As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Fridge Brilliance
- Yes, even though it was clearly contrived by the writers to get rid of the marriage (and therefore probably unintentional that it's there), Mephisto's "no soul" deal made sense-what happens every time he takes a hero's soul? A) Other heroes get it back, or B), Like with "pure" characters such as The Mighty Thor or the Silver Surfer (and maybe Spider-Man had that deal been made instead) he can't take the soul anyway because it's so pure it burns. He would have lost.
- More Brilliance: He's semi-corrupted Spider-Man now. Spider-Man's soul is no longer pure, and Mephisto can get him next time...
- I hate One More Day as much as the next Spidey fan but in Issue #500 Spider-Man has a vision of the future where he is wanted by the police and shot dead near Aunt May's grave. It's possible that Spider-Man remembers that and figures if Aunt May doesn't die, he'll never do whatever the hell he did to piss off the cops.
- Taking out the Deal with the Devil and 'magic retcon' thing, the Sadistic Choice presented is MJ (Spidey's future) or Aunt May (his past). The clincher is that it's his past, namely the death of Uncle Ben, that made him who he is. The whole 'power-responsibility' schtick pretty much mandates that Peter always be beholden to his origin...he'll always carry the guilt around of inadvertently letting Uncle Ben die. Aunt May pretty much exists to remind him of that. Is choosing to cling to the failures of his past healthy, or mentally sound? No. Is it consistent with the psychology of someone who was deeply traumatized by the previous untimely death of a family member? That's a dicier question.~Ingonyama
- Although a bit of a meta example, while reading the 25th anniversary issue of Self-Parody series Spider-Ham, you'll notice the animal version of MJ is Mary Crane Watson, but one page later, among the heads showing characters in the Spider-Ham universe ("Larval Earth" or "Earth-8311", for those curious), you get to see former MJ counterpart Mary Jane Waterbuffalo. Then you remember One More Day and you remember the reason for such a change.
- It gets better. MJ's looks since OMD have changed to be more overweight, in an attempt by Quesada to keep people from liking her.
- Peter Parker and Mary Jane were also a couple in Ultimate Spider-Man (teenagers, but a couple). As Peter had already died and replaced by Miles Morales, OMD did not extend to that comic. That relation had already ended, didn't it? Not quite: in one of the last arcs of the comic it was revealed that Peter was Not Quite Dead, and ran away with Mary Jane (and, incidentally, it was eventually revealed that the universe survived the secret wars). Meaning, that in the Ultimate Marvel universe, Peter Parker and Mary Jane lived happily ever after, and not even death could keep them apart. Right under Quesada's watch. And the funny part, it was Quesada's own idea to hire Brian Michael Bendis and start the Ultimate Marvel universe to begin with.
Fridge Horror
- Mephisto's Motive Rant contains a bit about how Peter's marriage was "blessed in the eyes of Him" or some other pseudo-religious wording, and it would be a sweet victory for Mephisto to successfully steal something from the One-Above-All. Which, y'know, makes sense: he's basically Satan. The problem? The One-Above-All is, according to supposed canon, not just an expy or Captain Ersatz of the Abrahamic God but actually the same literal being in a different universe. And Mephisto's plan to steal Spidey's marriage from him succeeds. He didn't just one-up the God of his universe; he one-upped the God of ours. Joe Quesada has created a comic that gives Christian/Jewish/vaguely-non-denominational-borderline-monotheistic children everywhere in Real Life the message "your God is fallible and can be beaten by a comic-book villain from another universe". And, despite living in a world where political correctness and cultural sensitivity are more common than ever so far he's more-or-less got away with that.
- Likely because everyone's focus was on the bad choice of Peter and Mary Jane as well as the moral and logical failings of OMD and its fallout without even mentioning the insultingly anti-God undertone of the outcome. This might put us back into Fridge Brilliance territory, or simply be a little less horrible, because as most understandings have it, God allows humans to choose whether to accept Him and His blessings or the alternative consequences. It's less "your God is fallible", and more "anyone you look up to may choose Satan over God".
- Of course, it could be considered a subversion since Mephisto's terrifying victory over God is....breaking up the marriage of two comic book characters. Temporarily. As diabolical schemes go that is....lame. Really lame. Especially since, according to OMIT, it didn't even work. One would think the millions of souls he has ensnared into Hell or the countless lives he has ended or ruined would be more offensive to the Almighty...but nope. It's an annulment.
- But maybe that's the key. Note that this is the only time Mephisto has shown Reality Warper level powers of this extent. Never before, never since thus far. Also, the main overall effect of all these changes is that years' worth of both power and character development have been taken away from Peter. Furthermore, Peter and MJ's unborn/future child was killed off by the deal as well; there go the lives she would've saved over the years in the future. Think about it. What if Mephisto's entire point was to weaken Spider-Man as a hero in order to set him up for a path more likely to lead to personal ruin if not to Gehenna itself, and what if letting the red devil have this marriage of theirs which was apparently blessed by God is what gave him that power?
- Wait, so God hates OMD just as much as we do? I call that Fridge COMFORT! Hallelujah, we've found evidence of a benevolent deity!
- Since OMIT basically says that Mary Jane scammed Mephisto, this creates a little Fridge Horror. Many comic fans can tell you that Mephisto's Berserk Button is getting cheated out of his deals. He has a tendency to take horrible, horrible revenge on someone who screwed him out of what he wanted. In other words, some horrible, painful event in Mary Jane's life was probably caused by Mephisto taking Revenge by Proxy on her.
- Tony Stark can not provide help to Parker because he's a fugitive criminal, so he transferred some millions to Jarvis' account, so that he can help instead. Problem is, Stark does not commit a crime, but asks instead Jarvis to commit a crime for him. And it would be ultimately useless: if Jarvis is caught and all this is taken to the courts, it would be noticed that he can not get that amount of money from his work, and that he got that money transfer shortly before. A textbook example of a strawperson. And who can possibly be the mastermind of the crime? Even if Stark managed to make the transfer untreaceable, all red flags point to him. He has the personal link, the wealth and the reasons to do it. Heck, even the fact itself that the transfer was made untreaceable would be suspicious, and he also has the expertise to make it.
