Spider-Man was gone for one day and Mary Jane went and had two kids

For a whole year, Awesome Spider-Man has teased readers with its setup. It has all the usual hallmarks of a Spider-Man comic, but with glaring mysteries: why is Peter Parker persona non grata with everyone he’s normally friends with? Why is Mary Jane dating a man who has two elementary school-aged children?

Apparently six months before last year’s events Awesome Spider-Man #1, Spider-Man did something so gruesome and wild that his entire social network stopped talking to him and Mary Jane started dating a single dad.

And now Awesome Spider-Man finally gets around to explaining what it was.

What else is happening in the pages of our favorite comics? We’ll tell you. Welcome to Monday Funnies, Polygon’s weekly list of the books our comics editor liked last week. It’s part society pages about superhero lives, part reading advice, part “check out this cool art.” There may be some spoilers. There may not be enough context. But there will be great comics. (And if you missed the latest edition, read this.)

As you might be able to tell from John Romita’s art here, writer Zeb Wells has taken Spider-Man in a somewhat timeless direction. Yes, it’s a good old “time goes faster in the alternate dimension” story, but from a real world perspective.

When Mary Jane became trapped in an apocalypse dimension, Spider-Man burned all of his bridges, stole a miniature fusion reactor from the Fantastic Four, and pummeled Captain America into escaping. He did all this to recruit the one person who would help him (a desperate for redemption Norman Osborn) convert the fusion reactor into a dimension-hopping device so he could go back and get her.

But all that web-slinging, beating, and mad science took him an entire day, which was apparently enough time for Mary Jane to meet another survivor, give up rescue, fall in love, and meet two real people. to make.

There is luck from Parker, but this is extreme.

Image: Tom Taylor, Travis Moore/DC Comics

The problem with the Teen Titans these days is that there are so many completely different and extremely popular versions of them – the Silver Age team! The 80s Team! The serious cartoon show, the crazy cartoon show! My particular favorite from the 2018 soft relaunch featuring Bernard Chang’s incredible art! — that no Titans book could possibly feed all that audience.

So I’m really looking forward to seeing Tom Taylor, somewhat of a master of wild continuity swings that are still full of character, plan to weave together the wide, wide web of Titans into one book. meanwhile be Night wing is actually a Titans book at the moment, featuring the classic 1980s/Cartoon team setup trying to save a little girl’s soul from hell, which her dad sold it to.

I love a comic where hell’s file system combines the worst possible version of every computer interface throughout history.

Image: Jason Aaron, Aaron Kuder, Dexter Vines, Ivan Fiorelli, Javier Garrón, Jim Towe, Alex Sinclair/Marvel Comics

I’d say that’s Jason Aaron’s Avengers run went out with a bang, but honestly it’s been ramped up to 11 for so long that I have the comic book equivalent of tinnitus for it. I’m glad that a writer has spent so long on something he’s clearly very passionate about, and I’m also glad that someone else is taking the reins next month.

Image: Rainbow Rowell, Joe Quinones/Marvel Comics

What’s the best in life? It’s Joe Quinones who draws Jen Walters’ gun show for a short story about her trying to get her female superhero friends in one place for a book club without hitting.