Comic Book / Trouble (Marvel Comics)

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Trouble is a story set in the Marvel Comics universe, published in 2003 by their Epic Comics imprint. The story was written by Mark Millar based on a concept developed by Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada, and illustrated by Terry and Rachel Dodson.

The five-issue series follows the adventures of brothers Ben and Richie, and best friends May and Mary. The four, along with numerous other youths, meet at a resort during summer work and hook up, Ben with May and Richie with Mary. However, their sexual misadventures end up taking more dramatic turns that change their lives forever when the negative effects of such a lifestyle begin to catch up to them.

What makes Trouble particularly infamous is that it was apparently meant to be a prequel to the Spider-Man mythos; Ben and May are Peter Parker's uncle and aunt, and Richie and Mary are his parents. The premise and subsequent plot reveals about Spider-Man's family resulted in it being widely unaccepted and ignored by fans and creators alike.

Trouble provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: When May's freaking out about her pregnancy, she fears for her and her mother suffering her father's wrath. This is an Informed Attribute, however; as we never see him acting even remotely like this in any of his appearances.
• Advertising by Association: The 2011 cover features the phrase "From the writer of Kick-Ass" above Mark Millar's name.
• Age Lift: In the main comic, Ben and May Parker are both about twenty years older than Richard and Mary. However, this comic portrays them all as being in the same age group. This only occurs so that the infamous teen pregnancy twist can happen.
• Ambiguous Time Period: As Present-Day Past below explains, the series seems to take place in the late '70s, but it isn't clear. Anachronistic pop culture references aside, the ages of the characters do not help. The series was published in 2003, and if it was meant to take place in the late '70s, the birth of Peter Parker in this story would put him at his mid 20s or so. However, in the Prime Marvel Universe by this time, Peter had married Mary Jane Watson, gone through secondary school, and was working as a high-school teacher; even accounting for Comic-Book Time, it seems more reasonable that Peter is at least in his late 20s and more likely somewhere in his 30s. To say nothing that if May was a teenager when Peter was born, she'd probably be in her 40s, maybe her 50s, by the time he's an adult, but she's typically depicted as much older than that.
• Canon Discontinuity: Marvel made vague comments that suggested that the comic's storyline was either removed from canon or never meant to be canon in the first place. Millar tried to make it canon to the Ultimate Marvel universe via references to Bucky Barnes still being alive (as Ultimate Bucky became a writer post-WWII and it was written before Captain America: Winter Soldier revealed that the classic Bucky was still alive as the titular Winter Soldier), but ultimately it got revealed as a comic in-universe in the Ultimate universe.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The first three issues are a teen sex comedy/romance story, while the last two are a drama with a few moments of Black Comedy or Mood Whiplash.
• Creator's Culture Carryover: Ben tells May that he bought her a Gonk toy (which, in America, refers to these things), and pulls out a Troll doll (which, in writer Mark Millar's native Scotland, is sometimes called a "gonk troll").
• Domestic Abuse: May, fearing her dad's reaction to pregnancy, fears he'll take his anger out on her or her mother.
• Driven to Suicide: May at one point considers suicide over dealing with becoming a teen mom with a devout fundamentalist father at home. Mary offers her a solution.
• Family Relationship Switcheroo: The infamous part of the story and the reason it's so reviled by both fans and creators — attempting to retcon that May was Peter's biological mother via an affair she and Richard engaged in, and Mary took the baby as her own to avoid May being in trouble with her fundamentalist father.
• Fanservice:
  • At one point the four go swimming, with May skinny-dipping.
  • Aside from the photo-covers (see above), the series also had "special" covers, which were blatantly this.
• First-Episode Twist: The series was initially advertised as Marvel's attempt to relaunch romance comics in the 2000's, and in being published through the newly-revived Epic Comics imprint, it was seemingly divorced from the rest of the Marvel universe. However, the first issue — depicting four teenagers named Ben, May, Richard, and Mary and their flings while sharing a summer job — ends with Mary proclaiming "Face it, tiger, you just hit the jackpot!", revealing that these are in fact the younger versions of Uncle Ben, Aunt May, Richard and Mary Parker, and the series was in turn a stealth prequel to Spider-Man.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: May has such a moment when she considers aborting the baby who will become Peter Parker.
• Grumpy Old Man: Mr. Shelby, the manager of the resort, seems to like being mean just to be mean to the kids and keep them from having fun as much as he can. At one point, even his wife calls him out on being such a killjoy.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: Pretty much every teenage character in the series is constantly looking to get laid. A major reason Richie cheats on Mary with May is because Mary won't sleep with him.
