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

[Huntsman Spider]

Wasn't she married with a kid or something in the MC2 comics?

To Flash Thompson. They got divorced, but not before having two children, a daughter named Felicity and a son named Gene. Gene turned out to be a chop off the old block, hearkening to his dad's teenage years, and Felicity resented Felicia for the divorce and became the MC2 Scarlet Spider partly to spite her mother by taking up a spider-based identity rather than a feline-based identity. Oh, and she might or might not have had a serious girl-crush on Mayday/Spider-Girl.

[WebLurker]

To Flash Thompson. They got divorced, but not before having two children, a daughter named Felicity and a son named Gene. Gene turned out to be a chop off the old block, hearkening to his dad's teenage years, and Felicity resented Felicia for the divorce and became the MC2 Scarlet Spider partly to spite her mother by taking up a spider-based identity rather than a feline-based identity. Oh, and she might or might not have had a serious girl-crush on Mayday/Spider-Girl.

Okay, I thought Black Cat had married a woman for some reason. At least somehow I got the idea that MC2 ran with the idea of her being bisexual (unless I was mixing her up with the daughter character or something).

[Kevinroc]

Okay, I thought Black Cat had married a woman for some reason. At least somehow I got the idea that MC2 ran with the idea of her being bisexual (unless I was mixing her up with the daughter character or something).

Because they did. Felicia entered into a romantic relationship with another woman after her relationship with Flash fizzled out.

[Zeitgeist]

Honest question. Don't you think they'll go back to that dynamic? They've done it before, as you yourself already pointed out. It feels like Felicia only has this epiphany whenever Peter is off the table because of MJ.

It's how they keep tension going. She wants what she can't have when he's unavailable, and doesn't want it when he is.
Spider-Man is as much of a soap opera as it is a superhero book.
I'd love to see what happens when those stars do align though, it'd be something different.

[Kevinroc]

It's how they keep tension going. She wants what she can't have when he's unavailable, and doesn't want it when he is.
Spider-Man is as much of a soap opera as it is a superhero book.
I'd love to see what happens when those stars do align though, it'd be something different.

You mean the kind of relationship we see in almost every other super hero comic in this industry?

[Zeitgeist]

You mean the kind of relationship we see in almost every other super hero comic in this industry?

I know you put a winky face at the end, but

1) Do we? I don't read every other super hero comic
2) Beyond that, not every other super hero has the history of either Spider-Man or Black Cat individually or together. Raise your hand if you've been bitten by a radioactive spider. Okay three or so hands still go up, but you get the point. The surface level dynamic (good guy, bad girl) may have been done, but the actual written history there is unique to their characters, the spidey books, and the industry.

[VolcanikTiger86]

You mean the kind of relationship we see in almost every other super hero comic in this industry?

Do we though because in most cases they never get serious off the top of my head there are only a few characters who would do this
Namor (Sue even though she was with reed & emma even though emma was with scott)
Logan (Jean when she was with Scott & maybe Storm when she was with T'Challa)
Mary Jane (wanted Peter when he was with Gwen)
Felica (wanted Peter when he was MJ)

In most cases they dont let relationships progress far so that the status quo can easily be changed by another writer

I mean how many marriages are there in Marvel that have lasted: Susan/Reed & Luke/Jessica thats the only two superheroic marriages i know of

[Kevinroc]

I know you put a winky face at the end, but

1) Do we? I don't read every other super hero comic
2) Beyond that, not every other super hero has the history of either Spider-Man or Black Cat individually or together. Raise your hand if you've been bitten by a radioactive spider. Okay three or so hands still go up, but you get the point. The surface level dynamic (good guy, bad girl) may have been done, but the actual written history there is unique to their characters, the spidey books, and the industry.

Mainstream serialized super hero comics tend to not exactly be the deepest medium out there. (This is by design, of course. Would be kind of hard for them to keep going forever if they were deeper.)

So we need to acknowledge the surface-level. And surface-level, that kind of ship has been done. A lot. (And I'm not just talking about Batman/Catwoman. Although that is a pretty obvious reference. It's also a big reason I'm never a huge fan of whenever they make MJ a reporter in an alternate universe. It's not a deal-breaker, but it is way too Superman/Lois Lane or Flash/Iris West for my tastes.)

