Pete and MJ: Will Marvel pull a "Sacrifice" play?

For a second consecutive post, I'm linking to a Livejournal by the blogger known as "philippos the acidic one". But this time it's for a much friendlier reason. This time I'm hoping he's right.

Philippos contends that the powers-that-be at Marvel are not going to break up the Spider-Marriage within the next few months, and he presents some very logical and compelling reasons to support his thesis. Logically, I'm totally on board with what he believes will happen.

Except.....

....let's just say I've got a baaaad feeling about this.

I just finished reading Part One of the "One More Day" arc, and it establishes Aunt May early on as the front-runner in the "which woman in Peter Parker's life is going to die" sweepstakes. In popular fiction, that often means it's going to be someone else.

Remember the 100th episode of "Smallville" a few years back? It was called "Sacrifice", and it had a similar "one person in Clark Kent's life is going to die" hype to it.

It began with Clark revealing his secret identity to Lana and asking her to marry him. She said yes, and they broke the news (sans the secret identity part) to the other key people in Smallville. Unfortunately, this included a drunken and depressed Lex, still reeling from just losing a congressional race to Clark's adoptive father Jonathan. Suffice it to say that when Lana told him, he didn't take it too well, leading to Lana fleeing the Luthor Manor and an inebriated Lex in pursuit. So intent was Lana on eluding Lex that she failed to notice the oncoming truck which slammed directly into her car, killing her instantly. Clark arrived at the scene too late to save his lady love.

This was fine with me, as I had grown to hate the character of Lana over the years. Good riddance.

But then I noticed the time. It was 8:30. Only halfway through the show.

And that's when that baaaad feeling first hit me. It intensified when Clark visited his Fortress of Solitude and begged Jor-El for a chance to save Lana. As I feared, Jor-El sent Clark back before he revealed his identity to Lana. This time, he didn't reveal his ID, and Lana predictably didn't take this too well. Events unfolded in a similar sequence to the first half of the episode, with key variations, and this time Clark saved Lana from the fatal accident. Unfortunately, in doing so he was too late to save his dad Jonathan from suffering a fatal heart attack.

Needless to say, since Jonathan was one of my favorite characters on the show and Lana.....wasn't, I was not a happy camper.

And now I fear that Marvel is going to pull the same trick with "One More Day": stacking the initial odds strongly in favor of Peter losing May, and then at the tail end arranging a "twist" that ends up with MJ either dead or divorced.

So while my head agrees completely with philippos and hopes he's right, that feeling in my gut says otherwise.

I hope my gut is wrong.