Mary Jane Watson/Parker Appreciation 2019

[Huntsman Spider]

Aunt May and Mary Jane's relationship was always delightful. It's that rare subversion of the annoying in-law which you see in so many bad shows. May always saw Mary Jane as a daughter, and MJ and May were always close friends.

They genuinely like each other and even in that one above, you can sense the love between them.

Which in retrospect was why Mary Jane's Aunt Anna's depiction in TAS was so aggravating. Not only was she pointlessly hateful and bitter toward Peter despite the fact that he was her best friend's nephew and the love of her niece's life, it completely flew in the face of how much respect she had for him in the comics as basically the one man in Mary Jane's life who genuinely loved and cared about her and went out of his way to make her happy. Granted, there was the time Anna suspected all of Peter's bizarre and half-explained absences were the product of an affair, but at least that was a reasonable conclusion some people could come to without knowing that he was Spider-Man, as opposed to just hating him from the get-go no matter what.

Also, speaking of MJ and her family, I'd love to see more of them show up in the comic, or at least get an explanation as to whatever happened to them now that she and Peter are back together and she's coming off a stint working for Tony Stark, of all people.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Which in retrospect was why Mary Jane's Aunt Anna's depiction in TAS was so aggravating. Not only was she pointlessly hateful and bitter toward Peter despite the fact that he was her best friend's nephew and the love of her niece's life, it completely flew in the face of how much respect she had for him in the comics as basically the one man in Mary Jane's life who genuinely loved and cared about her and went out of his way to make her happy. Granted, there was the time Anna suspected all of Peter's bizarre and half-explained absences were the product of an affair, but at least that was a reasonable conclusion some people could come to without knowing that he was Spider-Man, as opposed to just hating him from the get-go no matter what.

My sense is that writers always had difficulty fitting MJ's family life into Peter's supporting cast. They're not from New York while MJ is the typical "small town girl who wanted to get out and so moved to the city and didn't look back". MJ having distant and estranged relations with her family, which remains in place even after the reconciliation with Gayle, also handwaves why we only ever see Aunt Anna and not anyone else. It at least allows them to escape the trap of the Stacy family. There because Gwen was so perfect, that meant that George Stacy was important, Gwen's relations in England, including Arthur and Jill Stacy were important, and of the lot George Stacy became the most interesting of the Stacys (moreso than the daughter).

Felicia Hardy also had a mother who she introduced Peter to, but we don't see much of her either. Carlie Cooper had family baggage and so on with her Dad that showed up in one of the Mysterio stories they did, and since Carlie was a copy of Gwen and other earlier girlfriends Peter had, it showd.

I kind of feel that Gail, her sister could be used in more stories. She's older than MJ and Peter and has two kids who see MJ as an Aunt. And she's an interesting character. And you could do cool stuff with those kids. Like MJ had a dark abusive childhood, but since Gayle married someone just like her Dad, that means her children had troubled childhood too. So you could do some stuff there and bring some interesting drama.

[Huntsman Spider]

My sense is that writers always had difficulty fitting MJ's family life into Peter's supporting cast. They're not from New York while MJ is the typical "small town girl who wanted to get out and so moved to the city and didn't look back". MJ having distant and estranged relations with her family, which remains in place even after the reconciliation with Gayle, also handwaves why we only ever see Aunt Anna and not anyone else. It at least allows them to escape the trap of the Stacy family. There because Gwen was so perfect, that meant that George Stacy was important, Gwen's relations in England, including Arthur and Jill Stacy were important, and of the lot George Stacy became the most interesting of the Stacys (moreso than the daughter).

Felicia Hardy also had a mother who she introduced Peter to, but we don't see much of her either. Carlie Cooper had family baggage and so on with her Dad that showed up in one of the Mysterio stories they did, and since Carlie was a copy of Gwen and other earlier girlfriends Peter had, it showd.

I kind of feel that Gail, her sister could be used in more stories. She's older than MJ and Peter and has two kids who see MJ as an Aunt. And she's an interesting character. And you could do cool stuff with those kids. Like MJ had a dark abusive childhood, but since Gayle married someone just like her Dad, that means her children had troubled childhood too. So you could do some stuff there and bring some interesting drama.

