Is Aunt May Really Necessary?!

[jackolover]

Her role is absolutely necessary. She's there to remind Peter of who he is and she's a constant reminder to Peter about Uncle Ben. More importantly, she's Peter's responsibility. The horrible event that creates Spider-Man, the death of Ben Parker, can happen to Peter all over again.

That's why OMD works at all. Peter really can't let her die because of him. He just can't handle it. Spider-Man can and Peter lets Spider-Man shoulder stuff like that (Marla Jameson). Spider-Man solves the death of Marla Jameson. It's Spider-Man who declares No On Dies! Peter Parker can't make that promise. Spider-Man can. Peter can't do that with his Aunt. That's strictly a Peter Parker thing.

Aunt May does make Peter Parker obsessive by constantly being around. With her missing, he doesn't have that obsessive object to harp over anymore. So what does Spider-Man become without that driven nature? Another Hawkeye with webs? We have a Hawkeye. Hawkeye is not family oriented. Spider-Man is so family oriented, he makes deals with Mephisto over it.

So the day comes. Dan Slott offs Aunt May. What is going to happen? See what happened? He couldn't off her. If he could off Aunt May, he would have. So Aunt May alive is better, with her old bow, Doc Ock as her nephew. Oy vey. This way, Slott doesn't have to figure out what makes Spidey, Spidey. For starters, with May dead, Spidey is in therapy for a year. At least with one half of the Aunt and Uncle alive he can say, "I can at least keep this one safe". Once you kill that for Spider-Man, he is useless. I always wondered what Turn off the Dark meant. He's a Spider with the Dark side turned off. Instead of capturing victims in his web and sucking the life out of them, Peter Parker rescues the innocent victims.

My vote is yes, she's essential.

[Shawn Hopkins]

I think they should kill her off. I think they should have a big anniversary issue where Peter and MJ get married, for what they think is the first time, and just as they say I do Mephisto's spell is broken, they remember everything, and she reverts to the condition she was in before the spell and dies, but not before getting to reject Mephisto's personally and say a few heroic things about how it was her time and how she wants them to be happy.

[Ood Omega]

and the issues later they would bring her back anyway

[TheOther]

I wish they would just let her ride off into the sunset with JJJ Sr.

[Knightsilver]

May hasn't been useful since they threw out everything JMS did with her.

[Pat Thomas]

It's pretty odd that Aunt May was in and out of the hospital so much in the beginning and looked about 90, yet 50 years later, she looks like she is in her 70's and has an active life.
I don't see how she made it through the first 50 issues. It was one heart attack after another. She was still feeble into the 200's, when I quit reading for about 25 years. I couldn't believe that she was not only alive, but de-aged when I came back. She will probably be around another 20 years unless they just decide to kill her off. It's funny to look back at those old issues where anything shocking would send her right back to the hospital and realize that we just accept this premise.

[rocky123]

No.
She should have died in the just about perfect send off they gave her in issue #400. By that point MJ's character had evolved more than enough to be the rock or grounding figure that Peter needed in his life. Fuckin retcons

[Shawn Hopkins]

It's pretty odd that Aunt May was in and out of the hospital so much in the beginning and looked about 90, yet 50 years later, she looks like she is in her 70's and has an active life.
I don't see how she made it through the first 50 issues. It was one heart attack after another. She was still feeble into the 200's, when I quit reading for about 25 years. I couldn't believe that she was not only alive, but de-aged when I came back. She will probably be around another 20 years unless they just decide to kill her off. It's funny to look back at those old issues where anything shocking would send her right back to the hospital and realize that we just accept this premise.

You're right. It's funny how she used to go into nearly fatal shock every time someone showed up with a new haircut or stubbed their toe. They were still playing with this up to the 90s, where a big plot teaser in the Peter's Parents Are Robots story is that the shock of seeing Peter's parents alive again might kill her. Weird to go from that to piloting an Iron Man armor.

[Jim Thompson]

Out of all Spider-Man's supporting characters she seems the most useless. Now I'm not just saying she's old so they should kill her off and in no way is these meant to be a hate thread. Other than if she was gone/dead Peter would have no immediate family (other than maybe Kaine), what does she actually contribute to the books? Or what has she contributed to the books post millennium? How important is her role to the Spider-Man mythos? Is she currently an important supporting cast member? Is it really necessary to keep her around?

I haven't thought so for a long time, not as a continuing supporting character. That said, I thought JMS really did some interesting things with the character during his run.

[xElijahSnowx]

No. Aunt May is not necessary at all. She should have been allowed to go quietly into the night, WAY BACK in Amazing Spider-Man #400. It was a fantastic send off, and should have simply remained that way.

And don't even get me started on the character assassinating DISASTER of One More Day. If there was ever a time to let her die...it was there. But no...Marvel has Spider-Man make a deal w/ the universes Satan, sacrificing his marriage...to "Satan"...to save archaic Aunt May. What pointless crap.

Is she a good character now? Sure. Has Slott made her interesting by legitimately allowing her to move on w/ life? YES! But...they could have retconned her back into existence in a 100% better way than OMD. I mean...JMS' idea to reboot Spidey continuity could have absolutely included everything we have right now...w/ out Peter making a deal w/ Marvel's Satan to make it happen.

