Mary Jane Watson-Parker Appreciation 2022

[Sr. Bungle]

Mayday is the best. End of.

[TinkerSpider]

I never said that the Spider-Girl comic series' longevity wasn't an admirable accomplishment.

You ran down the reasons why she wasn’t a success, as apparently headlining Marvel’s longest running solo female superhero book, despite being an AU, despite being published a time when female superheroes were even less common than today, doesn’t count as successful to you.

Your opinion is so stipulated and noted as is your semantic hair splitting in the post below this.

You said that a Marvel editor greenlighting a Dan Slott written story about Peter and Mary Jane for a Spider-Man anthology is poor professional judgement.

You appear personally invested in what was a throw away comment, based on the oxymoronic greenlighting of Dan Slott - whose stories include MJ sitting passively in the middle of a raging fire just waiting to be rescued; MJ breaking up with Peter by victim blaming him for Doc Ock highjacking his body; MJ kicking Peter out of her apartment because she can’t deal with him being a superhero even though she was working for another superhero and thus should have had even more perspective on his life (not to mention years of history that said the exact opposite); mean-spirited digs at MJ’s intellect by having Peter and Carlie discuss one of Peter’s projects with “[something MJ doesn’t understand]” and “[goes over MJ’s head]” explicitly written in the dialogue balloons; MJ unable to tell it wasn’t Peter in Peter’s body despite Ock acting like a dirtbag, etc etc etc - writing an “enduring love” story for MJ and Peter. This, after readers experienced Spencer ending his run with a panel saying their love is “unbreakable” only for Wells to break them up - and off page, to boot. Which, fine, that’s the way the comic book cookie crumbles but then to follow that with “Want a short story about Peter and MJ’s enduring love? Here you go - oh, but it’s written by Dan Slott. Haha, gotcha!”

Talk about an actual monkey’s paw situation.

I - and others, judging by comments around the ‘net - are $*^&ing tired of being trolled and baited. Look, just write MJ out of the book already.

And yes, it’s our own damn fault for reacting to the bait in the first place - we’ve definitely been fooled far more than two times - but mean spirited trolling of readers just for funsies (because there seems to be a lot of joy in lecturing readers for falling for something which was put in place precisely to play on their emotions or resorting to “iF u dON’T liKE iT thEN dOn’T ReAD iT” snarky retorts when the bait is expressly designed to bring those readers back) isn’t something Marvel should be all that proud of, either.

But sure, teasing the relationship will increase buzz and controversy and therefore sales, so yes, if money is all that matters, not integrity nor quality nor craft nor consistency, then you’re right. It’s an awesome business decision.

If Marvel wants people to shut up about the marriage or even a long term committed relationship, then stop using it just to goose sales. Good professional judgement would be to commission a well told, well crafted story actually worth our time and money to read instead of dangling the same old tired, rancid bait.

I appreciate your opinion is different. So stipulated and noted.

I look forward to hearing your favorite MJ moments from the marriage era, or anything else you may have of value to contribute to the thread’s topic.

[Lee]

Your view is anyone claiming Mayday was a successful character because she was the lead of Marvel's longest consecutively running female led superhero title is an "incorrect." Do you see why people might have a problem with this viewpoint?

That's not what I've been saying.

"Spider-Girl was a successful character." I agree with this statement.

"Spider-Girl is one of Marvel's most successful creations." This statement is incorrect.

The post I responded to stated that Spider-Girl was one of Marvel's most successful creations. That simply isn't true. There are probably at least a hundred creations that have been more successful for Marvel. Groot is better known and has made Marvel more money than the May Parker Spider-Girl. May Parker Spider-Girl isn't a character who's known by the general public. She's had maybe one piece of merchandise in the past decade and has never appeared in TV or movies.

"Mary Jane is one of Marvel's most successful creations." Now that's something you could make a very strong argument for.

[Kevinroc]

That's not what I've been saying.

"Spider-Girl was a successful character." I agree with this statement.

"Spider-Girl is one of Marvel's most successful creations." This statement is incorrect.

The post I responded to stated that Spider-Girl was one of Marvel's most successful creations. That simply isn't true. There are probably at least a hundred creations that have been more successful for Marvel. Groot is better known and has made Marvel more money than the May Parker Spider-Girl. May Parker Spider-Girl isn't a character who's known by the general public. She's had maybe one piece of merchandise in the past decade and has never appeared in TV or movies.

