The past few weeks have certainly been eventful ones for the Spider-Man franchise. Writer Dan Slott ended a 10-year stint on Amazing Spider-Man, paving the way for a relaunched series featuring writer Nick Spencer and artist Ryan Ottley. The new creative team wasted no time making Peter Parker miserable in issue #1, including stripping him of his doctorate and journalism career and making him a pariah in the superhero community. But undoubtedly the biggest development in Amazing Spider-Man #1 involves the return of one element many fans assumed they'd never see again - a romance between Peter and Mary Jane. The question is whether this familiar love affair is a positive development for the series or merely a chance for Marvel to make headlines by reviving old controversies.

Art by Ryan Ottley. (Marvel Comics)

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For those not up on current Spider-Man continuity, Peter and Mary Jane's marriage was dissolved in 2007's One More Day, which ended with the two sacrificing their love to Mephisto in exchange for Aunt May's life. Marvel's goal was to pave the way for Brand New Day and a new status quo featuring a free, romantically unencumbered Peter Parker.Needless to say, many fans were unhappy, and the series carried a stigma for years afterward. For many, it wasn't even the fact that Marvel terminated Spider-Man's marriage that offended so much as the incredibly, unnecessarily convoluted way they went about it. How is making a literal deal with the devil less damaging to a wholesome superhero than getting a divorce? Even now, there's a certain degree of post-One More Day bad blood surrounding the franchise. More than a few Marvel fans have cited One More Day as the specific reason they continue to avoid reading Amazing Spider-Man. After being put through the wringer by Marvel once after devoting years to the Peter/MJ romance, they're not willing to invest their emotions (and their dollars) yet again.That's what makes this latest development so unexpected. Marvel is taking a big risk by reviving Peter and MJ's romance, and it's not clear what the reward will be in this case. It could be seen as a way of extending an olive branch to jilted readers, but those readers could just as easily view this story as adding insult to injury, as if Marvel is teasing the return of something that may not last (again). Not to mention the far more recent controversy Marvel courted with Spencer's last major Marvel project, Secret Empire, where Captain America was revealed to be a secret agent of Hydra.The real problem, though, is that it's not clear what story potential this relationship still holds. 2010's One Moment in Time explored exactly how Mephisto altered Marvel continuity to eliminate Peter and MJ's marriage. In the process, it offered pretty much the final word on Peter and MJ - they just aren't meant to be together. Ultimately, Peter decided that he couldn't give up being Spider-Man, regardless of personal cost, and MJ couldn't continue to be a part of that life. What has changed since then, exactly? What happens when the two characters inevitably run into that barrier all over again?None of this is to say that this relationship can't benefit the book or that Spencer and Ottley won't be able to put a fresh spin on this familiar dynamic. Issue #1 already shows their talent for subverting expectations and using iconic characters in unexpected ways. This could also serve as an opportunity to finally give Peter a long-term love interest again. He's had several flings since One More Day made him a free agent - Silk, Carlie Cooper, Mockingbird - but frankly, Spidey's love life has rarely seemed like much of a priority in recent years. At some point you have to wonder why Marvel worked so hard to restore Peter's bachelorhood. Mary Jane's return could be the key to addressing that problem. The fact that Peter's narration in issue #1 refers to these events as "our story" suggests that the Peter/MJ relationship is at the core of Spencer's run in much the same way the Batman/Catwoman relationship is for Tom King's Batman.Whatever the new creative team is planning, Marvel needs to make sure there is a clear roadmap for Peter and Mary Jane going forward. It's not enough to simply coast on the nostalgia readers still hold for that relationship. The series has to be able to push the characters in compelling new directions even as it brings them together again. Otherwise, this risk won't pay off.

Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter , or Kicksplode on MyIGN