The newest in the long list of What If…? premises to become a plot device in the 616 Marvel continuity, What If…? vol 2, #20 asks the question on everyone’s mind (or maybe just Joe Quesada’s): “What if Spider-Man had not married Mary Jane?”

What happens: The story begins at the end of a battle against Smyth and his Spider Slayer that occurred just before the famous wedding. Only problem is, instead of Mary Jane being saved without a scratch, she is seriously hurt. This causes Peter to call off the wedding (in the middle of the wedding, of course) as he could not stand to place Mary Jane in any more danger. They break up and Spider-Man does his “I’m mad and will beat everyone up” routine. He teams up with Silver Sable and her Wild Pack and gets to work beating up terrorists, however, Sable knows that something is distracting Spider-Man and making him reckless. Looking for a lady who can take some punishment from supervillains, Peter writes a letter to Felicia Hardy, aka The Black Cat. She arrives and this happens.

Ugh. I’m sure this was intended as a homage to the classic first appearance of Mary Jane, but it seems more than a little cheap now. I think that may be Quesada’s fault. So Pete and Felica hook up and go out on patrol. After nabbing some bank robbers, Felcia takes a swipe at them with her claws, which Spider-Man disapproves of. She promises not to do it again, but Pete is already in full-blown emo mode.

Next, the abridged events of “Kraven’s Last Hunt” play out but with the Black Cat subduing Kraven and rescuing Spider-Man. In his delerium, Spider-Man mutters a thanks to Mary Jane for saving him. This does not sit well with Black Cat. The two proceed to take down Electro and Venom. Of course, during the conflict with Venom, Spider-Man must lecture Black Cat on why they cannot kill. I think you can see where things are going. Elsewhere, Mary Jane sees a newspaper story on the romance between Spidey and Black Cat and, heart broken, gives Peter a call.

Before they can talk about navel-deep necklines, Felica hangs up on Mary Jane. Peter then shows up and like a sap asks Felcia to marry him. She accepts and promptly jumps out the skylight. Across town Mary Jane is leaving her appartment and being oogled by some guy in a trench coat. Felicia shows up and tells Mary Jane to stay away from Peter and that Black Cat will soon be Spider-Man’s wife. the dude in the trench coat overhears this a puts two and two together. It is insinuated that he will be selling his knowledge of Spider-Man’s secret identity as the issue ends and the story continues in #21.

Body count: Surprisingly no one dies. I guess that is what part two is for.

The lesson learned: The point of What If…? seems to be to prove to whiny fan boys that if things happened differently than what the editors and writers dictated, bad things would happen. Having Spider-Man’s identity revealed is the bad thing that happens here. Of course, when looking at the current state of Spider-Man, this doesn’t matter that much as his identity is already known by everyone. I suppose the main difference between this and “One More Day” is that the What If…? doesn’t through marriage out of the equation. It simply shifts it to Black Cat.

And I’ll go ahead and give my opinion on “One More Day” here since I don’t address too many contemporary comics lately. I’m a pro-marriage Spider-Man fan. I don’t think that being married “breaks” the character in any way. I see no more appeal in a Spider-Man who is dating over on who is married. It seems to me that “One More Day” is more a result of Joe Quesada’s fanboy nit-picking (wanting things to be like it was when he was a kid) and he has no problem forcing some ridiculous concept like a deal with the Devil to get his way. It’s sloppy storytelling (I don’t blame you JMS) and frankly, it will be turning me off of Spider-Man comics for a long time.

Also, there are the continuity issues. If Peter and MJ’s marriage is “forgotten” how does that effect the memory of the other characters? Will everyone else who knows about the marriage suddenly have memory holes or will the whole thing fall apart the second Wolverine comes sniffing around for Mary Jane?

Or nothing will happen and the status quo (as fucked up as it may be) will remain unchanged until Quesada can get someone else to write it away in a way that makes sense.

Read up on Part Two: What if  Spider-Man had married the Black Cat? here.