10 Messed Up Comic Book Moments Everyone Wishes They Could Unsee

10. Promiscuous Teen May Parker In “Trouble”

Trouble was a five-part limited series written by Mark Millar with art by Terry and Rachel Dodson and additional art by Frank Cho. It follows two teenage girls, redhead wild child May Reilly and more reserved blond Mary Fitzpatrick, and their relationships with two brothers, Ben and Richard (Richie) Parker.

May, Mary, and the Parker brothers all worked at the same Hampton resort and became friends. After a night of dancing, May and Ben sleep together but Mary is reluctant due to a fortune teller's prophecy that she would be a mother in her 20s if she had sex in her teens. Frustrated, Richie begins an affair with May as well, who becomes pregnant. Ben is revealed to be sterile and the affair is revealed. Unable to go home due to her fundamentalist parents, May runs away. Mary eventually joins her and has the baby, who they call Peter, and Mary and Richard agree to raise him as their own.

One of the many things that readers found “troublesome” about this retconning of Peter Parker’s origin is that it tarnishes one of the sweetest, most innocent, and almost matronly characters in all of comics: Aunt May. Instead, it attempts to turn her into an “MJ in the 70s” parody, which opens up a whole different level of Oedipal mess for Spider-Man fans to unpack.