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Will Spider-Man and Mary Jane ever get back together? It's a question that plenty of longtime Marvel readers have been asking since the pair separated. Now, we have an answer from a longtime Marvel editor, but it may not be one that fans wanted to hear.

Speaking at last weekend's Baltimore Comic Con, current X-Men editor Tom Brevoort was asked a question about editorial mandates at Marvel. Brevoort began by breaking down who actually makes certain story decisions at the House of Ideas, saying "If you're working for Marvel, the ground rules are all the characters are Marvel's and Marvel as an institution gets to decide what's right and what's wrong for these characters. So there are certain things you don't want Spider-Man to do - "

To which the original questioner interrupted, "Like get back with Mary Jane?" Laughter and some grunts from the audience followed.

"He can get back with Mary Jane," Brevoort responded. "He just can't actually tie the knot with Mary Jane."

Perhaps it was an off-the-cuff remark that we shouldn't be reading into, but we can't help but notice that this  seems to contradict a previous statement from a different Marvel editor. At C2E2 in 2023, Marvel's Editor-in-chief C.B. Cebulski said that keeping Peter and Mary Jane from getting married was not an editorial mandate, but rather "a preference."

"It’s not a mandate by any chance," Cebulski continued, "In 2 years or 5 years, something could change, someone could have the greatest story – Zeb [Wells, currently Amazing Spider-Man writer] possibly – for why they should be married again, if they make it through their current trials and tribulations. There’s no mandate that any character should or shouldn’t be married, it’s just where the story takes us and what we think is the best for the creative team at the time, and what they choose to do with the stories."

Again, Brevoort's statement came as a response to a questioner who was being at least a little bit snarky, so perhaps taking his statement as writ in stone is less than wise. At the same time, Brevoort continued the answer by talking about what is absolutely a mandate at Marvel, saying "those are the ground rules going in. If you're going to work on whatever character - if you're going to work on Daredevil, you're going to have to deal with the fact that he's blind and he's probably going to stay that way for a while."

Daredevil will forever be blind, will Spider-Man forever be unmarried? We should point out that, in at least one corner of Marvel Comics, that's not the case. Peter Parker and Mary Jane are not just back together but married in the best-selling Ultimate Spider-Man title. According to ICv2, the recent Ultimate Spider-Man #8 was the second best selling comic in August 2024, compared to the mainline Amazing Spider-Man #56 (in which Mary Jane and Peter are not married), which came in as twenty-ninth.

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 10 best Spider-Man comic books, our Spider-Man movie watch order, and if you want our opinions on the subject, read our articles ranking Spider-Man's actors and Spider-Man's girlfriends.