He demands that MJ and Pete never got married. The analogy used was that of a chess match, and he was using this deal as an opportunity to shuffle his opponent’s pieces all over the board. No one can say how much Spider-Man’s marriage affected his choices and decisions. Maybe it didn’t affect much. But it’s a butterfly effect, and who can say who was on the other side of the world at the time?

The other explanation was how they were going to get out of this. It’s less sensible, but more fun.

Deadpool knows. And when things start going wrong (which, if explanation one goes through, they should, albeit maybe not for some time), it might just be Spider-Man and Deadpool vs. the nine levels of Hell. Taking all bets.

With great power still comes great responsibility! (Deals with the debbil, Uncle Ben would LOVE that one.)

Aunt May is alive! (Rather than let the character move on with dignity to be with her own lost love and allow Peter a new depth of character in dealing with the loss… *KA-ZAM!* all better.)

Harry is Back! (SO it took this storyline to bring him back, sheesh the Green Goblin could had brought him back with a clone… A CLONE! the most hated plot device in a Spidey book ever and it would had been easier.)

Secret Identities! (So the point of Civil War was? Cap gets a reboot, right?)

Non-Organic webshooters! (Nice to see them back, but Pete could still had used them today. Hell, make a hybrid webshooter. His organic channels augmented and used for travel, and the artificial used for battle. Specialty cartridges for certain occasions. Insulated webbing cart when facing Electro, etc. HOUSE OF IDEAS!)

I’m spent…

Mysterio.

It would be a helluvan epic, instead of the same ol’/same ol’ reset with back-to-the-Green-Goblin/single-Peter scenario currently in play.

That said, ““staring up as Mephisto swells to a thousand feet high or more to confront the equally giant attacker who, at the last moment, has come to save people he loves, and who can take Mephisto on, even in Hell -”

Captain America. Who else? Maybe he (or Uncle Ben, or Ben Reilly) is the Vergil to Peter’s (or MJ’s) Dante. which would beg the question of why they went to Hell, but that’d be a different story.

“I guess Doom could be the force against Mephisto, he already fucking hates him, but sadly in canon, Doom loses to Mephisto, at least without Dr. Strange backing him up.”

Which would be all it’d take to motivate Doom to do this: “Doom has no interest in helping you, dolt.” “Oh well, I should’ve known you’d be scared. The last time you went against him, you would’ve lost if Doc Strange hadn’t helped you.” “Doom needs no one’s help!”

CAP’N A!

personally, I was more annoyed at the sudden incompetence of everyone in the marvel universe when faced with Aunt May’s plot bullet wound.

I mean, Doom saved Kitty Pryde’s life from a freakish atomic destabilization(complicated by her phasing powers) just to prove that he could where Reed Richards couldn’t. at the very least he could have offered one of his super science procedures and then we could have had an interesting dilemma, like whether aunt may would want to be a cyborg, or an alien-hybrid, or anything essentially not human, but still alive.

I guess Doom could be the force against Mephisto, he already fucking hates him, but sadly in canon, Doom loses to Mephisto, at least without Dr. Strange backing him up.”

I think with Doom it was more like “NO! Doom has no time for your shit, Spider-Man!” then the moment Pete left “Wait, did Richards say whether or not he could– DAMN IT. Well. Time to go torture Nitro, I guess…”

These days I just keep re-reading Dark Horse’s woefully underrated 4-issue Oktane series over and over again, in the hopes something nearly as intelligent will appear for a long term series.

Ben Parker?