The 10 Most Important Mary Jane Stories

[Mister Mets]

Patrick Mocella of CBR posts his list of the ten most important Mary Jane stories.

https://www.cbr.com/spider-man-mary-...marvel-comics/

Some of these don't seem to match the title. Her first appearance should be rated higher than ninth if the criteria is importance.

[Batman Begins 2005]

Mary Jane Watson's debut, Doomed Affairs and Confessions from Ultimate Spider-Man #13 (that really should have made it) are the MJ stories that come to mind when I think about the character.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Interesting list. I think we can quibble about the rankings and so on.

I would personally add Kraven's Last Hunt (because Mary Jane is absolutely the emotional center of that story), Roger Stern's "The Daydreamers", Gerry Conway's ASM#149, the end of the First Clone Saga, where Peter definitively moved on from Gwen to MJ.

But again this is a character with some 1000+ appearances so I am sure you could pick a lot more than this.

[Confuzzled]

Great list. Nice to see Web of Romance and Parallel Lives finally get the recognition they deserve.

A minor quibble I have is whether "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" really counts as a "Mary Jane story" despite having a watershed moment for the character in the very last page. Would trade it for Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Sensational Spider-Man story from MJ's POV.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

A minor quibble I have is whether "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" really counts as a "Mary Jane story" despite having a watershed moment for the character in the very last page. Would trade it for Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Sensational Spider-Man story from MJ's POV.

The latter is good but too sentimental and it mostly just editorializes the original story. I mean the epilogue of ASM#122 is one of the single most iconic pages in Spider-Man history and considered to be Romita's finest character work.

Besides Night Gwen Stacy Died is fundamentally not a story about Gwen. She's barely in it, the story of her death mostly just uses her as a prop. If you want stories where Gwen is important as a character, then ASM#87 and ASM #91-92 are that.

[Lee]

Strongly disagree with #1. I don't think Mary Jane is defined by her ability to beat up highly skilled super-villains, or that the most important Mary Jane comic ever is one that had no impact on the future of the series and has been out of print for over 20 years.

I mean the epilogue of ASM#122 is one of the single most iconic pages in Spider-Man history and considered to be Romita's finest character work.

Romita's inking is good, but shouldn't credit also be given to penciller Gil Kane?

[NC_Yankee]

Strongly disagree with #1. I don't think Mary Jane is defined by her ability to beat up highly skilled super-villains, or that the most important Mary Jane comic ever is one that had no impact on the future of the series and has been out of print for over 20 years.



Romita's inking is good, but shouldn't credit also be given to penciller Gil Kane?

I agree with you about number one. As far as the best MJ story is concerned, I would pick ASM 259, and as far as Spider-Man issues I would go ASM 122..Why? For me, ASM 121-122 only trails ASM 31-33 as a personal favorite. What really works about 259 is how honest MJ is about her flaws ( especially when it comes to abandoning her sister). She ( like Peter and the Burgler) made a very bad mistake and only by admitting it ( like he did) can things be made better ( even if they cannot be fixed like Uncle Ben's death).

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Romita's inking is good, but shouldn't credit also be given to penciller Gil Kane?

The final page was pencilled by Romita at Conway’s behest. Conway wasn’t okay with Kane’s original version.

[Vortex85]

It may sound premature to say but I think ASM 25 would definitely deserve to be on the list. Not only was it great that MJ saves the day but it gave great insight into her character and her passion for acting.

It wasn’t just a great moment, but an all around great MJ story.

[WebLurker]

Fun to see other people's lists of bests.