It's Official: Marvel Has Finally Undone the Controversial Spider-Man - One More Day Storyline

Full spoilers follow for Captain America #16 and The Avengers #1!

The day Spider-Man fans feared would never come has finally arrived. Marvel Comics has officially started the process of undoing 2007's Spider-Man: One More Day. The hugely controversial storyline that saw Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson sacrifice their marriage to save Aunt May is being undone after nearly 20 years of continued controversy.

How did Marvel finally undo One More Day? And what does this mean for Spidey going forward? Let's break down what we know right now.

Step 1: Mephisto Loses Hell

There have certainly been signs recently that Marvel was finally preparing to undo One More Day. In particular, the ending of Avengers: Armageddon teased an imminent showdown between Mephisto and Spider-Man. Armageddon writer Chip Zdarsky has wasted no time in following up on that thread in his other Marvel books.

The first step in reversing One More Day came in Captain America #16. The series has recently been telling a story parallel to the events of Armageddon, with a comatose Steve Rogers having his soul dragged to Hell by Doctor Doom (who's been trapped there ever since the end of 2025's One World Under Doom). Doom enlisted Cap in a fight to depose Mephisto and install a new, more benevolent ruler of Hell.

True to form, Doom is always looking out for number one, and the end result is that he himself is now the master of Hell. However, he has no desire to be the warden of an otherworldly prison. Doom frees all of Hell's souls, wishing that only those who wish to follow him remain. He even releases the soul of his lover, Valeria. As for Mephisto himself, he flees his domain and makes a beeline for the safety of the mortal world.

This marks a major status quo shift for the supernatural corner of the Marvel Universe. The most immediate effect from Doom's ascension is that all deals made with the previous ruler of Hell are now null and void. That includes a bargain struck between Mephisto and a certain wallcrawling superhero.

Step 2: Spider-Man Remembers His Bargain

That Captain America twist immediately carries over into the pages of Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto's relaunched Avengers comic. With Mephisto deposed, an army of angelic warriors descend upon New York City and begin attacking everyone who ever made a deal with Mephisto, be it for eternal youth or whatever else.

The angels seem to have a specific target - a girl named Paige whose mother and grandfather made a bargain with the demon lord. Paige is given a mysterious talking book and told to track down Spider-Man. When she does, Paige tells Spidey that only he can help her, because he too made a deal with the devil.

Initially, Spidey has no idea what Paige is referring to. But when Paige tells him that he made a deal to save the life of someone he loved, Peter begins to remember that terrible day. On some level, he admits, he's always known what he did to save his beloved aunt.

That may be all for naught now, as the angels begin targeting Aunt May herself at the F.E.A.S.T. shelter. If she's only alive now because of Mephisto, then they may feel her life is forfeit. It's up to Spidey and the newly reformed Avengers to save her life once again.

Step 3: Profit?

Naturally, this raises a lot of questions about the immediate future of the Spider-Man franchise. The most obvious question is what it all means for Peter and MJ's relationship. Apart from a very brief rekindling of their romance in 2018 (before the infamous Paul Rabin stepped in), Peter and MJ have been broken up since the end of One More Day in 2007. Thanks to Mephisto's meddling, their marriage now never existed in the first place. Will Peter and MJ remember what they sacrificed, and will this cause them to get back together?

All of this is part of Zdarsky's larger interconnected plans for the Marvel Universe. The writer told The Beat, "It’s the joy of Marvel. It’s the joy of the interconnectedness of everything that you can spin things off into different series, and storylines become a new thing as a result of working with the character for a while. Doom is so fun to write. Like, I pitched stuff in the room last week about Doom for like two years from now. Because I’m just like, ‘Oh, wouldn’t this be cool?’ So yeah, Mephisto is, it’s the devil. Writing the devil is a lot of fun."

We suspect Peter and May are going to have to sit down and have a long overdue conversation about what he sacrificed for her sake.

We'll see exactly how the current Avengers storyline plays out. Marvel is already teasing some big developments ahead in issue #2, as it seems Mephisto will be assembling his own Sinister Six that includes Sabretooth, Carnage, the Abomination, Kraven the Hunter, and Green Goblin.

Ultimately, though, it may be up to The Amazing Spider-Man writer Joe Kelly to decide how the dissolution of the One More Day bargain impacts Peter's personal life. Currently, Peter is dealing with other problems on the Aunt May front, as her estranged son Cormac has literally stolen her memories of Peter and cut Peter out of her life.

But once that's resolved, we suspect Peter and May are going to have to sit down and have a long overdue conversation about what he sacrificed for her sake. One of the many reasons One More Day has proven so controversial over the years is that many fans have argued that May would be horrified to learn Peter chose her over his wife and unborn daughter. Peter and MJ may finally face a reckoning for that choice, and they'll certainly have to decide how to move forward now that the truth is finally laid bare.

Do you think Peter and MJ will finally get back together now that One More Day has been undone? Vote in our poll and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

For more, check out our full review of The Avengers #1.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.