366 Days with J. Jonah Jameson, Day 212: Crisis on Infinite Jonahs Week, Day 7: Love, Reign o'er Me. At least, I hope that's love.

Okay, okay, let's see if we can get through this one together without a lot of snickering. Yes, yes, it's the one where it's the dark dank dismal future of Earth-70237, and Mary Jane Watson is dead, killed by Peter's "stuff." I am not certain what this means, actually. Maybe he had some dangerous weaponry in the attic, or his collection of 1950s Atlas monster comics fell on her. Anyway, she's dead, he's in bad shape, it rains a lot, and you certainly don't need spindly little cranky Old Man Logan Jonah showing up on your apartment doorstep.


Panel from Spider-Man: Reign #1 (February 2007); script, pencils, inks, and colors by Kaare Andrews, letters by Chris Eliopoulos
He's about as welcome a houseguest as a Jehovah's Witness selling band candy to support Bernie Sanders going to Capital City for the semi-finals. Also: land shark. And he pretty much gets the reaction you'd expect and he deserves. What, Jonah, he's been living there since the mid-sixties, you never thought to visit Peter before then? Well, maybe he was just creeped out by that "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better" poster.


But it turns out that this ancient newspaperman actually has a heart of gold, that is, the parts of his heart that haven't shut down from smoking a carton of cigars a day. Jonah's at last putting the needs of the many against the needs of the few (or the one) — In this grim dystopian future, Spider-Man needs to return, must return, shall return. Right?


Eh, maybe not.


Reign! A story completely without cheer, hope, or fun. But at least it gave us bald old J. Jonah Jameson punched out into a filthy puddle, and I think we can all excuse a few dead Mary Janes to see that.