Do we though because in most cases they never get serious off the top of my head there are only a few characters who would do this
Namor (Sue even though she was with reed & emma even though emma was with scott)
Logan (Jean when she was with Scott & maybe Storm when she was with T'Challa)
Mary Jane (wanted Peter when he was with Gwen)
Felica (wanted Peter when he was MJ)

In most cases they dont let relationships progress far so that the status quo can easily be changed by another writer

I mean how many marriages are there in Marvel that have lasted: Susan/Reed & Luke/Jessica thats the only two superheroic marriages i know of

I didn't say anything about marriage. But even Green Lantern (Alan Scott) has/had (because DC continuity is DC continuity) a relationship with his former villain Harlequin (not to be confused with Harley Quinn from the Batman comics).

My point is most superheroes tend to have romantic relationships with other superheroes. It's actually pretty standard.

[Zeitgeist]

So we need to acknowledge the surface-level. And surface-level, that kind of ship has been done. A lot.

Acknowledge, sure - and then look past that surface-level. Just because something is a trope, doesn't mean there's no way to make it engaging or fresh. If we were to steer away from every single thing that had been done on a surface level before, there'd be no stories left to tell.

[Kevinroc]

Acknowledge, sure - and then look past that surface-level. Just because something is a trope, doesn't mean there's no way to make it engaging or fresh. If we were to steer away from every single thing that had been done on a surface level before, there'd be no stories left to tell.

I actually didn't say otherwise.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

My point is most superheroes tend to have romantic relationships with other superheroes. It's actually pretty standard.

In Marvel moreso than DC. Marvel in general are largely team books, and they tend to be bereft of the rich civilian supporting cast and society that DC Comics have. Spider-Man is the major exception, and there's a reason he's often grouped alongside Superman and Batman more than other Marvel characters because at the end of the day he's got more in common with that then other Marvel characters. That presence of a deep supporting cast of civilians and so on.

Spider-Man and Mary Jane is easily the only major superhero/civilian marriage in Marvel's entire history. That alone makes it worthy of preserving. Because Mary Jane is among the highest profile civilian characters in Marvel's history and certainly for most of her history far more famous and well known than Marvel's eternally-thinner-than-DC's female superhero bench. Officially, Susan Storm is Marvel's "First lady" but in actual fact, it was Mary Jane, which Marvel's then President Alan Fine pointed out at one point when the Raimi movies came out.

And emotionally, people have always been more invested in them then say, Susan and Reed, both of them being fairly bland characters.

Acknowledge, sure - and then look past that surface-level. Just because something is a trope, doesn't mean there's no way to make it engaging or fresh. If we were to steer away from every single thing that had been done on a surface level before, there'd be no stories left to tell.

The stuff that made the Spider-Man/Felicia romance work in the '80s was largely the fact that this was the first time it happened to Spider-Man. Having a girlfriend who's superhuman, who was older and more forthrightly sexual than before. Now that's not there anymore. Peter's the guy who got married, and/or <INSERT WEASEL WORDS about long-term relationship> with Mary Jane. He's dated Mockingbird and gone on dates with Carol Danvers. So some of the freshness that Felicia had is gone. The idea of naive experienced Peter can't be done anymore in 616 and it's never believable when they do that now.

What made Felicia Hardy a richer character beyond the long romance arc is precisely the fact that Peter became her "one who got away". That something she thought was a game that she could play and replay (which she was still doing at the time, I mean well before the marriage thing, PAD set up them dating again as a ruse which she was doing in partnership with the Foreigner) got serious without her. Once you take that tragic aspect away from that, you either have to do the play/replay thing with characters who are older/wiser or more aware of one another, both of which require writers to portray the characters as older than they are...or you erase her memories and have her relapse to the pre-Mantlo version of the character.

[Zeitgeist]

The stuff that made the Spider-Man/Felicia romance work in the '80s was largely the fact that this was the first time it happened to Spider-Man. Having a girlfriend who's superhuman, who was older and more forthrightly sexual than before. Now that's not there anymore. Peter's the guy who got married, and/or <INSERT WEASEL WORDS about long-term relationship> with Mary Jane. He's dated Mockingbird and gone on dates with Carol Danvers. So some of the freshness that Felicia had is gone. The idea of naive experienced Peter can't be done anymore in 616 and it's never believable when they do that now.

What made Felicia Hardy a richer character beyond the long romance arc is precisely the fact that Peter became her "one who got away". That something she thought was a game that she could play and replay (which she was still doing at the time, I mean well before the marriage thing, PAD set up them dating again as a ruse which she was doing in partnership with the Foreigner) got serious without her. Once you take that tragic aspect away from that, you either have to do the play/replay thing with characters who are older/wiser or more aware of one another, both of which require writers to portray the characters as older than they are...or you erase her memories and have her relapse to the pre-Mantlo version of the character.

