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In 1995, Mary Janer and Peter Parker found out they were pregnant.The idea of superhero comics' quintessential teenage superhero growing up and having a family at the same time many of his readers were also contemplating - and doing - the same was a watershed moment in Spider-Man comics... but water, it can flow in more than one way. 

A year after the Spider-pregnancy was revealed in storylines, Amazing Spider-Man #418 ends with Mary Jane in a hospital delivery room being told that her baby died during childbirth. In published comics, that was the end of the story of Spider-Man and Mary Jane's child in mainstream continuity - but the writer of that storyline, Tom DeFalco, said that it originally wasn't - and that Peter and Mary Jane's baby did survive, until changing plans led them to scuttle the rest of the story.

The seeds for a reveal that Spider-Man and Mary Jane's baby survived were planned a few issues later, where a woman named Allison Mongrain is seen leaving the hospital, telling Norman Osborn that she has the “package” he requested. There was a scene fatured Allison speaking to an unseen figure in a crib. Allison calls the unseen figure “precious” and “darling” as she holds a baby rattle over them. This seemed to imply that Mongrain had secretly abducted the Parker baby and went into hiding with them. ANd according to DeFalco, it was - until it wasn't.

However, Amazing Spider-Man #426 revealed that Allison had been talking to her cat, stating that she had built the crib for them. Tom DeFalco, who wrote both issues, says that Allison was supposed to be talking to the Parker baby, but Marvel forced him to change it to a cat.

“It was always going to be the baby,” DeFalco tells Popverse. “I think John Byrne was the one who decided that we would keep a cat in the crib. And I’m trying to figure out how a cat stays in a crib. John just decided he wanted to go off on his own way, that it was Aunt May coming back, because when he was a kid Aunt May was there.”

At the time Marvel was gearing up for a massive Spider-Man relaunch spearheaded by John Byrne. The relaunch kicked off with the return of Aunt May, who had previously died in Amazing Spider-Man #400. When asked if the original plan was for the Parkers to be reunited with their missing child, DeFalco confirmed that this had been the original approved story pitch.

“Yes, that was the plan. And then the new boss came in and decided that John Byrne was going to write Amazing and he was going to retroactively change everything.”

When asked how the story would have played out, DeFalco smiled. “Check Spider-Girl. That’s how we resolved it. That was my plan.”

DeFalco is referring to Spider-Girl #48-49, which features a flashback of Spider-Man’s clone Kaine retrieving the Parker baby from Allison and returning the child to Peter and Mary Jane. While he never had the chance to tell that story in mainstream continuity, Spider-Girl allowed him a chance to finally resolve the plot thread, albeit in an alternate reality.

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