Mary Jane : if not with Peter, with who ?

[Kaitou D. Kid]

I genuinely think that no else works well with MJ. Especially not the men that are way older than her.

The only other good love interest I can think of was Mark Allen in The Spectacular Spider-Man. They had good chemistry. It also helps that Mark in that show was kinda a pro-Peter for her: a down-to-earth guy with a dual life and who is a thrill-seeker and interacts with criminals.

In 616, I can't think of any.

[Sr. Bungle]

You forgot to put Paul in that poll.

And me.

[Lukmendes]

And me.

Mary Jane Watson Bungle doesn't sound good y'know .

[hoth82]

I prefer it be a normal civilian if it has to be anyone other than Peter. The options on this poll are really bad. Especially the married men (Luke Cage, Gambit) and the men known for being womanizers (Namor, Wolverine, Iron Man) Are you trying to demoralize Peter even more with some of these options?

Double no for Black Cat. Not only has Mary Jane never shown any signs of being bisexual, but talk about demoralizing Peter. Two of his exes dating each other while he’s most likely forced to sit alone or join in? Gross and tacky.

[Hoodj]

Apperently shes into black dudes.

[Hoodj]

Not sure any of them really fit (esp. Luke Cage, who's married). Not sure that womanizers like Tony, Wolverine, or Namor would do much good either (I guess they could do MJ having a fling while she's a free agent, but I'm not sure I trust the writers to handle it with any grace or respect). Course, it does depend on what the point of MJ seeing someone else would be (showing her moving on until the inevitable reconciliation, making a point that Peter's the only one for her by showing that she can't move on like that, etc.?).

I guess at this point, Mary Jane and Peter being a couple is too engrained into the DNA of the franchise for anything else to really work. Granted, my first Spider-Man stuff was the Raimi movies and Ultimate comics, where it was made clear that Peter was the only person she ever truly loved, so there is that. Just about anything could work with the right setup, but I can't really think of any on my own.



While I have a sneaking feeling that it would get hella fetishized in the execution, I could almost see that working. They have had personal connections and having both been Peter's lover on different occasions certainly provides plenty of storytelling fodder and narrative possibilities down the road (What kind of self-discovery does MJ go on navigating her first known relationship with another woman? How does Black Cat take it when MJ inevitably goes back to Peter? How does this double love triangle where everyone has feelings for everyone else play out?). Thing is, as noted before, I'm deeply suspicious that the execution and reception would boil down to: "Cool; two hot gals making out!" rather than anything substantial. I'm pretty sure it would also trigger discussion about Peter, MJ, and Black Cat having a threesome and/or a throuple, which I'm not in favor of (think Black Cat works best as the amicable ex). There's also the detail that Black Cat as never expressed interest in MJ of a romantic or sexual nature and, so far as we know, MJ is straight (of course, it would be easy to have Black Cat's feelings change and MJ reveal that she was always bisexual or discover that herself with a few clicks of a keyboard, but, given how much the Big Two hate change, it would be quite the thing to stuff back in the bottle).

Women characters being in one night flings with those three is suddenly respectful now?

[Agent Z]

Oh the price are grossly high and the stories really don't have enough content to have such a high price, it really doesn't do comics any favors lol.



I really don't think people getting tired of super-hero movies is a bad thing, they're over saturared and mostly really mediocre, and it's gross how much money they make.



Oh, Dunst's MJ is boring too lol.

Like seriously, at her very basic, MJ has two things that make her interesting, she's a fun character and a pretty good love interest with nice chemistry with Spidey, Raimi's MJ had neither of these things.

After watching Spidey Home 1, I thought Michelle was just a bad character, in Spidey Home 3 she, uh, exists I guess, maybe she's better than Raimi's MJ, but that's not a compliment.



My pick is Spectacular MJ, she basically captures the spirit of early Romita MJ by being a fun, easygoing character, it's too bad the cartoon ended before she could develop more.



Slott likely watched it, and honestly, if he didn't, watching it would make little difference.

Slott is a nerd, he knows a lot about Spidey and probably has forgotten more trivial info about Spidey than many of us ever learned, but thing is, he knows a lot, but he doesn't understand a lot.

Like Big Time has a scene where Randy refuses to share an apartment with Peter, and he mentions a piece of cheese that Peter called "Kevin" and that's used to be an excuse to be an asshole to him, when in the context of the story where that piece of cheese showed up, Randy didn't mind it:





(Peter Parker: Spider-Man#21)



(Amazing Spider-Man#648)

And if cases like this were isolated, it'd be fine, but those aren't isolated cases, despite knowing so much about trivial info, he doesn't understand the world as much, combine that with how his writing style is "plot over character", then we can have characters suddenly changing personalities to be fitting for the story, so he can write an MJ who's okay as a love interest and maybe even get her personality right, or he'll make her into an incompetent dumbass, it depends on what point he's making for that story, if a character is required to be an asshole, they may be an asshole.

