Trouble (comic)

Trouble is a romance comic book mini-series consisting of five issues published by Marvel Comics under its Epic line in 2003. Written by Mark Millar and illustrated by Terry and Rachel Dodson the series deals with teen pregnancy.

Trouble was originally considered by Marvel's editorial group as the possible origin of Spider-Man, but after the book was not received very well by fans the story was declared not "official" Marvel continuity.

It was also meant to re-popularize romance comics (which were very popular in the 1950s, selling millions of copies), but failed.

A trade paperback collecting the five issues was originally sheduled to be published on 18 February 2004, but cancled when Epic was shut down after Bill Jemas, who had been a driving force behind the imprint, resigned as president of Marvel Comics.

Plot summary

May and her best friend Mary come working in a resort in the Hamptons during their summer vacation, looking for some fun away from home. Soon they make friends with fellow service staff members Richard and his brother Ben and the four of them, after a couple of days of hard work and being bossed about by the guests, go to a dance together. After the dance and a round of nightswimming they head back to their rooms: May takes Ben to her room and sleeps with him, while Mary tells Richie it's too fast for her and she wants to wait before having sex with him. She later reveals to him it's because a palm-reader told her she would become a mom before she was twenty if she had sex in her teens. The same fortune-teller also told May nobody was ever going to call her mom, which explains why May is so open in her relationships. Richie is not very understanding of her reasons for not sleeping with him and starts an affair with May. May tells Mary she is cheating on Ben, but not with whom. A while later, she finds out that she's pregnant. Upon realizing the fortune-teller must have been wrong, Mary now finally sleeps with Richie, who then ends the affair with May. When May reveals her pregnancy to Ben, it turns out he's sterile and her affair with Richie, who must be the father, is uncovered. May is thinking about having an abortion, but decides against it. Afraid of going home and facing her dad with an unwanted child she runs away.

After some time of living with a guy she is disgusted by and never even tells she's pregnant May contacts Mary and meets with her. Mary is still very angry about May for having an affair with Richie and tells her she deserves all the trouble she's going through, but decides to help her when May tells her she's been thinking about suicide. Mary comes up with the plan to tell everybody the baby is hers, so May won't have to face her fundamentalist parents and Mary can test if she can trust Richie, who is still in love with her and writing her frequent letters, which she hasn't answered, yet. So once little Peter is born, Mary takes him to Richie and they start a family, while May returns home to her parents as if nothing had happend.

Covers

Rather odd for an American comic book series, all issues of Trouble featured photo covers by French photographer Phillippe Biabolos in the style of teen romance novels, with cover design by Joe Quesada. These covers were to appeal to a female audience (Marvel originally hoped for high sales outside the comic scene, particularly with a collected edition that was to be heavily promoted in many bookstores, but never published after the series did not do well in the direct market).

The second printing of the first issue (Trouble #1: The Second Chances Edition) was the only one to feature a conventional comic book cover, drawn by Frank Cho.

Reception

The series' main characters, May, Ben, Mary and Richard, were obviously meant to be Peter Parker's Aunt May and Uncle Ben along with his parents Mary and Richard Parker. Thus, the revelation that Aunt May is actually Peter Parker's mother was highly controversal among Spider-Man-fans.

They argued that Aunt May's behavior in Trouble did not match her character from the Spider-Man books, that the characters' appearances were different from their looks in previous Spider-Man issues and that certain other facts were also out of continuity. Complains from fans were so strong that Marvel later declared that the story was not part of the "official" Marvel continuity.

External links

• Newsarama's coverage of Marvel's press conference about Trouble
• SpiderFan.org Top Ten Reasons Not To Take The Trouble Mini-series Seriously