Being a Spider-Man fan isn’t always easy, especially in recent years. The impact of “One More Day” on Marvel remains strong, and fans that loved the Peter Parker/Mary Jane marriage felt marginalized until Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 3) released at the end of 2023. However, in many Spider-Man fans’ opinion, this is one of the worst times to be a Spider-Man fan all because of one terrible character: Mary Jane’s new husband Paul. Marvel has shown a lot of disrespect to Spider-Man/Mary Jane fans since “One More Day”, but Paul took that to the next level. Paul is generally hated by everyone, yet Marvel won’t stop pushing the character, leading to his current role in All-New Venom, working with his wife Mary Jane as Venom.
Marvel’s love of Paul is one of the strangest things ever. Controversial characters can often equal money in the comic industry, but Paul is something else. Marvel’s insistence on keeping Paul around, almost putting him on a pedestal, feels like a slap in the face to the opinion of the fans. Marvel is trying to make fetch happen with Paul, and fans have been fighting him ever since. What’s behind Marvel’s love of Paul? Why are they working so hard to make Paul important? And are fans wrong about Paul?
Paul came along at a time when most Spider-Man fans thought that things were about to get better for them. Nick Spencer’s run on The Amazing Spider-Man had seemed to be bringing Peter Parker and Mary Jane’s relationship back, which made fans very happy. The 2022 reboot of The Amazing Spider-Man was being written by Zeb Well, a writer who had done great Spider-Man stories and was coming off the success of Hellions for the X-office. Fans were hyped… and then Paul was introduced. This single factor basically destroyed any momentum or positivity that Wells’s The Amazing Spider-Man had going for it. Paul felt like such a strange addition to Marvel. It felt like the character existed just to needle fans, proving that Marvel had no intention of ever bringing back the marriage between Mary Jane and Peter Parker. Paul was constantly being made to look better than Peter Parker, as a spouse and as a person. There were rumors that the character was a self-insert for writer Zeb Wells, and the vitriol thrown at Wells and Spider-Man editor Nick Lowe online because of Paul is astounding. Paul, as a character, feels like a wrestling heel. The heel is the villain of a wrestling match and the entire point of the heel is to make the audience hate them so much that they’ll pay to see them get beaten up. This is basically the only purpose I can see Paul having in the comics; Marvel knew that Paul was going to be hated, and keep him around because outrage sells books. That’s really the only explanation for Paul as a character, because he certainly isn’t interesting or especially multi-faceted.
So, Paul is a wrestling heel, meant to get “heat”, which is another wrestling term to explain the hatred the audience has for the heel. There are two kinds of heat — good heel heat, meaning the heel is doing their job and fans are paying to see them beat up, or go away heat. Go away heat means that the heel is hated, but they’re hated so much that no one wants to see them. They don’t want to see the heel get beat up. They want the heel to go away. Paul doesn’t have good heel heat, he has go away heat. Fans hate Paul so much, it has hurt the sales of books that he appears in. Paul only seems to exist for one reason — as mentioned above, outrage — and there’s really only one way to deal with someone like Paul, and eventually, Marvel will learn their lesson — stop buying Paul books and stop talking about Paul. That’s the only way to get rid of the character. Marvel is trolling the fans with Paul and the only way to defeat Paul and Marvel is to not feed the trolls.
Marvel
Marvel’s strategy with Spider-Man has been outrage for a very long time now. This strategy worked pretty well for years; The Amazing Spider-Man sold very, very well until the recent debut of Ultimate Spider-Man. Marvel doesn’t really care about fan outrage or fan opinion if a book is selling. Paul is the ultimate extension of that outrage. There’s nothing to like about Paul. That’s not hyperbole, either; Paul is barely even a character and the only way to deal with him, to get rid of this character that everyone but Nick Lowe seems to hate (writer Al Ewing is writing him in All-New Venom and heaping scorn and disrespect on Paul), is to stop talking about him. Stop buying any book he’s in. You don’t like Paul? Vote with your wallet. Stop buying books with Paul in them. Stop complaining about Paul. Marvel wants you to be outraged, so the only way to win is to not give them what they want. Marvel is trolling. Don’t feed them.
What do you think about Paul? Sound off in the comments below.
Being a Spider-Man fan isn’t always easy, especially in recent years. The impact of “One More Day” on Marvel remains strong, and fans that loved the Peter Parker/Mary Jane marriage felt marginalized until Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 3) released at the end of 2023. However, in many Spider-Man fans’ opinion, this is one of the worst Read More