Mary Jane Watson-Parker Appreciation 2020

[TheCape]

Oh man this is bad, really, really bad...

Hopefully it's stupid enough for me to repress later.

Thanks for answering anyways lol.



I remember Miles getting annoyed at this Spidey in Spider-Verse, he was probably meant to represent a lot of fans' reaction to this guy .

Give us another month we can find you something more stupid that will make you forget this

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Apropos of Mary Jane's popularity. There's a new interview with Fred van Lente at Comics Cube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqCgU4qra34

Lente talks about his time on BND and takes a negative tack on Mary Jane unfortunately but the interesting thing is when he talks about "Red Headed Stranger" and Mary Jane's return to Spider-Man comics during BND. He says that BND sales had dipped and that led people at Marvel to insist that Mary Jane return to the books. Van Lente and others didn't agree but they acquiesced. He says that "Red Headed Stranger" was supposed to be about Chameleon but the advertising, title, and covers,and even the TPB all featured Mary Jane Watson, which he still complains about.

[Vortex85]

Apropos of Mary Jane's popularity. There's a new interview with Fred van Lente at Comics Cube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqCgU4qra34

Lente talks about his time on BND and takes a negative tack on Mary Jane unfortunately but the interesting thing is when he talks about "Red Headed Stranger" and Mary Jane's return to Spider-Man comics during BND. He says that BND sales had dipped and that led people at Marvel to insist that Mary Jane return to the books. Van Lente and others didn't agree but they acquiesced. He says that "Red Headed Stranger" was supposed to be about Chameleon but the advertising, title, and covers,and even the TPB all featured Mary Jane Watson, which he still complains about.

Ugh. Makes me sick just thinking about that period. Why do Marvel hire writers to write for Spider-Man who don't give a **** about some of the main Spider-Man characters and don't want to write them? Get writers who like ALL the main characters who want to write for Spider-Man. Anyway, if you want a bunch of anti-MJ writers to write Spider-Man I guess BND was the time to do it.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Ugh. Makes me sick just thinking about that period. Why do Marvel hire writers to write for Spider-Man who don't give a **** about some of the main Spider-Man characters and don't want to write them? Get writers who like ALL the main characters who want to write for Spider-Man. Anyway, if you want a bunch of anti-MJ writers to write Spider-Man I guess BND was the time to do it.

Van Lente was one of the late coming writers in that time, he wasn't there at the start and he mostly sees it as mercenary work as the BND stuff is the final 10mns of a long interview discussing other stuff. I think on the whole he's not a big reader of Spider-Man comics (some of the stuff he says is weird...Spider-Man was a mess in the '80s before Michelinie/MacFarlane but he's not a fan of Michelinie either, so a nonsense sentence, I think he is talking about how much better sales were in Michelinie's run compared to before which was true).

But the interesting thing for me is that it's the first hint of the fact that behind the scenes BND people felt pressure about low sales and bringing Mary Jane back was part of their attempt to drum up sales, to the point they shoehorned her in promotion and in the story that was not intended to feature her.

[Vortex85]

Van Lente was one of the late coming writers in that time, he wasn't there at the start and he mostly sees it as mercenary work as the BND stuff is the final 10mns of a long interview discussing other stuff. I think on the whole he's not a big reader of Spider-Man comics (some of the stuff he says is weird...Spider-Man was a mess in the '80s before Michelinie/MacFarlane but he's not a fan of Michelinie either, so a nonsense sentence, I think he is talking about how much better sales were in Michelinie's run compared to before which was true).

But the interesting thing for me is that it's the first hint of the fact that behind the scenes BND people felt pressure about low sales and bringing Mary Jane back was part of their attempt to drum up sales, to the point they shoehorned her in promotion and in the story that was not intended to feature her.

Yeah, i got that impression too. He seems pretty casual about Spidey, take it or leave it. If you don't like, don't read it. He seems fine with not reading it for 2 decades and I bet his interest didn't last in the book past a little bit when BND came around.

Gotta love people who aren't passionate about the character telling hardcore life long Spidey fans how the character should be and what works for him as a love interest or not.

[Jman27]

MJ's childhood backstory is shown in Amazing Spider-Man #259. If you can get ahold of it, Parallel Lives also expands on it and shows more.

MJ reconciles with her father in "Back From the Edge" - Amazing #395, Spectacular #218, Amazing #396, Spectacular #219. Particularly Spectacular #219 is when she goes to her father to reconcile.



Extra:
Amazing Spider-Man #290-292 is a great arc that deals with MJ's family prior to her deciding to marry Peter.

I skip the Spiderman parts thats a first but I read it all but yeah MJ had a rough childhood which explains why acts like a flirt in the beginning it was just a defense mechanism I guess. Which is why she doesnt really commit to guys

[Frontier]

I can't see how Michelle Gonzales deserved more paneltime than Mary Jane Watson, but maybe there's no accounting for taste...

[Vortex85]

I skip the Spiderman parts thats a first but I read it all but yeah MJ had a rough childhood which explains why acts like a flirt in the beginning it was just a defense mechanism I guess. Which is why she doesnt really commit to guys

Cool, glad you were able to read it! Yeah, exactly. Later on, it was Peter being there for her in her time of need, in ASM #292, that really really changed her and helped her grow into a woman who could commit.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I can't see how Michelle Gonzales deserved more paneltime than Mary Jane Watson, but maybe there's no accounting for taste...

