Even George R.R. Martin Can't Stand Spider-Man's Mephisto Deal in One More Day — And He's Not Alone

Spider-Man fans are dragging One More Day again, and honestly, I get it. A resurfaced clip from Adam Driver's old indie comedy Gayby is making the rounds, and even George R.R. Martin has weighed in to say he hates it. When your controversial arc gets dunked on by both Kylo Ren and the guy who created Westeros, you know it left a mark.

Why One More Day is back in the discourse

On Nov 14, 2025, a clip from Gayby popped up on X where Adam Driver's character Neil goes off on the storyline. He says he bailed on Spider-Man after the infamous deal-with-the-devil twist and switched to X-Men because, at least there, the drama had some actual build-up.

"I stopped reading Spider-Man ever since he made that deal with the devil. I'm sticking to the X books."

He also calls out the way Cyclops and Emma Frost's mess with Jean Grey unfolded as something that, while messy, at least tracked over time. No magic reset button.

Quick refresher: what One More Day did

If you somehow missed the firestorm, One More Day kicks off in The Amazing Spider-Man #544. Aunt May is dying, and Peter makes a bargain with Mephisto to save her. The price: his marriage to Mary Jane gets erased from continuity. Yep, he trades away his own relationship and history. It was pitched as a soft reset for the character, but to a lot of readers it felt like tearing out a huge chunk of his life because editorial didn't want a married Spider-Man.

George R.R. Martin is not a fan either

While talking about comics with Popverse, Martin unloaded on the whole retcon approach these kinds of stories rely on. His main point: if readers invest years following a character, you can't just wave it all away.

"I don't like retcons. I don't like reboots... I'm following a character for years, sometimes decades, and then they say, 'Oh, no. None of that stuff happened.' That always annoys the hell out of me."

He specifically called out undoing Peter and MJ's marriage as crossing a line. In his view, once you take that step in a character's life, you should live with it. Hard to argue when the alternative is a demon deal that nukes emotional history because it is convenient.

The fan response, revived

That Gayby clip lit a fresh match, and the replies on X are exactly what you'd expect from a topic that never stops being radioactive. A few highlights:

• Some fans asked the obvious question: Marvel resets entire universes every other event, so why not just undo the Mephisto deal if it was such a misfire?
• Others said Marvel will do anything except let Spider-Man be happy.
• Plenty called it the worst Spider-Man story ever, period.
• People still think making a deal with the devil as a core part of Peter's history is wild, even ignoring the MJ marriage erasure.
• Joe Quesada took heat in several posts, with fans blaming that era for breaking Spider-Man and other corners of Marvel.
• More than a few readers said they dropped Spider-Man comics after One More Day and never really came back.
• And yes, a couple of replies went over the line into aggressive ranting, which does not help the argument, but does show how long this nerve has been raw.

So where does that leave One More Day?

Pretty much where it has always been: a creative choice that solved one problem by creating a bigger one, and it keeps haunting the character. When casual viewers, lifelong readers, a resurfaced Adam Driver deep cut, and George R.R. Martin are all circling the same drain, that says a lot about how this landed. The story did what it set out to do editorially; fans have never stopped rejecting the cost.

If you loved it or can defend it, I genuinely want to hear that case. If you hated it, you are clearly not alone.