As can been seen...I associate a lot of what is occurring w/ Aunt May to the worst Spider-Man-related story in Spidey history. The same thing that she has going for her now, could have been accomplished in a FAR better way.

[xElijahSnowx]

Couple years back I met Joe Quesada during the premier of Planet Hulk in NYC and was discussing with him why he didn't kill off Aunt May and picked her over MJ in OMD and he told me and I swear to god this is true "Aunt May is Peter's Rock" which is still the biggest load of crap I've ever heard in terms of the comic medium to this day

It is Quesada and others making statements like this, that had me stop buying Spider-Man after OMD. He and I actually argued for DAYS on twitter about it. DAYS, right after it happened.

[xElijahSnowx]

Really, I think the hated of Aunt May is at least somewhat connected to hatred of OMD.

This is EXACTLY me.

[Mister Mets]

No. Aunt May is not necessary at all. She should have been allowed to go quietly into the night, WAY BACK in Amazing Spider-Man #400. It was a fantastic send off, and should have simply remained that way.

And don't even get me started on the character assassinating DISASTER of One More Day. If there was ever a time to let her die...it was there. But no...Marvel has Spider-Man make a deal w/ the universes Satan, sacrificing his marriage...to "Satan"...to save archaic Aunt May. What pointless crap.

Is she a good character now? Sure. Has Slott made her interesting by legitimately allowing her to move on w/ life? YES! But...they could have retconned her back into existence in a 100% better way than OMD. I mean...JMS' idea to reboot Spidey continuity could have absolutely included everything we have right now...w/ out Peter making a deal w/ Marvel's Satan to make it happen.

As can been seen...I associate a lot of what is occurring w/ Aunt May to the worst Spider-Man-related story in Spidey history. The same thing that she has going for her now, could have been accomplished in a FAR better way.

JMS's idea to reboot Spider-Man continuity would have included the deal with Mephisto.

Here's how Quesada described it.

When I was halfway through issue three of OMD, we received Joe's script for issue 4. After reading it, we (Axel, Tom and myself) all quickly realized that we had a problem -- the script we had just received was not the one we were expecting, and the events that were being set forth in that issue were going to conflict with the work that was already being done on "Brand New Day." I thought that perhaps Joe had forgotten some of the stuff discussed at the summit meetings and the subsequent e-mails and discussions that followed, but that didn't seem to be the case; this was the story he wanted to tell. In his story, Mephisto was going to change continuity from as far back as issues #96-98 from 1971. In Joe's story, Peter drops the dime on Harry, and that helps get him into rehab right away. Consequently, MJ stays with Harry, and Gwen never dies and never has her affair with Norman, etc., etc. And in the end, Peter and MJ are never married.

This, in my mind, while it neatly puts the pieces back in some way, was not what we wanted to do. First, it discounted every issue of "Amazing" since that story arc. Second, the series of events that it discounts in the Marvel U are too far-reaching to contemplate. And third, it had severe ramifications for the creators already well underway on "Brand New Day," the thrice-monthly "Amazing Spider-Man." In other words, there was just no way to tell Joe's story without blowing up the entire Marvel U and every Spider-Man's fan's collection. What we originally discussed with Joe and the group was much simpler and cleaner: The wedding? Something happened on the wedding day that prevented it from happening. The unsmasking? Mephisto makes people forget it; much like the Sentry, it happened -- it's just no longer remembered. And Harry? Well, there's always a price to pay when you make a deal with the devil. Is it a perfect solution? Absolutely not. Does it get us to where we want to be? Yes.


Anyway, we discovered all of this midway through the third issue and it became very evident to us that we had a problem. Not only that, now knowing what we knew, issue three had to be changed slightly in order to set up the things we needed in issue four. Joe fought hard for his story and you have to respect any creator for supporting his vision, I know where he was coming from. But by the time we knew what he was shooting for, I had to make a decision that served the greater good and what everyone had signed on for. Eventually, Joe told us that he would try to give us what we wanted in issue four, though he disagreed with it and also felt that it wasn't the kind of story that he wanted to tell. He was a trooper and, while I know it couldn't have been fun for him, he gave us a script that served as a road map to help us along -- because when we received the new version, we were still missing some beats to get all the things across that we needed for the "Brand New Day" run. Joe gave us an okay to do what we needed, so stuff had to be repaginated, and reconstructed. We used a lot of Joe's dialog, but some of it was mine, or Axel or Tom's -- everyone had to chip in, especially since now the issue was going to be over thirty pages in order to get us to the closing scene at the party. It was a lot of work, but everyone pulled through and we got it out. Like I said, the fact that it made December is a Christmas miracle.

And let me repeat: I couldn't be more sorry for having to change Joe's story and that's why publicly I'm apologizing to him for doing so. But, ultimately, we had to get to the place where we promised other creators we would be for them to launch their stories.

JMS told Newsarama "I think most of it represents accurately our conversations. It does, however, omit some of the main concerns I had with the resolution."

[CyberHubbs]

I don't think she's 'necessary', but neither is any supporting cast member. I do like that Peter has recurring family, though.

[Huthaifa]

No.
She should have died in the just about perfect send off they gave her in issue #400. By that point MJ's character had evolved more than enough to be the rock or grounding figure that Peter needed in his life. Fuckin retcons

Said perfectly