Halloween: Spider-Girl's Birthday

 

Well, Halloween is upon us once more and that means it is time to wish May ‘Mayday’ Parker aka Spider-Girl a Happy Birthday! Or is it? Let’s take a look at the situation.

 

At the commencement of the now legendary (and infamous) Clone Saga of the 90’s Peter and Mary Jane Parker learn they are going to have a baby and indeed, Mary Jane is pregnant throughout the entirety of the Saga. These same events play out in the MC2's past also, as seen in Spider-Girl #48-#49. Mary Jane apparently goes into a particularly painful and unusual labor after her food is spiked by Alison Mongrain (Sensational Spider-Man #11).

 

Mary Jane is taken to hospital where she learns from a Doctor Folsome that her regular doctor is not available. In the birthing suite, Mary Jane asks if her baby is breathing and is told by Folsome ‘everything is going exactly as planned’ as an unseen Norman Osborn watches on. Following an agonising delivery, Mary Jane again asks Folsome ‘why isn’t she crying’ before breaking down in tears. The doctor offers his condolences, while Mongrain (disguised as a nurse) wheels an unidentified ‘package’ to her car. Alison meets up with her employer at the docks where she is told she is going to Europe with a sizable bonus as she boards a yacht. Mongrain’s employer tells her she can call him by his real name: Norman Osborn (Amazing Spider-Man #418, Spider-Girl #48). Unbeknownst to both of them, Kaine will track down Mongrain.

 

 

All these events transpire across the day and through the night of October 31^st, Halloween. Thus, May ‘Mayday’ Parker was born on October 31^st in both the Main Marvel Universe and the MC2. So why is her birthday celebrated well after Christmas (Spider-Girl #54) in Spider-Girl #67? Well, this is a question I worked on answering many years ago now with good friend and excellent Spider-Man scholar Big Al. Here is an extract of our efforts from his own blog on Tumblr:

 

 

It is simply not logical that practically a whole year elapses between the Season of the Serpent and Marked for Death arcs, especially given how Mayday was clearly stated to be fifteen at the start of the series.

Whilst we don’t know for sure when Mayday celebrates her birthday in contrast to when Season of the Serpent happens (the latter arc itself spanning an uncertain amount of time itself) it wouldn’t be unreasonable to estimate that at most we’re talking late February maybe early March, but even that is a fairly extreme guess. But no way is it October.

Myself and Frogoat from this fair site in discussing this topic ultimately resolved to take our conundrum to the sources themselves and so Frogoat kindly asked Mr. Tom DeFalco and Mr Ron Frenz about the discrepancy at hand. Here is what Mr. Frenz had to say on the matter:

‘May’s birthday is considered to be October 31st.(As celebrated by and on this very message board!)Any story(seeming)inconsistency that suggests otherwise has been officially designated a SNAFU by no-less a legendary figure as Mr.Tom DeFalco himself.

 

May’s “Special Day” as shown, I believe, in our tenth-anniversary issue is a separate celebration of the day May was returned to her loving Parents by “Uncle Kaine.“

 

Oh, and shame on you for not knowing all of this. Shame, I say. ;D

 

Regards,

Ron.’

 

Well there you have it. Just a simple mistake.

But this wouldn’t be Continuity Confusion if we just left it there right?

Without starting any heated debates about continuity, what’s on the page vs. authorial intent or anything like that for the sake of argument let’s agree that Season of the Serpent happened at Christmas and that Mayday’s birthday occurred shortly thereafter.

How could this possibly in-universe make any kind of sense if we know for a fact that Mayday’s birthday falls on October 31^st?

 

 

So now that we have a co-creator’s comment, we must work out a No-Prize explanation for why Mayday’s birthday is celebrated months later. The answer is surprisingly simple, given that officially, baby May Parker was presumably declared deceased on October 31^st. We also know that months passed where Alison Mongrain travelled Europe in a yacht with the newborn May, while Peter and Mary Jane mourned their lost baby (Spider-Girl #48-#49). So, here is the most explanation Big Al and myself arrived at, again quoted from his post:

 

So, why not try this on for size. Given how she was presumed stillborn it is possible that Mayday was not given a birth certificate on October 31^st and may even have lacked one entirely during her abduction. There would however have been a record of her death.

