I know that MJ is Peter's main squeeze...

[Kevinroc]

She's still an OC as far as I'm concerned so long as her name is "Michelle Jones" and she's characterized like she is in Homecoming.

Like, we brought up John Blake before, but calling him "Robin" doesn't mean I think of him as Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, or any of the other Robins. It's just a nod more then anything else.

but we could say they occupy "that space" in that universe

Essentially, this.

It's not like they're going to cast a white girl with red hair (either her actual hair color, dyed, or a wig) and say "this is the REAL MJ" or some such. That would be ridiculous and confusing and offensive.

Calling this character "MJ" means she is this character within the context of the MCU.

[Kevinroc]

I guess that's true, but it doesn't seem any different to me compared to when they gave Gwen some Mary Jane traits in the ASM movies.

That's because Gwen, at least in the Lee/Romita comics, was defined by her love for Peter and her hatred for Spider-Man. (It was an inversion of the classic Superman triangle, where Clark loves Lois, Lois loves Superman, and Lois doesn't care for Clark.)

Of course they replaced any actual development in favor of foreshadowing her death, but I digress. (Those movies were really bad.)

[Frontier]

Essentially, this.

It's not like they're going to cast a white girl with red hair (either her actual hair color, dyed, or a wig) and say "this is the REAL MJ" or some such. That would be ridiculous and confusing and offensive.

Calling this character "MJ" means she is this character within the context of the MCU.

I don't necessarily equate a "role" with the "character."

It goes deeper then that for me, otherwise I think it's not doing the character real justice.

That's because Gwen, at least in the Lee/Romita comics, was defined by her love for Peter and her hatred for Spider-Man. (It was an inversion of the classic Superman triangle, where Clark loves Lois, Lois loves Superman, and Lois doesn't care for Clark.)

Of course they replaced any actual development in favor of foreshadowing her death, but I digress. (Those movies were really bad.)

I'm not arguing they needed to better establish Gwen as a character but just that, since she was the main (and only) love interest they gave her more Mary Jane traits to make that work.

[boots]

Essentially, this.

It's not like they're going to cast a white girl with red hair (either her actual hair color, dyed, or a wig) and say "this is the REAL MJ" or some such. That would be ridiculous and confusing and offensive.

Calling this character "MJ" means she is this character within the context of the MCU.

man, i hope they don't intro some sort of battle of the mjs.

it’s a funny one. this mj is as much a remimagining as revolori’s flash, but they didn’t quite rename his character. though the absence of his (classically) anglo surname is conspicuous.

[Frontier]

man, i hope they dont; intro some sort of battle of the mjs.

That actually sounds kind of fun .

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Do people need MCU MJ to refer to Peter as "Tiger"?

Does anyone actually think Stan Lee had the best ear for realistic dialogue? The whole "Tiger" thing is an artifact of the Lee era because he was trying to write like he knew the 60s scene man. In the Raimi movies, MJ only calls Peter that at the end of Spider-Man 2 and that was more for mythology reference than anything.

Across the Spider-Man franchise, Mary Jane/MJ has become more of a name applied to the primary love interest, rather than a consistent character.

Mary Jane has had many different writers and stories in 616 take her across different direction and adaptations are usually faithful to different parts. The Mary Jane that shows up in adaptations and so on is largely consistent to how Gerry Conway, Roger Stern and Tom Defalco recontextualized her. The Lee-Romita version of MJ has never crossed out of the original run of the comics mostly because she's a throwaway side character there and not franchise leading lady, which more or less is what she has become. It's why Hugh Jackman's Wolverine isn't faithful to Claremont's run and original stories because Jackman's version is the actual franchise main character which he wasn't conceived to be at the start.

The PS4 Mary Jane and the MCU MJ are very different characters, and both are far removed from the Mary Jane of the Lee/Romita comics.

In terms of Zendaya's Michelle Jones being a class clown in high school and a loner, that's straight from Tom Defalco's classic origin story of MJ in ASM#259 ("Be All My Past Remembered"). Mary Jane never went to high school with Peter so that part of her life was addressed there, and Defalco presented her as a kind of awkward teenager who was a clown and loner, who liked to command attention and so on. That's very much how Michelle Jones is in Homecoming. She's actually the most 616-accurate version of MJ in high school (and bear in mind MJ was introduced in college) compared to Kirsten Dunst (where she's made into Liz Allan but also being a nice person who never bullied Peter which Liz definitely did, although she does seem to like boys in cars much like Lee/Romita MJ), Ultimate Marvel (a new updated version that blends Conway's and Defalco's take) and so on.

