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 31st, Halloween. Thus, May
‘Mayday’ Parker was born on October 31st 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:
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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
31st?
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 31st.
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 31st 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
