7. Spider-Man: One More Day
Spider-Man's dilemma? Aunt May dies, or you and Mary Jane forget you were ever married, in love, etc. and your love goes to the evil demon Mephisto who, in turn, will spare Aunt May. Honest to God, this sounds like the plot of Disney's Aladdin, or something animated in which Robin Williams is forcibly employed by an evil sorcerer. Given the crap storm Peter Parker was facing because of the events of Civil War, Marvel needed an out. Peter had revealed his identity, whimped out, switched sides, and accomplished very little during that arc. So Aunt May got shot by someone trying to take it out on Peter and apparently his only option in dealing with this scenario was: trade your marriage and love for your wife in order to save your Aunt, despite being surrounded by a slew of powerful and magical friends who could turn back time better than Cher and send Mephisto packing for a trip to Embarrassment County. And what kind of sissy ass villain gets his rocks off by taking away either some old lady or some couple's marriage? Why not just try to, you know, kill Spider-Man? But hey, let's not resolve it in a way that legitimately helps Spider-Man's story. Let's resolve it in a way that allows us to be able to peddle three issues of Amazing Spider-Man every month, by retelling a lot of his stories under the headline, "Brand New Day." That's supposed to make it better. So Peter and MJ forget about one another, Pete wakes up a punk ass college kid again, still living off Aunt May's broke ass dime, and gets to start his early twenties angst all over again, much to our "enjoyment". This story alone is what caused my breakup with Spider-Man. Until this, I'd been collecting Spider-Man since I was in the third grade. After "One More Day" and the miserable "Brand New Day", I broke up with Spidey. I deserve to be treated better than this. I deserve a Spider-Man who's caring, considerate, and well written. Not whatever this was and has become.