Amazing Spider-Man's First Arc May Have a Second, 'Secret' Title

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Amazing Spider-Man #1 by Nick Spencer, Ryan Ottley, Cliff Rathburn, Laura Martin and Joe Caramagna, in stores now.

"Back to Basics," the first arc of Nick Spencer and Ryan Ottley's The Amazing Spider-Man relaunch, is both a description of the creative team's plan for the web-slinger, and a mission statement for the title. The two creators are focused on bringing the spotlight in tight on Peter Parker and his immediate friends and family after Dan Slott's decade-long run expanded the wall-crawler's world to be bigger than ever.

The duo's first issue accomplished all of that, and then some, stripping Peter of his new job, and re-establishing Spider-Man as a hero the rest of the Marvel Universe may respect, but doesn't always want to hang out with. It also tweaked his relationships in a way that undid some of the advancement seen over the last few years of Slott's run, but not in a way that retconned anything he wrote. In short, The Amazing Spider-Man #1 paid homage to the development the character has experienced over the past decade, while returning him closer to his roots as a superhero icon.

Along the way, the issue took the first steps in undoing something that happened in 2006, the biggest "reboot" the character had ever experienced to date: the dissolution of the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson.

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='What%27s%20This%20%27Secret%27%20Title%2C%20And%20What%20Does%20It%20Have%20to%20Do%20With%20Peter%20%26%20MJ%27s%20Marriage%2C%20Anyhow%3F']

Written by J. Michael Stracynzki and drawn by then Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, the "One More Day" storyline saw Mary Jane make a deal with Mephisto, Marvel Comics’ ruler of Hell. The bargain, which effectively erased her and Peter's marriage from continuity, was struck as a last-ditch attempt to save the life of Peter’s Aunt May, who was in critical condition after being shot.

Marvel pitched the change to readers as a return to Spider-Man's origins, a way to make the character more relatable to his fans. However, from the moment the issue's contents were made public, fans voiced their objections, loudly and often. For years, Marvel insisted "One More Day" would never be undone, that the character simply works better as a solo act, doomed to failure when it comes to romance. Then, in 2016, Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness began to tug at the threads tying OMD together, giving those who still wanted to see Peter and MJ reconcile hope that it might actually happen.

For two years, across a number of Spider-Man titles, assorted creators continued to tease the undoing of the devilish deal. Even Slott, who for the most part never even touched on OMD's plot points, at one point late in his run had Peter and MJ share a night together, fueling speculation his final issue of The Amazing Spider-Man would see the pair officially reunite.

As it turns out, everyone was off by one issue; Slott never returned to the topic, leaving it instead for Spencer and Ottley's big reveal at the end of the first chapter of their story. Of course, after years of teases with no payoff, fans can be forgiven if they don't believe Peter and MJ are actually back together. But the debut of a pair of SDCC-exclusive variant covers by artist Mark Brooks offers hope this is the real deal.

One of the covers, which Brooks tweeted out the day the issue arrived in stores, is an homage to Norman Rockwell's famous Saturday Evening Post covers, shows Peter and MJ embracing, Pete still in his Spider-Man costume presumably after a long day of superheroing around Manhattan.

While it's a beautiful cover, in and of itself, it doesn't tell us much; after all, variant covers tend to have far less to do with what happens inside the issue than even regular covers. However, at the bottom Brooks' piece are the words "Beginning 'Honey, I'm Home,'" which, as we covered earlier in this piece, is most definitely not the title of the storyline presented by Marvel publicity, or in the comic itself. What's more, it implies that the renewed relationship between the couple is more than just a one-off tease this time, and that fans can expect to see a lot more of the pair as Spencer and Ottley's The Amazing Spider-Man plans unfold.

Could this be yet another tease designed to tweak the noses of fans who have been hoping to see Peter and MJ reunite? Absolutely. But the fact that Marvel and Brooks kept the cover under wraps until the issue went on sale would indicate that even if this doesn't turn out to be the actual title to Spencer and Ottley's story, the reunion over a decade in the making is very, very real.