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Before Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter Parker made a literal deal with the devil to hide his identity from the world after it was exposed in Civil War.
The final moments of Spider-Man: Far From Home led to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s version of Peter Parker having his secret identity revealed to the world, and the first trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home reveals that he’ll look for a mystical solution to that problem. However, this isn’t the first time the wall-crawler has been forced to deal with his identity being exposed to the entire planet though, as the main Marvel Comics Spider-Man went through a similar situation in the fallout of the comics version of Civil War. But to get that genie back in the bottle, Spider-Man was forced to make a deal with the devil — literally.
In one of Marvel’s most controversial stories ever, Spider-Man made a bargain with a mystical force in the comics to get the world to forget his identity by turning to the devilish figure Mephisto, who erased the world’s knowledge of Spider-Man’s identity on top of their earlier deal to save a dying Aunt May, irrevocably changing the lives of Spider-Man and everyone else in his orbit.
In Civil War #2 by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, Spider-Man — who had been serving with the Avengers and had developed a close relationship with Iron Man at the time — revealed his identity on live television. The announcement came with a host of complications, but Peter’s position on the Pro-Registration side of the ensuing superhero conflict kept him and his loved ones relatively safe. That all changed when he grew exhausted with Tony Stark’s arguments and he switched sides. Suddenly, Peter’s loved ones were just as in danger as he was, which resulted in an agent of Wilson Fisk seriously wounding May Parker and the ensuing events of the “Back in Black” crossover by J. Michael Straczynski and Ron Garney.
Afterward, Peter and his wife Mary Jane found themselves tasked with accepting May’s impending death before going on the run. With his identity public knowledge, Peter and Mary Jane would be forced to abandon their old lives or risk capture and death around every corner. May’s death was the final straw for Peter, leaving him vulnerable to an offer from the devilish Mephisto in “One More Day” by Straczynski and Joe Quesada. After failing to find any other means to rescue May, Spider-Man and Mary Jane are presented with a proposition: in exchange for restoring May’s life, Mephisto would alter history and prevent the wedding of Peter and Mary Jane from ever taking place. In addition, Mary Jane forced Mephisto to add the caveat that everyone across the world would forget Peter’s secret identity.
After striking the bargain, Peter and Mary Jane awoke to a radically different world, and the full extent of the deal was revealed a few years later in the storyline “One Moment in Time” by Joe Quesada and Paolo Rivera. Mephisto’s intervened shortly before Peter and Mary Jane’s wedding resulted in them never fully tying the knot. When Mary Jane was also injured in the fallout of Peter’s identity being exposed, he brought her to Doctor Strange — who, working with Iron Man and Mister Fantastic, was also able to force the world’s population to forget Spider-Man’s identity. This effect could be reversed however by Spider-Man specifically revealing his identity to others. Some, like Black Cat, were also aware of the knowledge that had been taken from them, resulting in additional animosity until they learned the truth.
Peter restoring his secret identity after it was exposed to the world wasn’t his main intent in the bargain he struck with Mephisto, but it was a meaningful side-effect. The ensuing changes to the timeline are still having effects on Peter’s life even 15 years after he made it. The mysterious mastermind Kindred, Mephisto, and the changed timeline where Harry Osborn was still alive in the Brand New Day era of Amazing Spider-Man stories still playing out in the ongoing “Sinister War” storyline by Nick Spencer, Federico Vicentini, Mark Bagley. The fallout of Spider-Man’s mystical intervention in his life is still reeling to this day, and it remains one of the biggest changes in superhero history, with a more or less-in-universe retcon resulting in the changes.
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