George R.R. Martin Skewers the Most Infamous Tale of His Favorite Superhero

George R.R. Martin loves comics, and he really hates when they get wiped clean. If you have ever followed a character for years and watched the slate get scrubbed because someone wanted a fresh start, you get where he is coming from. And yes, he brought up the Spider-Man storyline that still sets people off.

Martin vs. the reset button

Talking to Popverse about his lifelong comic habit, the Game of Thrones author vented about reboots and retcons steamrolling continuity — the exact stuff longtime readers have invested in for decades.

"I don't like retcons. I don't like reboots. You know, I'm watching, I'm following a character or a superhero or something for years, sometimes decades, and then they come and say, 'Oh, no. None of that stuff happened. We're just going to start the whole thing over again.'"

"That always annoys the hell out of me."

"Peter Parker married Mary Jane. You can't undo these things, but they do nowadays. But what can you do?"

The Spider-Man storyline that still stings

Martin singled out the infamous One More Day arc. Quick refresher: after Spider-Man publicly exposes Kingpin during Marvel's Civil War, Kingpin has an assassin shoot Aunt May. Desperate to save her, Peter Parker and his long-time wife Mary Jane Watson make a deal with Mephisto. The cost: their marriage gets erased from existence. Mephisto agrees, Aunt May lives, and Peter wakes up single again, back to sharing an apartment with May like old times. Functionally, it was a soft reboot — and that kind of undoing is exactly what drives Martin up the wall.

What that means for the next Spider-Man movie

Comic readers will see the parallels between One More Day and where the MCU left Peter. Spider-Man: No Way Home swapped Mephisto for Doctor Strange, botched a memory spell, and ended with a last-ditch fix that made everyone forget Peter Parker exists. MJ and Ned lose their memories of him, Aunt May is gone, and Peter is flying solo again with his identity safely locked away.

If you know what came after in the comics — the Brand New Day era — you can guess the playbook for the next film. Not confirmations, but the breadcrumbs are hard to miss:

• No Way Home already delivered the reset: secret identity restored, relationships wiped, Peter on his own.
• In the comics, Brand New Day used that clean slate to roll out new street-level threats like Mr. Negative and Menace, plus fresh romantic possibilities.
• On screen, that likely translates to a leaner, ground-level Spidey facing new villains and meeting a new love interest while rebuilding his life from scratch.
• The title doesn't hide the intent: a fresh status quo that mirrors the comics without the devil bargain.

I don't blame Martin for bristling at the big reset. When a story invests in a marriage, then magic-erases it, readers feel that. The MCU did the cleaner version, but the destination looks similar: a classic, back-to-basics Spider-Man with room to introduce a new rogues gallery and relationships.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is set to hit theaters on July 31, 2026 in the U.S.