Trouble is a five-issue limited comic book series written by Mark Millar and illustrated by Terry and Rachel Dodson. It was published from 2003 to 2004 by Marvel Comics as the debut title for its relaunched Epic Comics imprint. The series follows the summer vacation of recent high school graduates May, Mary, Ben, and Richie, depicting subjects such as abstinence, teenage pregnancy, and abortion.
The series was heavily marketed as a potential new origin story for the superhero Spider-Man (Peter Parker), with much of the promotion centered around how the series' primary characters are heavily suggested to be younger versions of Spider-Man's family members Aunt May, Uncle Ben, and Richard and Mary Parker. This reflected the so-called "made-you-look" marketing strategy Marvel pursued in the early 2000s under executive vice president Bill Jemas, characterized by provocative editorial gimmicks aimed at attracting media coverage at little direct financial cost to the company.
Trouble was positioned by Marvel as an attempt to broaden its appeal among female readers by re-expanding into romance comics, a genre which enjoyed significant popularity in the mid-20th century, and to expand from the comic book store market into the more lucrative bookstore market. Though the first issue of Trouble went to a second printing in a significant reversal of Marvel's then-longstanding policy never to reprint comics, the series received generally negative reviews from critics, underperformed commercially, and was never formally incorporated into the broader Spider-Man canon.
Plot
May and her best friend Mary get summer jobs at a resort in The Hamptons, where they begin dating fellow workers Ben and his brother Richie, respectively. May and Ben's relationship soon becomes sexual, but Mary tells Richie she is abstinent. A sexually frustrated Richie begins having an affair with May; soon thereafter, May becomes pregnant. The affair is exposed after May discloses her pregnancy to Ben, and he responds that he cannot be the father as he is sterile.
Fearing reprisal from her religious parents, May considers an abortion before deciding to run away from home. A desperate May later contacts Mary, and despite Mary's continued anger over the affair, she agrees to help her. Mary formulates a plan to claim May's baby as her own, allowing May to conceal the truth from her parents and test Richie's commitment to their relationship. May gives birth and returns to her parents, and Mary and Richie begin to raise her son Peter as their child.
Development
Context
thumb|left|upright=0.8|[[Bill Jemas (pictured 2010)]]
Bill Jemas became executive vice president of Marvel Comics in 2000, and significantly reorganized the company as it emerged from its mid-1990s bankruptcy proceedings.
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