Agreed on all fronts, though I feel Felicia's character and her history with Spider-Man is still unique and storied enough despite Peter's other subsequent superheroine dalliances to still provide a great dynamic in whatever role she plays - as long as it's not a replay/regression. If the characters were to ever theoretically pair up romantically again, I'd hope they build up on what's come before to spin into new territory. How would Felicia be like as a far more emotionally mature girlfriend that realises what she let get away once before? How would today's Felicia act like when she's no longer chasing or playing and has actually gotten what she's wanted? A more homely (for lack of a better word) Black Cat is almost comical to muse about. That feels like new ground for the character to me that I'd find pretty interesting to see explored.

[NC_Yankee]

In Marvel moreso than DC. Marvel in general are largely team books, and they tend to be bereft of the rich civilian supporting cast and society that DC Comics have. Spider-Man is the major exception, and there's a reason he's often grouped alongside Superman and Batman more than other Marvel characters because at the end of the day he's got more in common with that then other Marvel characters. That presence of a deep supporting cast of civilians and so on.

Spider-Man and Mary Jane is easily the only major superhero/civilian marriage in Marvel's entire history. That alone makes it worthy of preserving. Because Mary Jane is among the highest profile civilian characters in Marvel's history and certainly for most of her history far more famous and well known than Marvel's eternally-thinner-than-DC's female superhero bench. Officially, Susan Storm is Marvel's "First lady" but in actual fact, it was Mary Jane, which Marvel's then President Alan Fine pointed out at one point when the Raimi movies came out.

And emotionally, people have always been more invested in them then say, Susan and Reed, both of them being fairly bland characters.



The stuff that made the Spider-Man/Felicia romance work in the '80s was largely the fact that this was the first time it happened to Spider-Man. Having a girlfriend who's superhuman, who was older and more forthrightly sexual than before. Now that's not there anymore. Peter's the guy who got married, and/or <INSERT WEASEL WORDS about long-term relationship> with Mary Jane. He's dated Mockingbird and gone on dates with Carol Danvers. So some of the freshness that Felicia had is gone. The idea of naive experienced Peter can't be done anymore in 616 and it's never believable when they do that now.

What made Felicia Hardy a richer character beyond the long romance arc is precisely the fact that Peter became her "one who got away". That something she thought was a game that she could play and replay (which she was still doing at the time, I mean well before the marriage thing, PAD set up them dating again as a ruse which she was doing in partnership with the Foreigner) got serious without her. Once you take that tragic aspect away from that, you either have to do the play/replay thing with characters who are older/wiser or more aware of one another, both of which require writers to portray the characters as older than they are...or you erase her memories and have her relapse to the pre-Mantlo version of the character.

There are two primary reasons why Peter married MJ and it lasted. 1: Unlike most comic books ( Superman is an exception where Clark Kent is almost as important as Superman himself) the alterego of the hero ( Peter Parker) is every bit as important to Amazing as Spider-Man. That is quite different say compared to Miles Morales who is not as important as Spider-Man to his comic. Since Peter is so important, naturally there will be relationships not related to Spider-Man. It was and is MJ, but it was also 616 Gwen and Betty. 2: 616 MJ is a great character, so within Amazing ( as opposed to say MCU, RYV or other universe) she does not require much alteration. Does this mean MJ is perfect? No but she grew up from her party girl days which is much more natural then say giving Jane Foster or Betty Ross superpowers.

[Tuck]

It's how they keep tension going. She wants what she can't have when he's unavailable, and doesn't want it when he is.
Spider-Man is as much of a soap opera as it is a superhero book.
I'd love to see what happens when those stars do align though, it'd be something different.

I feel like that story would best be served in an AU story dedicated to it. Otherwise it ignores Felicia's role in the Spider cast dynamic. (Not that that seems to have been a concern of Marvel's for a long while.)

Hell, tell the AU story from Felicia's perspective.

[PCN24454]

Do we though because in most cases they never get serious off the top of my head there are only a few characters who would do this
Namor (Sue even though she was with reed & emma even though emma was with scott)
Logan (Jean when she was with Scott & maybe Storm when she was with T'Challa)
Mary Jane (wanted Peter when he was with Gwen)
Felica (wanted Peter when he was MJ)

In most cases they dont let relationships progress far so that the status quo can easily be changed by another writer

I mean how many marriages are there in Marvel that have lasted: Susan/Reed & Luke/Jessica thats the only two superheroic marriages i know of

Isn’t that what makes it a soap opera?