Just seen some pages of Peter and MJ from Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man#1 out tomorrow. Won't spoil it, but they're adorable.
Just seen some pages of Peter and MJ from Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man#1 out tomorrow. Won't spoil it, but they're adorable.
Gerry Conway is once again asked about killing Gwen Stacy, and he makes the defence that the story is not a typical Women in Refrigerators tale because his main goal was to develop another female character (MJ) with Gwen's death, more than Peter himself. He does admit that the story inspired most other, inferior WiR stories.
It's a good interview in general with GC talking about law enforcement officials who use the Punisher logo missing the point of the character and his opinion of the one-too many universe-changing "events": https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/punish...ople-using-theI'm really proud of my work on that issue — and the work of Gil Kane and John Romita. We had no idea that story would end up having the legacy it's had, but even at the time I was conscious of wanting to drive home what I believed was the core theme of Marvel's approach to superhero storytelling: that being a superhero doesn't make you immune to tragedy, that superpowers don't make you infallible, and that real life doesn't always produce happy endings.
Unfortunately, Gwen's death also inspired some terrible stories, including the "girl-in-a-refrigerator" trope women in comics rightfully decry. I'd like to think that our approach to Gwen's death wasn't a cheap shot to create sympathy for our male hero, especially because I tried to use that tragedy more as a motivation for the emotional growth of the woman who would become the most significant female in Peter Parker's life, Mary Jane Watson.
But creators don't control the response to their work. We can only stand back and observe. It's astonishing to me that forty-five years later readers are still responding powerfully to that story. Astonishing and gratifying.
Heh, those are the kind of stories that really gel with MJ secretly knowing who Peter is, she even comes up with her own excuses as why she feels shafted in a way that throws Peter off from suspecting something about her, by playing directly into his own false narratives. Unlike so many Parker Luck sequences, these kind of scenes aren't painful to see play out because you have so much fun seeing the two essentially foil, compliment, and again foil each other. It's Lover's Tiff 101. Amusing and Cute.
The best writing of Peter and MJ's relationship in the post-Conway pre-Defalco era in 616 was in The Spectacular Spider-Man magazine that Conway launched at the end of the '70s...as well as Claremont/Byrne's Marvel Team-Up where MJ showed up in a few issues. Conway and later Bill Mantlo wrote MJ and Peter better than the main series did.
Wein at least kept Peter and MJ together until Wolfman broke them up and in the process committed character assassination on MJ, while at the same time planting the seeds of her backstory that ultimately got them married exactly 100 issues after they broke up in #192
J. Scott Campbell's white T-Shirt with Romita Sr's Wedding logo really seems to be MJ's go-to outfit these days. I wonder if this will be an update on Web of Romance by Tom Beland.
You think it will actually feature Peter and MJ at all, though? This is a variant, and clearly based on the Spider-Verse movie.
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
Peter and MJ aren't in it, looks like they're all pretty much original stories in the style of the classic Love Romances book from the 50s. I am disappointed we didn't get something like the Valentines Day Specials or the I Heart Marvel books where it includes a bunch of short stories about various different Marvel couples because those issues are always super enjoyable.
Either way, Russell Dauterman's art for that variant is fantastic. After his Thor work he's quickly become one of my favourite artists currently working.
The last time I remember the Big Two doing something big for Valentines was DC doing a Valentines romance-themed one-shot during the New 52.
Oh, I think there was also a "monster love" one-shot during Rebirth as well...
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
Spider-Man will be a guest at Citi Field for the Mets game on July 7th. Newsarama points out (in a poorly worded clickbait headline making you think there's a comics event coming) that the Mets last played host to Spidey when he married Mary Jane in the publicity stunt at Shea Stadium
https://www.newsarama.com/43515-spid...ial-event.html
Last edited by Miles To Go; 01-17-2019 at 01:24 AM.