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Why can't Spider-Man and Mary Jane just be married?

That's a question that's been the subject of plenty of debate among Marvel Comics fans ever since their union was dissolved in the now-infamous 2007 storyline One More Day. In fact, seeing Peter and MJ together in holy matrimony again was a giant selling point for Marvel's Ultimate Spider-Man run - so much so that you'd almost wonder why the Spider-Man creators didn't see the potential pitfalls of the break-up coming.

Well here's the thing - they did.

We know that because of Popverse staple Joshua Lapin-Bertone's oral history of Spider-Man's Brand New Day era, published in November of last year. In the wide-ranging article detailing the history of this particular era of Spidey comics, Lapin-Bartone spoke to several Marvel comics writers who were in the room as Peter's wedded future was being decided upon. And according to one writer - Arrow creator Marc Guggenheim - there was a trepidation on the matter before the first word of the first script had been typed.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Though Guggenheim admits it was a mistake, he also admits seeing the logic in wanting Peter and Mary Jane broken up.

"It's not just the marriage that was aging Peter up,” Guggenheim told Lapin-Bertone. “It was a marriage to a supermodel. He's suddenly this adult with all these responsibilities. [...] But I understood the counterargument, which is that Peter being married aged up the character beyond what Marvel was interested in doing with him."

Fair enough. Even still, though - it seems that going through the reasoning retroactively and being in the moment of the decision to break up Mary Jane and Peter were two very, very different things.

"Our first summit was all of us in a room together," Guggenheim explains, referring to himself and a team of Spider-Man writers called the 'Brain Trust,' which included writer J. Michael Straczynski and editor Tom Brevoort, "And it began with Joe Quesada taking us through what became known as 'One More Day,' [...] We knew that 'One More Day' was going to take away the Peter/MJ marriage. But what we did not know was how it was going to get done. And I think after Joe finished pitching, I think we all sort of looked at each other going, 'What did we get ourselves into?' Because I think we instinctively knew that it was not going to be well received by the fans." 

Needless to say, Guggenheim was entirely correct. Fortunately, One More Day eventually gave way into the acclaimed storyline Brand New Day, which is not only remembered far more fondly by fans, but serves as the inspiration for the upcoming fourth installment of the Spider-Man MCU saga. And while we can't say what the experience of being in that writers' room was like, we certainly hope if was a less unnerving one than what Guggenheim & Co. went through.

Marvel's most reliable superhero has proven he can do a whole lot more than just 'whatever a spider can.' Swing into Spidey's history with Popverse's...

• Best Spider-Man comic books 
• Spider-Man movie watch order
• Spider-Man's actors, ranked
• and the Spider-verse explained!

Just watch out for that radioactive blood.