• Idiot Ball: May has a firm grasp on this when she has sex multiple times (and on at least one occasion without using protection) knowing, and even telling Ben about it, how easy the women in her family are to impregnate. Despite this, she still acts shocked when she discovers she's pregnant. Admittedly, May's justification for all this is because she and Mary visited a fortune teller who said nobody would ever call May mom, thus May interprets that to mean she'll never get pregnant. However...
• Informed Attribute: In the second half of the story, May makes several comments that suggest her father is regularly abusive to her and her mother. Absolutely nothing about his appearances, before and after we hear this, suggest anything of the sort, he's depicted as a normal, if slightly overbearing, father. He doesn't even end up being particularly mad about May's pregnancy, despite this being what caused her to bring up said claims of abuse.
• In Name Only: The interpretations of May, Ben, Mary and Richard do not resemble the canon versions of the characters in any way. And aside from the characters' names and a few vague references, the story itself has no larger connection to the Spider-Man mythos or the Marvel universe as a whole.
• Karma Houdini: The jerkass hotel patron who belittles May by the poolside. When we think she retaliates against him, turns out it's just an Imagine Spot and she holds her tongue for the sake of keeping her job. Ben tries to fight him in a restroom, but ends up getting beaten up instead and we don't see the patron for the reminder of the story.
• Loophole Abuse: See Prophecy Twist. The fortuneteller's predictions for May and Mary come true in a roundabout way.
• "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: While it's never explicitly drawn attention to, the teens' boss is named Peter Shelby. While Mr. Shelby initially appears to be nothing more than a snooty, prudish jerk who assumes the worst of the teens, he and his wife are surprisingly sympathetic and supportive of May when she tells them about her pregnancy and everything she's been through. When you combine this with May's disdain for her allegedly abusive dad, it gives the implication that May named Peter after Mr. Shelby as thanks for helping her.
• Present-Day Past: With no specific year pinned down, the series is awash in '60s and '70s pop culture references that don't all gel properly. Trying to line up the references to the Ford Mustang (1964), Scooby Doo (1969), Disney World (1971), the Emmanuelle film series (1974) and Reese's Pieces (1977), implies the comic takes place in the late '70s. However, one scene has Richie and Ben discussing the in-universe recent increase in comic prices to 12 cents, which was in the early '60s; by the '70s, the price was up to 15 cents.
• Prophecy Twist: A fortune teller foretold that Mary would be a mother before she was twenty, but no-one would ever call May "mom". Mary presumes this means she'll get pregnant as a young mother, while May thinks it means she'll never have children. In actuality, May gets pregnant and Mary passes the baby off as hers; Mary becomes a mother without getting pregnant, and May has a child who, being raised by her future sister-in-law, will think May is his aunt.
• Related Differently in the Adaptation: The miniseries infamously made it so that May was actually Peter Parker's biological mother instead of his aunt, Peter being conceived from an affair May had with his father Richard Parker.
• Spared by the Adaptation: As mentioned under Canon Discontinuity, this was written before Captain America: Winter Soldier retconned that Bucky Barnes was still alive as the titular Brainwashed and Crazy Winter Soldier, thus the Bucky of the Prime Marvel Universe was canonically dead at the time.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Even the most casual Spider-Man fan knows that Richard and Mary will die in an plane crash two or three years after the comic's ending and he'll spend most of his life being raised by May and Ben.
• Stealth Sequel:
  • Or prequel in this case, but as noted, it was advertised as a random romance comic, but the names of the main characters gives away that it was an attempt to retcon the details of Spider-Man's birth.
  • The final issue includes an appearance by an elderly Bucky Barnes, presented as a photographer, possibly making it part of the Ultimate Comics continuity.
• Teen Pregnancy: Part of the reason it was hated: trying to retcon that Peter Parker was the product of an affair Richard and May had as teens.
• Two-Timing with the Bestie: A teenage May and Mary worked together at a resort for a summer job. At the resort they meet Ben and Richard, after which May starts dating Ben and Mary starts dating Richard. Since Mary doesn't want to have sex with Richard, he has sex with May instead, while she is already having sex with Ben. She ends up pregnant with Richard's baby, since Ben was revealed to be sterile.
• Wham Line: If you don't know the story's ties to the Spider-Man mythos going in, the "face it, tiger" line will likely clue you in.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: May Parker is a senior citizen in the main comic, and her Ultimate counterpart was middle-aged. If May had gotten pregnant with Peter when she was a teenager, then she would barely be in her mid-thirties when he first became Spider-Man.