As for the MJ of the Lee/Romita comics, that version of the character is pretty much impossible to do in the MCU or any version set in high school and for that matter in contemporary society. For one thing this isn't the '60s anymore, so MJ's whole "she's the loose one" and so on no longer has any real relevance. She's a poor working glass girl who tries to make it big as an actress and moves to New York. That worked in the '60s when New York was cheap, not today. Acting isn't likewise this great gig in the sky and path to social mobility that it once was.

So obviously you have to draw on other aspects of MJ of which fortunately there's quite a lot.

[Frontier]

Does anyone actually think Stan Lee had the best ear for realistic dialogue? The whole "Tiger" thing is an artifact of the Lee era because he was trying to write like he knew the 60s scene man. In the Raimi movies, MJ only calls Peter that at the end of Spider-Man 2 and that was more for mythology reference than anything.

But it's an artifact that works .

In terms of Zendaya's Michelle Jones being a class clown in high school and a loner, that's straight from Tom Defalco's classic origin story of MJ in ASM#259 ("Be All My Past Remembered"). Mary Jane never went to high school with Peter so that part of her life was addressed there, and Defalco presented her as a kind of awkward teenager who was a clown and loner, who liked to command attention and so on. That's very much how Michelle Jones is in Homecoming. She's actually the most 616-accurate version of MJ in high school (and bear in mind MJ was introduced in college) compared to Kirsten Dunst (where she's made into Liz Allan but also being a nice person who never bullied Peter which Liz definitely did, although she does seem to like boys in cars much like Lee/Romita MJ), Ultimate Marvel (a new updated version that blends Conway's and Defalco's take) and so on.

I don't know. She's doesn't seem much like a class clown or the type to command attention. She seems too standoffish and isolated for that to be the case.

[WebLurker]

Does anyone actually think Stan Lee had the best ear for realistic dialogue? The whole "Tiger" thing is an artifact of the Lee era because he was trying to write like he knew the 60s scene man. In the Raimi movies, MJ only calls Peter that at the end of Spider-Man 2 and that was more for mythology reference than anything.

She calls him that in the first movie, too. Also, it's it's not really framed as a "cool" thing, but more of a friendly nickname. (IMHO, having Ultimate MJ say it in the comics was more jarring, given that the context didn't really fit the character as written at the time, IMHO.)

[Revolutionary_Jack]

But it's an artifact that works .

Matt Fraction had a field day with that in To Have and to Hold because Peter repeats that to a cop and the cop mocks him for the weird dialogue he repeats. Conway tried to explain it with MJ saying, "I call you tiger because you're not" which works. He wrote MJ as being a little more mature, sincere, and introspective. But that doesn't explain that in the earlier L-R era she called every guy tiger and it seemed like a character tic more than anything. So it's some weird inconsistent thing.

I don't know. She's doesn't seem much like a class clown or the type to command attention. She seems too standoffish and isolated for that to be the case.

Michelle Jones in Homecoming does stuff like drawing a picture, sitting in detention even when she doesn't, snarking at Peter and Ned when they ogle Liz and her friends, and then jerk around Peter with that whole "What are you hiding thing". She's a more millennial take. Someone compared her to Daria and that's not a bad comparison.

She calls him that in the first movie, too.

Word search on the script here
shows she did it once in a casual context. So it's not a regular thing with her in those films.

(IMHO, having Ultimate MJ say it in the comics was more jarring, given that the context didn't really fit the character as written at the time, IMHO.)

Yeah, I mean that felt like mythology over character-in-the-moment-and-place, she said it for the first time in USM#13.

