While all eyes are on Civil War II at the moment, Marvel has another major comic book storyline cooking that promises to shake up Spider-Man's world in a big way. "Dead No More" is writer Dan Slott's latest Spidey epic, following a conflict between the hero and a mysterious villain who apparently has the power to raise the dead. If the "Dead No More" teasers are believed, everyone from Gwen Stacy to Doctor Octopus to Uncle Ben himself could soon return to the land of the living.

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However, we're not convinced this story will be as straightforward as it seems. We think "Dead No More" could actually be a follow-up to the highly controversial "One More Day" storyline. Sound crazy? Scroll down to see our reasoning for why Peter Parker might be facing a very literal deal with the devil this year.After months of vague teases and general secrecy, the "Dead No More" story included in the recent Captain America: Steve Rogers FCBD special seemed to establish the basic premise. A villain known only as "the man in the red suit" has been busy resurrecting the dead loves ones of various Spider-Man villains - the Rhino's wife, the Lizard's family, the Kingpin's wife, etc. The man in the red suit is using those loved ones as leverage to force these villains to work for him. Rhino and Lizard are only too happy to play ball, while Kingpin apparently preferred a dead wife to a life of servitude.With the reveal that the man in the red suit has resurrected Gwen Stacy, it stands to reason that he'll be looking to blackmail Peter Parker into doing his bidding. That might be the central conflict of "Dead No More." Will Peter willingly step aside or even help this villain rise to power if it means bringing back Gwen, Uncle Ben and all the other loves ones he's failed to protect over the years?It also stands to reason that the man in the red suit is actually Miles Warren, aka the Jackal. This villain is infamous for cloning various members of the Spider-Man cast and using those clones to torment Peter Parker. Jackal's cloning antics were at the heart of several major Spider-Man crossovers, including the controversial "Clone Saga" of the mid-'90s and the more recent Spider-Island. Once you add in the fact that the man in the red suit is shown wearing an Anubis helmet and has a lair crawling with jackals and covered in Egyptian imagery, this reveal seems like a pretty foregone conclusion.But is it, really? If there's one thing we've learned about Slott's long run on Amazing Spider-Man , it's that he's not a writer to take the predictable route. Why would Slott be so blatantly telegraphing Jackal as the major villain of "Dead No More" unless he was trying to mislead readers? We actually have a different theory. We think the man in the red suit is Mephisto, and that he's come to finish what he started in "One More Day."For those who weren't reading Spider-Man comics in 2007, "One More Day" was a story that unfolded in the aftermath of Peter publicly unmasking during Civil War and Aunt May being shot by an agent of the Kingpin. Mephisto showed up at one of the lowest points in Peter's life to offer a literal deal with the devil. Mephisto would heal Aunt May, but at the cost of Peter's marriage to Mary Jane. To Mephisto, robbing the two characters of any memory of their marriage would bring him more satisfaction than stealing Peter's soul. Plus, the last-minute reveal that Peter and MJ were also sacrificing their unborn child was like a garnish on a particularly scrumptious meal."One More Day" paved the way for the Spider-Man: Brand New Day status quo and, eventually, Slott's solo stint on Amazing Spider-Man. But rarely have any Spider-Man stories directly acknowledged the events of "One More Day." It's a little difficult when the whole premise of Mephisto's bargain was that neither Peter nor MJ would remember what they sacrificed. As far as Peter knows, he was never married and May just happened to recover from her mortal gunshot wound. But we wonder if the time has finally come to acknowledge "One More Day" and force peter to confront his decision.The crux of this theory involves one line from the man in the red suit at the end of the FCBD story. He tells Gwen that Peter won't be a problem because, "We'll make him a hell of a deal." That seems like an awfully convenient choice of phrasing. Something Mephisto might say, perhaps? We've seen multiple times that the man in the red suit is fond of striking Faustian bargains with Spider-Man's villains, and that definitely seems like Mephisto's modus operandi.Then there's the fact that the villain dresses in red, as devils are wont to do. Even the Anubis trappings could point to Mephisto rather than the Jackal. Anubis is the Eqyptian god of mummification and the afterlife. He judged dead souls and guided them to their final resting place. That seems like a guise a certain lord of the underworld wouldn't mind adopting.Also, consider the fact that Slott has already written one major Spider-Man event featuring the Jackal as a primary villain. What's to be gained by returning to that well and retreading ground already covered in Spider-Island? Furthermore, there have been plenty of Spider-Man stories focused on Peter encountering cloned loved ones or refugees from alternate universes. The only way "Dead No More" is going to have true weight and significance is if these resurrected loved ones are truly the real deal, not the Jackal's clones or Mysterio's hallucinations or alternate universe doppelgangers. Neither the Jackal nor any of Spider-Man's other traditional rogues have that kind of power. But Mephisto does. Perhaps having feasted on Peter Parker's happiness once before, Mephisto has hatched a new plan to satiate his hunger. After all, what's tastier for a demon lord than the soul of the purest and most heroic person in the Marvel Universe?After nearly nine years, maybe the time has come to finally acknowledge the events of One More Day and build on them in a meaningful way. Slott already flirted with restoring the Peter/MJ marriage in last year's Secret Wars tie-in Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows. At the time, he teased that "elements" of that story would carry over to the All-New, All-Different Marvel Universe. We got a glimpse of what that might entail in last week's Amazing Spider-Man #12, where MJ seemed to retain some faint memory of encountering the villain Regent during Secret Wars. Is it much of a stretch at that point for MJ to remember being married to Peter and having a daughter?This doesn't necessarily mean Peter and MJ will go back to being married. We've already explored why the return of Spider-Man's marriage would be a bad idea , and we doubt Marvel would have gone through so much trouble and risked the wrath of so many readers to simply erase One More Day a decade later. But that doesn't mean there's nothing to be gained by exploring the fallout of that story. How would Peter react to learning the truth about his past and his relationship with Mary Jane? For that matter, how would Aunt May react to the knowledge that Peter sacrificed his family in order to save her? In a story that seems predicated on the idea of Peter facing the literal ghosts of his past, these questions could easily make the story that much more dramatic and emotionally resonant.Again, Marvel is hyping "Dead No More" as one of the biggest and most critical chapters of Slott's Amazing Spider-Man saga. How can Slott top a run that's already included huge conflicts like Spider-Island and the Superior Spider-Man status quo? Well, following up on one of the biggest and most controversial Marvel stories ever told would be one way to do it. With all the bad blood that still exists because of "One More Day," perhaps "Dead No More" can finally put that controversy to rest and remove the spectre of Mephisto from Spider-Man's life once and for all.

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