The only acknowledgement that Baby May didn't exist in this timeline is through "word of god" from Quesada and through MJ's refusal to have children with Peter in OMIT, Tom Brevoort disagrees with Quesada and has been open about that, but Joe can't be overruled.
I would like to see Peter and MJ getting married and having a kid. Mind you I would also be ok with Peter dating Felicia again as well.
i’m one of those nutcases that doesn’t have a personal endgame other than; if the writers can make it interesting...then i trust them. if not, move on.
troo fan or death
I don't hold much stock in "word of God" for shared universes; too many creators plugging their own ideas and God changes all the time, with different agendas.
You're better off then some of us. Me, I'm kinda attached to a specific endgame that's an absolute deal breaker, but at least I can stay moved on and be okay with that if the endgame doesn't happen.
Doctor Strange: "You are the right person to replace Logan."
X-23: "I know there are people who disapprove... Guys on the Internet mainly."
(All-New Wolverine #4)
I certainly want that for Peter and MJ. What makes Spider-Man ( Peter version) to most people ( not named Slott or Quesada), is he is "relatable." He is not a God like Thor, a millionaire like Iron Man, a space alien like Silver Surfer, sophisticated like James Bond, or a symbol like Captain America. He has issues with finances and the opposite sex, he gets disrespected ( like when he was with The Avengers), but being Peter Parker is important to him, is not fighting crime 24/7 like ( unlike say Bruce Wayne to Batman). But under Slott, he became very "unrelatable" like when he acted like James Bond with women, and Tony Stark with money, before the fall of course. MJ was and still is "The Jackpot" because she has everything a guy can possibly want in a woman ( not the least of which is understanding, compassion and respect). That is what Peter needs and deserves.
james bond
I don't blind date I make the direct market vibrate
I wonder if mj will get possessed by the symbiot in the upcoming venom event. that would cramp their love life for sure. imagine Peter coming swinging home only to find a possessed mj trying to eat his brains.
Personally I think that people need to get over that. The whole "sitting by the window" was trotted out by the BND writers and others to denigrate the marriage and other stories written during it and it was picked up by others as a cudgel. It's not unlike Trump going on about "collusion" as the dealbreaker even if that was never a legal term to start with, and the Proto-Trumpian tactics used by the BND people to denigrate is something people need to both be aware of, acknowledge, and stop defining that as.
The fact is that Peter and Mary Jane are the only major example of a civilian/superhero relationship in the Marvel Universe. Every other couple like Reed/Sue, Hank/Janet, Ororo/T'Challa, Scott/Jean, Gambit/Rogue recently, Hawkeye/Mockingbird are all within super teams, which adds to the overall cliquish elitism you tend to get in the Marvel universe where civilians have far less of a presence than they do in the DC Universe.
Given that MJ is a civilian, there's obviously some amount of angst over her limits to actually meaningfully help Peter and so on. And there's drama, good drama too, in dealing with that. Spencer knows and respects that, since he's a writer who does seem to care about civilians. So if you are a Peter/MJ fan you need to own up to it and claim it and not let that be some issue. And in any case, MJ didn't always look outside the window you know.
That wouldn't be a bad idea. It would be weird to make MJ a model and actress, because in Bendis' Iron Man she discusses having misgivings about her modelling phase and how that looks in the current period. And it looks like it's something that writers going forward want to downplay. And in any case, MJ being a model is not an intrinsic part of her character. It was introduced by Ron Frenz/Tom Defalco and as Frenz said,Even though the execution was weird and a little I actually liked the idea of her running Stark Industries as it showed MJ with some growth. Perhaps the way forward is Peter and MJ starting a tech startup with MJ running the day to day operation of the company and Peter supporting how he could. You could still have down on his luck Parker as the two struggle to make their business work while also managing their relationship through it all.
"When Tom Defalco established Mary Jane as a runway model. That is a very specific thing. For fashion shows within the industry. He did not intend when he threw that line out there...he did not intend for that to turn into policemen recognizing her as a magazine cover model. Those are two completely different things. But different writers take things in different directions...it ended up with Mary Jane being this hybrid soap opera/actress famous cover model person which people would recognize on the street. The original plan for that was far more modest."
— Ron Frenz, Superior Spider-Talk #26: Superior Spider-Man #23 w/ Ron Frenz, by Mark Ginocchio and Dan Gvozden, January 20, 2014. Timestamp 1:22:00 — 1:25:00.
So...Mary Jane was never intended to be this super famous person. And you can downplay that easily. I mean there are plenty of models and actresses who end up forgotten and get obscured never getting their big break. In MJ's case, Jonathan Caesar the proto-Weinstein shut down her career so you have a believable/sympathetic reason as to why despite all her efforts she never got where she wanted to go. Roger Stern's wonderful sketch in ''The Many Loves of Spider-Man'' (with art by Frenz) also showed MJ in a bit of a loose end. That happens to be the best portrayal of Mary Jane in the entire BND era in 616 continuity, at least until Bendis brought her to Iron Man.
Great post.
But to clarify the whole sitting by the window trope for me is just a common idea of MJ just not having anything to do of note while Peter is out saving the world. MJ needs to be her own person, her own goals, her own ideas. I agree that there are limits to this given that she is a civilian but like you said that just means a writer needs to be intentional about how he writes the character. I'm also not saying that MJ was never her own person, or devoid of her own goals or ideas just that there needs to be more to the character than just "stand by your man". That's all I'm saying. I want MJ to have a life outside of Peter and her relationship with Peter. Their relationship should be but a facet of both Peter and MJ not the totality of it.
Last edited by nx74205; 04-30-2019 at 12:18 PM.