"Mary Jane is one of Marvel's most successful creations." Now that's something you could make a very strong argument for.

In Into the Spider-Verse, when Peter B. talked about he and his world's MJ splitting up over whether or not to they should have children, and Peter B.'s whole arc in that film was him basically getting ready to be a dad, did you think of Mayday even once in the back of your mind?

[WebLurker]

More often than not, writers pitch the stories. It's unlikely that the editor said "Dan, you're writing an MJ story. Neil, you're writing a Scorpion story. Kurt, you're writing a Jameson story."

If that's the case, wonder why Slott wants to come back to this specific well, given that he doesn't exactly like MJ and has been very vocal about how the marriage was a mistake (his RYV mini notwithstanding)?

[QUOTE=TinkerSpider;6057232]Why? Outrage sells books. Just ask Tom Brevoort.

Let's come back to that.

Slott can ask to be High Grand Pooh-Bah of Latveria.

Editorial doesn’t have to give it to him. That is the entity whose intellectual acumen is being questioned. Why the %#@& would anyone allow Slott to write an “enduring love” Peter and MJ story? This is the man who had MJ reject Peter yet again as one of his last acts on the title even as Spencer was coming in to reunite them.

Editorial can also ask writers to pitch. Would love to know if they even mentioned to DeMatteis - again, currently working on a title for them so they have his phone number - if he had any ideas for AF 1000.

Unless they publicize the process of breaking the story, we'll probably never know for sure who pitched what and all that. However, considering that the Marvel brass seem to like Slott more than some Spider-Man fans do, they probably don't see this as quite the controversial decision that we would.

A) Brevoort was clear controversy sells books for Marvel while happy fans do not buy as many books (meaning they are going for the edge cases who pick stories because they’ve heard something, and who will drop the book when the controversy goes away).

It does happen, but how is asking Slott to write a married Spider-Man story actively trying to enrage the fans, unlike, say, how the current writing team has torn the couple apart and seemingly trying to put MJ with another family?

B) Intent is not execution. Also, execution can have unintended consequences, such as trying to get rid of the marriage and turning Peter Parker into a moral villain who feeds the Devil, thus making the Devil stronger and able to enact even more misery on humanity.

Sure.

Slott did not set his biases aside. I know people enjoyed his RYV because it was a fairly positive take on MJ & the relationship, plus the readership had been purposefully starved of any positive depictions (and whose fault was that?) so any crumbs were gratefully received:

But his entire point was marriage and a family would cause Peter to become a killer and betray his baseline morality. His entire point was a successful relationship would break the heroic concept of the comic.

He’s wrong, because characters only do what authors make them do. But that was the point of the story.

And yet he ended the story with said relationship being the reason he finds himself again, not to mention that the "original sin" that was supposed to "prove" Spider-Man could not have a family without betraying himself was too sympathetic a situation to work for the point. (Although, considering his Superior Spider-Man series had the "hero" murder/"execute" Vulture early on and was written as an unrepentant rapist throughout, I'm not sure if Slott is exactly that good at parsing these things out).

So, long story short, if that was his intent, at best he undermined his own argument and at worst it was an epic fail. Course, at this point, I've kinda given up trying to make sense of what Slott's version of Spider-Man is.

That's not what I've been saying.

"Spider-Girl was a successful character." I agree with this statement.

"Spider-Girl is one of Marvel's most successful creations." This statement is incorrect.

The post I responded to stated that Spider-Girl was one of Marvel's most successful creations. That simply isn't true. There are probably at least a hundred creations that have been more successful for Marvel. Groot is better known and has made Marvel more money than the May Parker Spider-Girl. May Parker Spider-Girl isn't a character who's known by the general public. She's had maybe one piece of merchandise in the past decade and has never appeared in TV or movies.

"Mary Jane is one of Marvel's most successful creations." Now that's something you could make a very strong argument for.

I think "most successful" was intended in terms of being a legacy character that's still around. Heck, considering that Mayday was a character who was scrapped from the moment they came on the scene due to not fitting what they wanted the brand to be and only became any kind of a deal through an AU one shot that became a series in an AU side project and is basically the only thing from that series to last, that's pretty darn impressive, esp. if, as that op-ed argues, Marvel stacked the decks against them.

[Jonathangoop1811]

In Into the Spider-Verse, when Peter B. talked about he and his world's MJ splitting up over whether or not to they should have children, and Peter B.'s whole arc in that film was him basically getting ready to be a dad, did you think of Mayday even once in the back of your mind?

