CAPTAIN AMERICA #16 may have just undone one of Marvel’s most infamous storylines

(WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Captain America #16. If you don’t want to know what happened in that issue, or even to think about what it might mean, read no further.)

This week’s Captain America #16, by writer Chip Zdarsky, artist Valerio Schiti, colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr., and letterer VC’s Joe Caramagna, featured a very interesting development involving everyone’s favorite Marvel devil. The current story arc of Cap, “Hell’s Angel,” has seen a comatose Steve Rogers, his soul dragged to Hell by Doctor Doom, working to free the underworld’s inhabitants from the rule of Mephisto. Last month’s installment saw Steve agree to give Mephisto his soul in exchange for Mephisto essentially freeing the world. “No more dictatorships, no more iron-fisted rulers,” promised the devil. “I would make it so the world was well and truly free.”

It’s a hell of a cliffhanger, but one that, upon reading, you knew there was going to be an out somehow. The nature of that out, though, could have far-reaching consequences for the Marvel Universe.

(We mean it – stop right now if you don’t want to be spoiled for the ending of Captain America #16!)

In stores now, Captain America #16 saw Cap, working with Doom, double-cross Mephisto, weakening him as he fed on the purity of Steve Rogers’s soul. Retreating from battle to heal, Mephisto was confronted by Doom, who offered him a deal: Mephisto would be allowed to escape if hew ould concede control of Hell to Doom. The demon accepted, and Doom took the throne, but declared himself a different kind of ruler than his predecessor. “People follow Doom because he is Doom,” he announced, saying that he was freeing the denizens of Hell from all of their past deals with Mephisto. In the key sentence: “All of Mephisto’s contracts are now null and void.”

As the issue ended and Steve’s soul was returned to his comatose body by Doom, a single panel showed Spider-Man, perched on a building, the skies red behind him, asking “What’s – what’s happening…?”

Those two sentences have sent fans into a veritable tizzy. After all, what’s the most famous of Mephisto’s contracts but the deal he made with Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson to save May Parker’s life in exchange for Peter and MJ’s marriage in the “One More Day” storyline?

It wouldn’t be the first allusion to “One More Day” in the current Captain America storyline. Last issue, as Mephisto made Steve Rogers his offer, he noted that, should Steve accept the deal, “you wouldn’t be the first good man to make a deal with me.” The words were accompanied by a panel of Spider-Man sitting on the ledge outside of Cap’s hospital room.

Beyond Captain America, last week’s Avengers: Armageddon #5 also included a massive Mephisto-centric tease, as Tony Stark used Doom’s Probability Machine to see the future – a future that involved a sword-wielding Mephisto holding the battered body of Spider-Man, and that Tony called “the key to everything.”

To paraphrase Spidey himself, what is happening? Did Chip Zdarsky just undo “One More Day”?

When I asked Zdarsky earlier this month about Mephisto and Spider-Man’s appearance in Armageddon #5, he was careful not to let on too much:

Doom in that first arc of Captain America, I knew I wanted to come back to him, and Hell just kind of seemed like the appropriate place. Again, not necessarily a commentary on political situations. And then I start writing Mephisto, and I’m like, ‘Oh, that could mean this, and I could use him here,’ and these things present themselves. And when I started plotting out Avengers, I was like, the stuff that happens in Captain America would affect the Avengers in this way, and so therefore, Mephisto’s got to be in Avengers, and also Tony Stark is going to see this thing, which is going to prompt this thing. It sucks, I can’t talk about it all, so I feel like these answers are very much like, ‘And then other things happen, another story, and it leads to another story.’

That interview took place before Captain America #16’s release, and since then Zdarsky has appeared on the Dom of X podcast to discuss the fallout from the conclusion of Cap #16:

Obviously there’s a famous contract in Amazing Spider-Man, So, you know, there’s going to be some ripples there.

When asked earlier in the interview about his feelings on “One More Day,” Zdarsky said that there were things about the Peter/Mary Jane marriage that he liked and didn’t like, and about “Brand New Day” that he liked and didn’t like, but that, ultimately, “I’m not the guy to bring those characters back together…But maybe we can ask [current ASM writer] Joe [Kelly].”

It sounds like, if “One More Day” is indeed being undone, by Doctor Doom of all characters, that’s something that will be more fully explored in Spidey’s ongoing series and not the Zdarsky-written Avengers series.

There’s also the matter of this Marvel teaser from New York Comic Con:

At the time there was idle speculation about what this image, released with no additional information, might mean. A theory I particularly enjoyed was that all of the Marvel titles in June are going to take place on the same day. In light of this week’s goings-on, though, it seems more likely that this teaser is an allusion to “One More Day.”

It’s been nearly twenty years since “One More Day” ended the marriage between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, and fans of the pairing have never let Marvel, or anyone responsible for writing Spider-Man, hear the end of it. If this storyline is in fact not undoing “One More Day,” I worry for the safety of all creators involved.

Captain America #16 ends with Steve Rogers waking to a world where the skies are red, angels appear to be coming down from the sky, and Spider-Man is futilely asking what happened. Here’s hoping we find out along with him next week when Zdarsky and artist Marco Checchetto’s run on the new ongoing Avengers series launches.