I give you this little backstory so that you'll understand why I've been writing a script a day. Most of them are pretty short, less than 10 pages, but it's still a challenge to come up with something new and interesting every day. As a result of this forced creativity, I'm having all these other peripheral ideas. I'm writing most of them down and hope to revisit each of them some day.
One such idea (which will never be used) was a new ending to One More Day. Imagine if this is the way it played out:
May is shot. Doctors don't know what they can do for her. Try as they might, they just can't save her. The damge is too vast and her body is too old. Spidey swings off, desperate for help. He doesn't care who has to provide the help, he just wants to save his dear old Aunt May. So he goes to everyone, hero and villain alike. Everyone reviews the case, but in turn, each of them shake their head and apologize. There is nothing that can be done.
Doctor Strange, who had bent time and space for Peter, that he
might travel to each person quicker tells Peter, "it seems the universe is set in its way. Sometimes, to keep the balance, death is required." This sparks an idea in Peter. "A death?" He repeats. "Could it be someone else?"The next issue begins with "one last day" between Peter and MJ. They're melancholy. They laugh, they love, they revisit all their favorite memories. Finally Peter kisses her "good-bye." Doctor Strange opens a time portal. Through it, Spider-Man can see the hotel room from last week. He knows where the sniper is. He waits as long as he can, and just as his Spider-sense starts tingling, he leaps through the portal.
Spider-Man crashes into Peter Parker, shoving him in the way of the bullet. MJ screams. Spider-Man falls to the floor, turns around, and sees Peter falling onto the floor, a bloody mess. Under his mask, he smiles, "it worked!" And then he fades from existence.
Between One More Day and Brand New Day we have an interlude: The Funeral of Peter Parker. It's a beautiful book in which all the heroes (and even a few surprise villains) show up to bade Peter good-bye. J Jonah Jameson even stands up and says, "he was the best damn photographer I had." Everyone you would want to be there, is there. Afterwards, MJ and Aunt May climb into a car and are driven home (would that be Stark Tower at this point? I honestly can't remember).
They find Peter there, in his Spider-Man suit, mask off. MJ looks at him and smiles. "So what's a world without Peter Parker going to be like?"
In Brand New Day, we pick up the adventures of Spider-Man. We discover that because of his heightened abilities, the gun shot wound didn't hurt him nearly as bad as it would have Aunt Many. A lucky side-effect no-one was counting on (though that won't be able to be said straight-out, as this Peter will have no memory of One More Day).
With Peter out of the picture, the Parkers now have to rely on MJ's workload to pay for their bills. This could be a new and exciting way to make her character more relevant to the story.
Peter refuses to show or tell anyone his identity. It's the only way he can protect MJ and May. With Peter "dead," no villains have any reason to target the Parker girls. This, however, does lead to a lot of distrust amongst the heroes. They don't know who this Spider-Impostor is and they think it's real disrespectful what he's doing. So this puts Spidey on the outs with everyone.
That's just the starting point. Countless stories could spin out of this set-up and would give Spider-Man a real interesting identity among comic book heroes. He would be the only one (that I can think of) that wouldn't have a dual identity. He'd be just Spider-Man.
But at this point, we would need a Delorean to pull this off.