I mean, should it? We don't have confirmation it's her, so yup, not a single appearance of Mayday in TV or movies.

There is no reason to fight over this, the guy just stated a fact he already explained, like he said, unless you are a big fan of Spider-Man, you won't know who is Mayday Parker, meanwhile there are like dozens of far more well known and popular characters that even casual fans of comics know, including females like Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Storm, Susan Storm, Wasp.

Yeah, Mayday is a great character and had the longest run a female hero ever had during her time, but she is just not as popular now, if you ask for female Spider-Man related characters, Mayday isn't that high in the list, she hasn't received the spotlight in years.

[Kevinroc]

I mean, should it? We don't have confirmation it's her, so yup, not a single appearance of Mayday in TV or movies.

There is no reason to fight over this, the guy just stated a fact he already explained, like he said, unless you are a big fan of Spider-Man, you won't know who is Mayday Parker, meanwhile there are like dozens of far more well known and popular characters that even casual fans of comics know, including females like Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Storm, Susan Storm, Wasp.

Yeah, Mayday is a great character and had the longest run a female hero ever had during her time, but she is just not as popular now, if you ask for female Spider-Man related characters, Mayday isn't that high in the list, she hasn't received the spotlight in years.

Edit: When you saw the SV movie openly discussing Peter's possible child, who came to your mind first?

(I'll just keep this simple and go in on this point.)

[TinkerSpider]

I mean, should it? We don't have confirmation it's her, so yup, not a single appearance of Mayday in TV or movies.

There is no reason to fight over this, the guy just stated a fact he already explained, like he said, unless you are a big fan of Spider-Man, you won't know who is Mayday Parker, meanwhile there are like dozens of far more well known and popular characters that even casual fans of comics know, including females like Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Storm, Susan Storm, Wasp.

Yeah, Mayday is a great character and had the longest run a female hero ever had during her time, but she is just not as popular now, if you ask for female Spider-Man related characters, Mayday isn't that high in the list, she hasn't received the spotlight in years.

You realize characters aren’t in control of whether they get a push or a spotlight or not, right?

For example, Mayday could have been used in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. Instead, they created Petra.

Mayday could have been used in RYV. Instead, Annie was created.

In fact, it’s my understanding Mayday’s title was cancelled, despite doing well in trade collections, so they could push Anya.

Who knows how much more successful Mayday could be now if Marvel hadn’t actively been trying to destroy and remove the Peter/MJ relationship then? Even so, when ITSV sequels were announced, Mayday’s name was brought up in many places as a possible Spider. After Tobey appeared in NWH and Raimi began directing for the MCU, people put forward the idea of Spider-Man 4 with an older Peter and the introduction of Mayday.

I do agree this didn’t need to be a discussion. Was the original statement hyperbole? Yes. Was it as far off as suggested? Not from various points of view.

If that's the case, wonder why Slott wants to come back to this specific well, given that he doesn't exactly like MJ and has been very vocal about how the marriage was a mistake (his RYV mini notwithstanding)?

I’m not Charles Xavier’s sock puppet, so I certainly don’t know why. I have my suspicions, but they’re pure speculation only.

Unless they publicize the process of breaking the story, we'll probably never know for sure who pitched what and all that. However, considering that the Marvel brass seem to like Slott more than some Spider-Man fans do, they probably don't see this as quite the controversial decision that we would.

Oh, I’m banking on they made a calculated decision:

A) There are people who like Slott’s take on Spider-Man and who are looking forward to seeing him on the character (although those readers also get the new Spider-Verse miniseries so…was this short story as well really necessary? <— my opinion, not Marvel’s)
B) His name - especially on a Peter/MJ “love story” — would draw the attention of people who don’t like his take (and judging by social media reaction, that’s what it did)
C) Buzz of any flavor - happy, disgusted, what have you - sells books.

It does happen, but how is asking Slott to write a married Spider-Man story actively trying to enrage the fans, unlike, say, how the current writing team has torn the couple apart and seemingly trying to put MJ with another family?

Wells is still an unknown quantity. The story has barely begun. It could be an attempt to put the final nail in PeterMJ, or it could be a misdirection (by the way, do Peter & MJ need a couple name? Like “Parkson” or “TigerJackpot”? Or maybe not ).

Slott is a known quantity. His depiction of 616!PeterMJ has been consistently negative. I mean, I guess an argument could be made for Spider Island, but it’s outweighed by years of dumping on the relationship and especially on Mary Jane.

