In Remember to Forget, we spotlight comic book stories that I wish I could forget, but I can’t, so I instead share them with you all!
Today, we take a look at a time that Spider-Man allowed one of his girlfriends to believe that she was delusional to protect his secret identity.
During Marv Wolfman's run on Amazing Spider-Man, he had Spider-Man go back to school and become a teaching assistant at Empire State University in the biophysics department. While there, we briefly meet the secretary in the department, Debra, in Amazing Spider-Man #196 (by Wolfman, Al Milgrom, Jim Mooney and Frank Giacoia)...
However, Bill Mantlo's Spectacular Spider-Man was really the title that was assigned to be the title that would mostly deal with Peter's TA time and all of the supporting cast he met at ESU. In Spectacular Spider-Man #36 (by Bill Mantlo, Jim Mooney and Mike Esposito), we get to see Peter meet all of the teaching assistants (other than Marcy Kane, who is really a whole other bizarre story in her own right)...
Peter begins to date Debra Whitman on and off. They had good chemistry and she was a lot like Peter, personality-wise. She had a jock boyfriend named Biff (yes, Biff), so it wasn't like they were going steady or anything. This basically allowed Mantlo to go back to the whole Flash/Peter/Liz stuff from the early Stan Lee/Steve Ditko Spider-Man stories.
However, since she mostly appeared in Spectacular Spider-Man, it was kind of clear that she was never going to be any sort of permanent girlfriend. Things took a big shift, though, in Spectacular Spider-Man #67 (by Mantlo, Ed Hannigan and Al Milgrom), when she sees Peter punch through a locker...
The next issue (by Mantlo, Luke McDonnell and Jim Mooney), she flat out sees him become Spider-Man!
Here's where it gets already pretty dicey. Out of NOWHERE, Mantlo reveals that she has been dealing with severe mental issues this whole time.
Then, in Spectacular Spider-Man #73, we meet Debra's incredibly incompetent and unethical psychiatrist...
What the what? Did he just burst into a strange guy's apartment and then break doctor-patient confidentiality, drop the info that Debra is suffering from schizophrenia and then suggest that they, like, SURPRISE HER SCHIZOPHRENIA AWAY?!
I legit do not understand where Mantlo was coming from on this or why anyone let him go this direction. It's flat out absurd.
But it gets worse (okay, not worse, but still bad)...
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We also learn that Debra is on the run from an abusive husband (man, Mantlo is ALL about just dropping a whole pile of new information about Debra just to get her out of the book so that he can bring Black Cat in as Peter's new love interest, isn't he?)....
This is after Deb's psychiatrist lets Peter listen in on his session with Debra so that Peter will agree to dress up as Spider-Man as part of some absurd shock therapy...
To give Peter credit, he decides that Debra deserves the truth, so he reveals his identity to her not out of an attempt to shock her, but to help her learn the truth, but that is not how it goes down...
He has now cured her (huh?) and she decides to head back home and to finally officially divorce her abusive husband and that's it for Debra for decades. I know he came there for the right reasons, but to just let her believe that she's delusional is not very cool of Peter at all.
That is one ridiculously dumb story.
If anyone else has a suggestion for a story that you wish you could forget, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!