and immediately sets about making capturing Spider-Man priority one for everyone.

And Norman Osborn – despite being publicly known as The Green Goblin – has become head of the national agency in charge of monitoring/commanding all the legally-operating superheroes in the United States.

A lot of fans didn’t think ANY of this made any sense.

And it doesn’t. Peter Parker – written properly – would never make a bargain with The Devil because it was easier than dealing with tragedy.

It doesn’t make any sense for Harry to be back from the dead because of Peter’s bargain.

And known-murderer and lunatic Norman Osborn being appointed to a national agency, much less being beloved by the public REALLY doesn’t make any sense…

…Unless this is all part of Norman’s wish!

Would Norman make a literal deal with the devil to get power and a chance to cause as much chaos as possible by jacking around with the superheroes?

Yes!

Would Norman make a literal deal with the devil to bring his own dead son back to life?

Probably!

Crazy as he was, he was always depicted as being a loving, if distant, father.

Would Norman make a literal deal with the devil to make Peter Parker as miserable as possible?

Hell yes!

So the fix is this: Mephisto went to Norman and offered him a chance to have all the wealth, power and prestige he always wanted.

He even sweetened the deal by offering to bring Harry back from the dead AND by fixing it so that Peter Parker would be made as miserable as possible by the new world that was created.

Making Peter believe he’d be responsible for his own problems was just the icing on the evil cake.