And who says both decisions weren’t made to enact the same reaction from a certain group of readers?

And yet he ended the story with said relationship being the reason he finds himself again, not to mention that the "original sin" that was supposed to "prove" Spider-Man could not have a family without betraying himself was too sympathetic a situation to work for the point. (Although, considering his Superior Spider-Man series had the "hero" murder/"execute" Vulture early on and was written as an unrepentant rapist throughout, I'm not sure if Slott is exactly that good at parsing these things out).

Totally agree.

So, long story short, if that was his intent, at best he undermined his own argument and at worst it was an epic fail. Course, at this point, I've kinda given up trying to make sense of what Slott's version of Spider-Man is.

Also agree!

[Lukmendes]

First I heard of that (beyond that Generations set showing that Odin and the Phoenix Force had been an item in the past). That would be something that would be ideally hashed out and stuck with across the board.

Just the affair itself is dumb enough.

From what I heard, Phoenix/Firehair had to lie about Gaea being the mother, or was even pretending to be Gaea, but then Aaron leaves Thor, and in Cates' run, in issue#22, the story makes it clear his mother is Gaea, and then in Avengers#51 vol 8, Aaron pushes his angle once again that Phoenix is his mother, while Avengers#51 could mean it's miscommunication, since it came out before Thor#22, Thor is getting a "Secret Origin" that has the Phoenix symbol, which means she'll likely become his mother for a while.

Why would the Marvel brass want to make readers mad? Seems more likely to be something along the lines of a miscommunication or something.

I really doubt it's miscommunication, Aaron really likes Phoenix, and he also really doesn't get Phoenix, quite a shitty combination lol.

And hey, angry readers buy according in Brevoort lol.

Unless Slott asked for that story or something. I mean, as noted above it's highly unlikely that the Powers That Be want to tick off their readers and/or damage the brand. You do get exceptions (it is on record that at DC for awhile, certain people in charge hated fan-favorite Batman character Cassandra Cain and tried to erase her for good just because of that bias), but I think it's easier for it to feel like the publishers are trying to dunk on the fans than it is for it to actually be happening.

After ASM#1 vol 6, if they're not intentionally trying to piss off fans then they're seriously incompetent.

Well, he did make it work with the RYV story, so he can do it. I mean, if it wasn't for his spotty work on the main series, I doubt we'd be having this conversation (while it might be odd on paper to have someone who dislikes the Peter/MJ marriage write a story on the subject, it's not a problem if they're willing to set their biases aside and give their best at the assignment).

Well, Slott's problem is how his bias gets in the way, though he's probably better at keeping it in check than Wells.

I'm just waiting for Sony to put her in a movie. It's going to happen someday.

She'll have her turn after more Z-listers like El Muerto get their movies .

MC2 was always allowed, somehow, to be the happy ending, the natural end to Peter's story, it represents everything current editorial stand against in regards to the character, it provides fans with a jumping-off point too. Doesn't matter if it's a possible future/alternate reality, because it adheres to the original pre-OMD continuity and ignores all the years where things really went wrong. No Mackie/Byrne, no Spider-Totem (if you perceive that as bad), no Sins Past, no Civil War, no OMD, no Silk, no Superior. None of it. Simpler times, happier days.

Well it got clones and has a really silly story with Norman's brief return and aunt May's magic spirit, so not everything "good" lol.

In his potential defense, Law & Order has a lot of ridiculous episodes, especially SVU. If Gage wrote that, he'd just be sticking to what is expected.

Fair enough lol.

I never got that message from the story. Admittedly, I've never really cared superheroes having an absolute rule against killing and find most stories that try to enforce it comes across as stupid due to them unintentionally giving strong arguments for why it shouldn't exist.

The best excuse there is is that the characters shouldn't take justice in their own hands and leave that to the justice system, but uh, even in real life the justice system is a joke, and it's far worse in comic books lol.

You appear personally invested in what was a throw away comment, based on the oxymoronic greenlighting of Dan Slott - whose stories include MJ sitting passively in the middle of a raging fire just waiting to be rescued; MJ breaking up with Peter by victim blaming him for Doc Ock highjacking his body; MJ kicking Peter out of her apartment because she can’t deal with him being a superhero even though she was working for another superhero and thus should have had even more perspective on his life (not to mention years of history that said the exact opposite);

She also talks like Stark is a better option just because he has no secret identity, yeah...