I agree with you on Gayle, and I'd personally like to see Kristy show up again, too.

[Cmbmool]

I agree with you on Gayle, and I'd personally like to see Kristy show up again, too.

Am I the only one who mentions Kristy’s appearances in Spider-girl ?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Am I the only one who mentions Kristy’s appearances in Spider-girl ?

Which issues are this?

[Kevinroc]

Am I the only one who mentions Kristy’s appearances in Spider-girl ?

Eh? The CBR article on Kristy mentioned her appearances in Spider-Girl.

https://www.cbr.com/spider-man-krist...jane-cousin/2/

Now, do note that Kristy DID pop up as an adult in the alternate continuity series, Spider-Girl, set when Peter and Mary Jane are older (Peter is retired as Spider-Man) and their teenage daughter, May, becomes a superhero. That was out of continuity, but fair enough, she made appearances there.

[Agent Z]

Found this funny image on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/MWDanvers/status...26897162874880

[Miles To Go]

Newspaper MJ is just the best, she really is. Runs down three stories up and down just to retrieve a security blanket to drape over Purple Man and shield her man from his powers

[Frontier]

Found this funny image on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/MWDanvers/status...26897162874880

Literalness never looked so hilarious .

[John Ossie]

Heh I like the link you gave Agent Z.

[Confuzzled]

Like MJ had a dark abusive childhood, but since Gayle married someone just like her Dad, that means her children had troubled childhood too. So you could do some stuff there and bring some interesting drama.

I think Gail's husband wasn't like their dad. He was just too weighed down by all the responsibilities of getting married and having a child at a young age. I'm not sure which story it was (Parallel Lives?) but MJ observes how he had been reduced to just a shell of a human being by all the stress and burdens.

The Watsons do have interesting dynamics of their own, but since it is so totally separate from Peter's world, and since the traditional belief is that the target audience for Spidey books won't be into family melodrama not involving Goblin serums, it just gets left out.

*I guess the solution is to make Gail's ex another Hobgoblin or make Gail herself a latent mutant? I partially kid but there aren't many superpowered moms in comics.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The Watsons do have interesting dynamics of their own, but since it is so totally separate from Peter's world, and since the traditional belief is that the target audience for Spidey books won't be into family melodrama not involving Goblin serums, it just gets left out.


*I guess the solution is to make Gail's ex another Hobgoblin or make Gail herself a latent mutant? I partially kid but there aren't many superpowered moms in comics.

I was thinking you could make one of MJ's nephews, Gail's children, into a supervillain. If not for Peter, then for Miles. Have him go to Miles' school. You need to build connections between Peter and Miles' supporting casts. So that you can have them show up in both in a way that makes sense. Bendis struggled with this in USM, where after introducing Miles and his supporting cast, the role Peter's regular cast had couldn't accomodate to Miles easily...and eventually Peter had to come back to resolve that.

One of the great problems of Spider-Man's villains is that his villains are usually older than him, he doesn't have many villains the same age as he, and very little and no major one, younger than him. And I think having a villain be someone who sees Spider-Man as "Uncle Peter", in some respects an inversion of Aunt May's role (May is not related to Peter by blood since she married Ben Parker, so Peter could be one of those kids Uncle by being connected to MJ) would be tragic, heartbreaking, and interesting. And having him pair against Miles would work in a Kylo Ren versus Rey/Finn sense. The family connection that turns bad and the outsider who's the real deal.

I think the kid should be a modern kind of villain. I am thinking something along the lines of the novel JR which is about a kid who manipulates the stock market and so on. That would be cool.

[Miles To Go]

So it appears the newspaper strip will be going through some changes and we're getting reruns in a few more weeks. This excites me because we'll be able to peer back at the early character development of Newspaper MJ, a character without half if any of the baggage of the 616 version, but one who progressed into probably the most stable version.

[juan678]

https://www.cbr.com/captain-marvel-c...y-jane-watson/

[Huntsman Spider]

https://www.cbr.com/captain-marvel-c...y-jane-watson/

This is definitely something I wish would've lasted longer.