The funny thing is Van Lente used to be more moderate.

https://www.cbr.com/cci-days-end-the...ng-spider-man/

"One of my favorites I did was the #605 story of Mary Jane solo. I never really got the appeal of the character until I started writing her, and she's so tough, self-deprecating and fun, I can see why the readers fell for her. And in that issue I worked with Javier Pulido for the first time, who knocked the Sandman arc out of the park."

Whereas he's a lot more negative in the recent interview. Anyway.

[Jman27]

Cool, glad you were able to read it! Yeah, exactly. Later on, it was Peter being there for her in her time of need, in ASM #292, that really really changed her and helped her grow into a woman who could commit.

yeah i can appreciate that

[NC_Yankee]

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;5235460]Apropos of Mary Jane's popularity. There's a new interview with Fred van Lente at Comics Cube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqCgU4qra34

Lente talks about his time on BND and takes a negative tack on Mary Jane unfortunately but the interesting thing is when he talks about "Red Headed Stranger" and Mary Jane's return to Spider-Man comics during BND. He says that BND sales had dipped and that led people at Marvel to insist that Mary Jane return to the books. Van Lente and others didn't agree but they acquiesced. He says that "Red Headed Stranger" was supposed to be about Chameleon but the advertising, title, and covers,and even the TPB all featured Mary Jane Watson, which he still complains about.[/QUOTE
Lente makes my argument that it is the fans that chose MJ and kept her alive despite Marvel’s attempts to get rid of her. It does not matter if it is Romita who first removed her from the book, Slott or anyone else, it did not work. They also tried to replace her with Felicia, Cindy, Carlie or someone else and failed at that as well. They need to give it up.

[Frontier]

The funny thing is Van Lente used to be more moderate.

https://www.cbr.com/cci-days-end-the...ng-spider-man/

"One of my favorites I did was the #605 story of Mary Jane solo. I never really got the appeal of the character until I started writing her, and she's so tough, self-deprecating and fun, I can see why the readers fell for her. And in that issue I worked with Javier Pulido for the first time, who knocked the Sandman arc out of the park."

Whereas he's a lot more negative in the recent interview. Anyway.

Oh, I forgot Van Lente wrote that issue with MJ and White Rabbit. Funny .

[Kevinroc]

The funny thing is Van Lente used to be more moderate.

https://www.cbr.com/cci-days-end-the...ng-spider-man/

"One of my favorites I did was the #605 story of Mary Jane solo. I never really got the appeal of the character until I started writing her, and she's so tough, self-deprecating and fun, I can see why the readers fell for her. And in that issue I worked with Javier Pulido for the first time, who knocked the Sandman arc out of the park."

Whereas he's a lot more negative in the recent interview. Anyway.

He was actually still pretty positive on that issue in the interview.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

He was actually still pretty positive on that issue in the interview.

Not towards Mary Jane. He otherwise just talks about her as a "rich supermodel"...and doesn't admit that he liked the character after writing her in that issue.

[Lukmendes]

Tom Defalco's main innovation was introducing the concept that Mary Jane at some point had learned Peter was Spider-Man and had been keeping it secret from him. He left out when she knew (Conway's Parallel Lives came up with the answer) but he and Ron Frenz (who knew more about continuity than Tom did) ran the numbers and figured that nothing contradicted it.

I'm pretty sure more than once MJ wondered what's up with Peter, clearly not knowing, but finding those panels is a pain in the ass...

At the very least, it brings more good **** than bad, ASM#122 is the biggest example, pre-retcon it gives her depth by making her be there for Peter even when he's telling her to get the **** away, post-retcon makes her stop being being so afraid of getting involved with Peter's Spider-Man life, just this once, to be there for him.

The other thing is that Mary Jane was genuinely popular. Tom Defalco noted in the letter's page during Stern's Hobgoblin arc (Stern was editor at the time) that more letters came from readers asking about Mary Jane than the Hobgoblin mystery.

Well, MJ can manage to be engaging when she's on-screen, the Hobgoblin mystery became like this after a while:



So no surprises fans were asking more about her than Hobgoblin lol.

So readers wanted more of her, and that led writers to devote a lot of time to put her on screen. The big joke is that Black Cat was introduced in ASM#194 when MJ was furloughed from the titles. But Mary Jane upon her return in ASM#238 all the way to the Wedding ended up making more appearances between those issues than Felicia did at the time. Even if officially Felicia was Peter's girlfriend at the time.

How many of those appearances had her actually doing something though? 'Cause they could be glorified cameos, I know at least Spectacular#111 had her showing up, but it's only two panels, and that's because the story continues from ASM#273, where she was helping Peter paint his apartment before Puma showed up and she decided to leave, so basically she's just repeating ASM#273, and in that she didn't do much too lol.

Give us another month we can find you something more stupid that will make you forget this

Man, that's like trying to make someone forget the pain of being punched by stabbing him :P.

Anyways, found this little gem:



(ASM#45)

I said "what the ****" out loud at this moment, dialogues can age in weird ways lol.

I can't see how Michelle Gonzales deserved more paneltime than Mary Jane Watson, but maybe there's no accounting for taste...

Nothing wrong with not wanting Peter to be with a crazy bitch man :P