This would’ve created a great deal of legal hassle for Peter, MJ and their lawyers not least because of them having to explain the circumstances of May’s abduction and retrieval. But the point is that they would have had to more than likely fill out an all-new birth certificate and legal records. My proposition is that when they did that Peter and MJ essentially assigned Mayday a different date as her birthday other than October 31. And if you think about it this makes a certain amount of sense emotionally speaking as October 31 would be a day that would hold very painful memories for Peter and MJ. So why not choose to celebrate the life of their daughter on a day free from the taint of any sad recollections?

 

Thanks to Big Al and to my fellow MC2 fanatic arias-98105 for their immense help and continual tolerance of my abysmal memory. With all that out of the way, we can assume that the Parker Family celebrate Mayday’s birthday sometime at least a few months after her actual birth, a good guess being around late February at the earliest. Gee, I bet that was a paperwork nightmare…Wait does that mean May's a probably a few months older than she thinks?!

 

Happy Birthday, May ‘Mayday’ Parker and Rest in Peace Ben Reilly. Have a good Halloween, everyone!

 

Until I stop rehashing old points of interest and plucking at threads, I remain

 

frogoat

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lizard in the MC2

 

With Spider-Man: No Way Home on everyone’s mind, I figured now is a great time to cover some of the MC2 counterparts of the villains confirmed to appear in the film. Today, we are taking a look at Dr Curtis ‘Curt’ Connors aka The Lizard in the MC2.

 

Dr Curt Connors first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #6 but makes his MC2 debut as both Connors and The Lizard in Amazing Spider-Man Family #1 within the first of the (sadly cut short) Mr. and Mrs. Spider-Man series of short stories. This story takes place at some point after the infant May Parker is rescued and returned to Peter and Mary Jane Parker by Kaine and prior to Peter’s final battle with the Green Goblin.

 

After having had a few ‘gloriously normal’ weeks as a family, Peter and Mary Jane leave May with Anna Watson to meet Dr Connors and his wife Martha for dinner. However, Curt hasn’t returned from Empire State University and isn’t answering calls. Martha reveals that she and their son Billy have been unwell with symptoms that led Curt to suspect their drinking water in Florida was compromised. With Billy appearing very unwell, Peter and Mary Jane head to Empire State University to check on Dr Connors.

 

Mary Jane and Peter discover Curt’s Empire State University laboratory has been smashed up and find his notes for a formula to purify the water in the Everglades, however the process could threaten the reptiles there. Believing this conflict between his family and the environment may have driven Curt over the edge, and with Mary Jane’s blessing Peter sets out to find Connor’s as Spider-Man.

 

Finding Connors has transformed into The Lizard, Spider-Man battles various reptiles to reach the doctor’s alter ego. The Lizard reveals he is trying to protect his reptilian family from Connor’s water treatment plan until Spider-Man tells him that Connors intentionally called forth the Lizard because he didn’t want to use a formula that would only save one of his families at the cost of the other. Apparently accepting Curt saw the reptiles as family too, the Lizard reverted back to Connors. Dr Connors returned to the drawing board, determined to find a mutually beneficial solution to the problem, once more hiring Peter as a lab assistant to help in this endeavour.

 

That’s it for The Lizard in the MC2, though it’s worth noting with this story taking place nearly 15 years in the past, we don’t know the ultimate fate of Dr Curt Connors and his scaly other half. Another odd note is Martha Connors acting as though she’s meeting Mary Jane for the first time, despite having met more than once prior to this occasion in the Main Marvel Universe. But we can give her a pass here as she states she and Billy haven’t been very well.

 

Until I figure out an explanation for the ever-young Billy Connors, I remain

 

frogoat