There’s few people who could’ve ever predicted that one of the most unpopular contemporary characters at Marvel Comics wouldn’t be some vile villain, or some wildly mismanaged hero, but a dude named Paul. And yet, poor Paul Rabin—not so poor, to many—is definitely up there on comics fans’ shit lists.
Why? Because he was created, and continues to exist, to largely be an off-switch in the on-again, off-again relationship between Mary Jane Watson and Peter Parker.
Well, maybe “continues” is a strong word. Last summer, to the delight of fans, Mary Jane broke up with Paul after three years (and some timey-wimey stuff that brought them together in the first place), no longer willing to salvage what was left of their romantic relationship while she handled her duties as the latest host of the Venom symbiote. Now?
Paul’s dead. Womp-womp!
The ongoing Venom series has been dealing with a mysterious new serial killer villain named Torment, who has been trying to target the family lines of the Watson, Parker, and Brock families as part of a desperate bid to fulfil his death-spiralling dreams, leading to a team-up between Mary Jane, Peter, and even Eddie himself, back and hosting Carnage, to try and stop him from getting to Eddie’s wayward son Dylan, who’s been in MJ and Paul’s care for a while now.
In this week’s Venom #256, by Al Ewing, Carlos Gómez, Frank D’Armata, and Clayton Cowles, however, Torment comes knocking. And after Paul buys a moment of time for Dylan to try and escape, the villain simply grabs him and puts a knife clean through his chest.
The issue handles Paul’s death surprisingly cruelly in some parts, in a way that it wouldn’t be hard to read by people who’ve disliked Paul’s characterization and entire existence in the Spider-Verse these past years as almost gleeful in finally getting the chance to off him. Torment tells Paul, as he’s preparing to kill him, that no one has ever cared about him, and in the end, all he did was get in people’s ways. Paul’s final words, when Venom, Spider-Man, and Carnage catch up and chase Torment off, are him telling Mary Jane that he doesn’t matter and never did. When even Eddie tries to give Peter an apology and a chance to mourn him, Peter flatly declares that Paul wasn’t a friend—acknowledging that the death happened to a person, sure, but not a person Peter cares about.
Do you know how bad you have to be that your dying doesn’t affect Spider-Man? The answer is very.
But before Paul haters start popping bottles—or rather, continue popping them; they’ve been celebrating since leaked pages from Venom #256 started circulating online last week—we do have to remember that not every character in the comic is going to feel like the audience does. As wild as it is to see Paul’s death dismissed by some, in Venom #256, it becomes clear that his passing is going to have a huge impact on Dylan going forward, who collapses in Venom’s arms tearfully when he realizes that Paul is dead. He might not be a present figure, but Paul taking on a quasi-Uncle-Ben role in Dylan’s own journey means that, knife-to-the-chest or not, Paul is going to have at least some kind of lasting legacy within the story (although a legacy as long as Uncle Ben’s remains to be seen).
There’s also the perpetually lingering shadow over every superhero comic: since when has death stopped anyone before? Even non-powered characters have come back over the years, either temporarily or permanently, so just because Paul is dead right now doesn’t necessarily mean that will always be the case. Plus, there are other mediums to worry about too—remember a few weeks back when the Brand New Day trailer released and everyone feared that Eman Esfandi’s character flirting with MJ meant that he was the MCU’s Paul?
Still, it’s been a rollercoaster time for Spidey fans lately. From the giddy hype of Brand New Day, to Ultimate Peter Parker’s grisly death (at the hands of Carnage, no less) in the pages of Ultimate Endgame, Spider-fans exist to suffer almost as much as Peter himself does. Maybe it’s okay to treat this as a tiny win.
So RIP, Paul. Not out of a particular affection or anything—but mostly because if you do, the blood pressure of the average Spider-Man reader will go down significantly.
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