5 Marvel Resurrections Done Right And 5 That Sucked
2. May Parker
Peter Parkers Aunt May had basically been on her deathbed since she was first introduced in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962. Still, despite the constant threat of May dropping dead, she managed to survive for nearly 40 years when writer J.M. DeMatteis and artist Mark Bagley crafted the extraordinarily sentimental and tear-inducing Amazing Spider-Man #400. In the issue, May, who had been in a coma for months, revives for one more day with Peter. During this day, she tells him she knew he was Spider-Man the whole time and later peacefully dies while Peter kneels at her bedside. Its beautiful, beautiful comic book crafting from JMD and Bagley. Given that May was an old woman, there was never any reason to resurrect her, and yet Marvel found an abhorrent way to do so just a few years later. As part of The Final Chapter storyline in the late 90s, the Green Goblin reveals to Spider-Man that he hired an actress to get plastic surgery and pretend to be May in order to trick Peter and wound him emotionally. He then announces that he installed a chip in Mays brain that would set off a genetic bomb if removed. The story is so farfetched that even Spider-Man, who was fresh off of the Clone Saga, didnt believe it. Sadly, it still happened. The story breaks nearly every rule of credulity, plus it undid a true masterpiece by one of the greatest Spider-Man writers of all-time.
Mark is a professional writer living in Brooklyn and is the founder of the Chasing Amazing Blog, which documents his quest to collect every issue of Amazing Spider-Man, and the Superior Spider-Talk podcast. He also pens the "Gimmick or Good?" column at Comics Should Be Good blog.