[boots]

Michelle Jones in Homecoming does stuff like drawing a picture, sitting in detention even when she doesn't, snarking at Peter and Ned when they ogle Liz and her friends, and then jerk around Peter with that whole "What are you hiding thing". She's a more millennial take. Someone compared her to Daria and that's not a bad comparison.

that’s my take too

like the 21 jump street movie demonstrated: school tribes and “types” have changed

[Snoop Dogg]

stan's MJ talked like she was from saturn that's why he's the best MJ writer

[Frontier]

(IMHO, having Ultimate MJ say it in the comics was more jarring, given that the context didn't really fit the character as written at the time, IMHO.)

I don't think it fit her characterization was well, but it still came off as a playful nickname that worked in my opinion.

Matt Fraction had a field day with that in To Have and to Hold because Peter repeats that to a cop and the cop mocks him for the weird dialogue he repeats. Conway tried to explain it with MJ saying, "I call you tiger because you're not" which works. He wrote MJ as being a little more mature, sincere, and introspective. But that doesn't explain that in the earlier L-R era she called every guy tiger and it seemed like a character tic more than anything. So it's some weird inconsistent thing.

I definitely think of it as more of an affectionate nickname then a character tic.

Michelle Jones in Homecoming does stuff like drawing a picture, sitting in detention even when she doesn't, snarking at Peter and Ned when they ogle Liz and her friends, and then jerk around Peter with that whole "What are you hiding thing". She's a more millennial take. Someone compared her to Daria and that's not a bad comparison.

I don't really see Mary Jane as Daria though.

She just doesn't feel like a millennial take on MJ to me.

[Zeitgeist]

Why didn't it happen with Gwen Stacy then? I mean at the time of her death, Gwen was more prominent then MJ in the Spider-Man titles with more appearances and so on. And yet Mary Jane appeared in the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon in its third season while Gwen was still alive and the latter was a no-show. I guess that could be that Gwen wasn't a well-formed character whatever that means.

That would be because she was killed off 46 years ago, Jack. If, at the time, you're going to go for optimal shock value, you would kill off the more prominent cast member.

By that logic, Flash Thompson is more important than May and Ben, chronologically he made the earliest appearance in Spider-Man since he was there in panel 1 in AF#15. As by the way does Liz Allan (though she is named later on while Flash is named right at the start). May and Ben appear several panels later. J. Jonah Jameson appeared in ASM#1, Spider-Man's first solo comic. And Mary Jane Watson was first mentioned in ASM#15 as the girl that Aunt May herself believed would be the one that Peter should someday marry. Basically MJ's first mention in the comics in the 15th issue is May saying that "MJ is endgame." MJ's first appearance (shadowed and all) is in ASM#25 which by the way is also the first issue on which Steve Ditko had plotting credit. So she was definitely someone with a big role and future right from the start of the comics.

You've literally only taken half of what I said and ran with it, which is funny because you actually quoted my full reply, which contained the integral "and is more integral to the formation of the Spider-Man mythos than either". Her early appearance is part of her importance, it doesn't wholly hinge on it.

Says the guy who brought it up and made an issue out of it. How's that for gotcha?

Let's rewind:

Except Aunt May. She is forever.

It's called a joke. The only people 'making an issue" out of it were you and Miles, and it wasn't even a reply to either of you. No gotcha. Can we drop it now? Cheers.

[Zeitgeist]

stan's MJ talked like she was from saturn that's why he's the best MJ writer

You're my new favourite

[Inversed]

In terms of Zendaya's Michelle Jones being a class clown in high school and a loner, that's straight from Tom Defalco's classic origin story of MJ in ASM#259 ("Be All My Past Remembered"). Mary Jane never went to high school with Peter so that part of her life was addressed there, and Defalco presented her as a kind of awkward teenager who was a clown and loner, who liked to command attention and so on. That's very much how Michelle Jones is in Homecoming. She's actually the most 616-accurate version of MJ in high school (and bear in mind MJ was introduced in college) compared to Kirsten Dunst (where she's made into Liz Allan but also being a nice person who never bullied Peter which Liz definitely did, although she does seem to like boys in cars much like Lee/Romita MJ), Ultimate Marvel (a new updated version that blends Conway's and Defalco's take) and so on.

Michelle to me reminds me most of Spectacular's MJ, the "cool girl" mostly by herself but still joins in to take part in the fun, only with a 2010s teenage filter over it as opposed to the 2000s interpretation of 60s portrayal.