But sure, teasing the relationship will increase buzz and controversy and therefore sales, so yes, if money is all that matters, not integrity nor quality nor craft nor consistency, then you’re right. It’s an awesome business decision.

Not even that good too, pissing off readers is great for short term sales, but not long term, you build fanbases with good stories, then you can piss off readers for short term bullshit, but if you just piss off, ain't gonna work that well.

In Into the Spider-Verse, when Peter B. talked about he and his world's MJ splitting up over whether or not to they should have children, and Peter B.'s whole arc in that film was him basically getting ready to be a dad, did you think of Mayday even once in the back of your mind?

Legit didn't think of anyone, just about his thoughts on having kids, and not Spidey's infinite daughters and occasional son.

So, long story short, if that was his intent, at best he undermined his own argument and at worst it was an epic fail. Course, at this point, I've kinda given up trying to make sense of what Slott's version of Spider-Man is.

Slott is all about whatever random idea he has at the moment, same guy who overwanks Otto as someone who could be a great hero made him try to kill the entire planet so he could be remembered as the biggest monster in history.

While it's hard to say how much Slott likes Spidey, he either prefers Otto or is better at writing him (I've pointed out a few times that his Otto is a better written protagonist than his Peter), regardless if he prefers or is better at writing Otto, he undermines Superior by having written Ends of the Earth lol.

His vision of characters lack consistency, and he's been on ASM long enough that there's a lot to point out about how randomly characters change (Spidey is is incompetent, now he's badass, MJ loves Spidey and can take care of herself, MJ hates Spidey and has to be saved, Otto is a monster, Otto could be good, Felicia wants Spidey to talk about her so she can join the Avengers, Felicia is Queenpin), and while the random changes can have excuses, it's generally not good enough (Felicia being the easy example), and if he doesn't bother with an excuse it makes no fucking sense.

So yeah, I'm not sure he has an actual vision of what Spider-Man is in general besides very bare bones ideas (He can come up with tech, he's unlucky, he tries to do good), he changes characters around the plots that he wants to write, so he's not thinking of "How would Spider-Man react to this situation?", he's thinking "How do I make this circle fit through this square?", or at least, that's the impression I get from his random changes of characterizations.

[Matt Rat]

Well it got clones and has a really silly story with Norman's brief return and aunt May's magic spirit, so not everything "good" lol.

That story was awesome and Aunt May's ghost was hot. More of that please.

[Huntsman Spider]

That story was awesome and Aunt May's ghost was hot. More of that please.

I would concur, especially since it ended with the power of (familial) love encouraging Peter to boot Norman's spirit out of his body and even saving his daughter Mayday's clone, who went on to be(come) a surprisingly complex and tragic figure in the Spider-Girl mythos, especially with how things ended up for her.

[Kevinroc]

Honestly, I think they're trying to say things will work out okay between Peter and MJ, but not really say it because it would ruin all the drama. But they're handling of... that whole thing... has been massively unsatisfying.

[Mercwmouth12]

Honestly, I think they're trying to say things will work out okay between Peter and MJ, but not really say it because it would ruin all the drama. But they're handling of... that whole thing... has been massively unsatisfying.

They'll work it out, but yeah need drama, but did see a good and probably correct interpretation of the MJ mystery box from a review:
"Paul is Mysterio and is trying to help MJ hide somehow. I also think that he is hoping that she will come to love him and his fake kids (I’m betting robots) and when this is over and she tries to leave, he is going to try and stop her and keep her against her will."

[Kevinroc]

They'll work it out, but yeah need drama, but did see a good and probably correct interpretation of the MJ mystery box from a review:
"Paul is Mysterio and is trying to help MJ hide somehow. I also think that he is hoping that she will come to love him and his fake kids (I’m betting robots) and when this is over and she tries to leave, he is going to try and stop her and keep her against her will."

I wonder how the Moira Jane thing will tie into everything. I doubt they'll blame everything on that.

(I'm expecting Peter to save MJ, and then it gets immediately contrasted with his failure to save Gwen as part of the upcoming Judgment Day tie-in.)

[Mercwmouth12]

I wonder how the Moira Jane thing will tie into everything. I doubt they'll blame everything on that.

(I'm expecting Peter to save MJ, and then it gets immediately contrasted with his failure to save Gwen as part of the upcoming Judgment Day tie-in.)

I'm suspecting MJ will come into play with the trial for him being able to accept and move on because he has something\someone that he doesn't need to feel guilty for and then that's that for Gwen showing up