Doctor Doom's War on Hell Puts Aunt May—and the Spider-Marriage—Back in the Crosshairs

Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto's Avengers #1 hit shelves November 4, and tucked inside the new team's demon-haunted debut is a bigger problem brewing for Peter Parker. Since dethroning Mephisto and taking over Hell in Avengers: Armageddon #5, Doctor Doom has reportedly been voiding the old devil's contracts one by one — and that includes the infamous One More Day deal that spared Aunt May's life and scrubbed Spider-Man's unmasking from history in exchange for erasing Peter and Mary Jane's marriage.

With Mephisto's bargain off the books, Aunt May's reprieve may be going with it. Preview art for the issue leans into the idea with a pair of unidentified angelic and demonic figures hovering over the story, seemingly dispatched to settle accounts Doom's housecleaning left unbalanced — chief among them a woman who, by the old rules of the Marvel Universe, was never supposed to survive Peter's college years.

Marvel's own solicitations point the same direction. Avengers #2, due December 16, promises that "Spider-Man must act quickly when his past once again puts Aunt May in jeopardy," while Avengers #3, arriving January 27 and subtitled "Chase the Devil Part One," suggests Peter's reckoning with Doom's new world order is only getting started. Nothing is confirmed yet, but after nearly two decades, the One More Day deal finally looks breakable.

Original reporting: Bleeding Cool.