So yeah, what difference would it make for him to watch the Spider-Verse movie in case he didn't? The way he handles characters is a writing issue, and that affects even characters he likes, 'cause if Otto doesn't escape that, what are the chances of anyone else escaping that?

To this day, I'm still not sure what people's issues with Slott's writing of MJ is and I say this as someone with his own issues regarding Slott.

[Lukmendes]

To this day, I'm still not sure what people's issues with Slott's writing of MJ is and I say this as someone with his own issues regarding Slott.

Stuff like Superior Spider-Man where she becomes dumb and in need of rescue, and then decides to leave New York and kinda blames Spidey for why her life's such a shithole, or volume 4 where she's just a bitch to Spidey until the very end, and decides to not get back together with Spidey despite being the one who invited him to make out (Not that she has to be with him if she doesn't want to, but she looks bad when in #796 she's like "Hmm I missed all this Spidey nonsense" and in the very next issue she's like "No. Don't want this. Out of my house."), and before Superior nonsense she may or may not be insulted at random too.

There's also at least one time there was a really some really weird misinterpretations of her relationship with Spidey. This is a "favorite" of mine for a while now:



(ASM#652).

I remembered reading an interview where Slott said that MJ learning that Peter is Spidey so early meant that she loved Spidey, not Peter, and I found that to be such an awkward opinion, and I was surprised when I randomly found about this page and saw that, it basically says the same thing as that interview, 'cause Peter is talking like MJ doesn't really love him, and that he's trying to do stuff right by not telling it to Carlie that he's Spidey too early, because he's seeing himself as just "plain ol' Pete", which makes no sense, since Spider-Man is a huge part of his life too, Spidey doesn't have that silly silver age logic (Not even in Ditko's run, and it's worth noting because Thor and I think Iron Man did use that).

It's not like Slott only did bad stuff though, his writing style being "plot over character" means she got random benefits from it, Spider-Island and RYV are easy examples, and in End of the Earth she was only supportive of Spidey too, and recently I read ASM#678/679 and MJ sounded alright there:





It's a bit generic but at least there's an attempt to treat her with respect, and then at times Slott just, doesn't do that, and it gets annoying. She can go from someone who thinks Spidey is the best hero of all time who can casually defeat Doctor Doom by punching him in the face, to someone shivers in disgust if a word that rhymes with "Spider" is said at the flip of a coin, though, any major character in Slott's run had this kind of extreme treatment (Even the favorite Otto), it does still look meh when it happens, but, again, she's hardly unique in that regard.

[Hoodj]

Im starting to dislike Peter x MJ as time goes on due to how many whiby fans complain about it in everyway.

[The Watcher]

Mephisto! That was his plan the whole time!

[Kevinroc]

Im starting to dislike Peter x MJ as time goes on due to how many whiby fans complain about it in everyway.

Marvel does things like break them up off-panel with no explanation and then proceed to tease another round of Peter x Felicia after Black Cat's writer has spent the last few years trying to move Felicia beyond her relationship to Peter. And people wonder why this fandom is such a mess.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Marvel does things like break them up off-panel with no explanation and then proceed to tease another round of Peter x Felicia after Black Cat's writer has spent the last few years trying to move Felicia beyond her relationship to Peter. And people wonder why this fandom is such a mess.

I feel like writers who ship Peter with Black Cat just want them together for superficial reasons, and don't bother to look at how toxic and incompatible they were in the 80's comics. I mean, everything in the Stern/DeFalco run proves they shouldn't be together, not that they should.

Sure, Felicia later changed for the better... but that was only after Peter got married. And the shippers usually ignore all of her pre-OMD development anyway so... yeah.

It comes off like they just want the self-insert protagonist to date the hot chick in leather, and not like they read and bothered to understand these characters.

[TinkerSpider]

Stuff like Superior Spider-Man where she becomes dumb and in need of rescue, and then decides to leave New York and kinda blames Spidey for why her life's such a shithole, or volume 4 where she's just a bitch to Spidey until the very end, and decides to not get back together with Spidey despite being the one who invited him to make out (Not that she has to be with him if she doesn't want to, but she looks bad when in #796 she's like "Hmm I missed all this Spidey nonsense" and in the very next issue she's like "No. Don't want this. Out of my house."), and before Superior nonsense she may or may not be insulted at random too.

There's also at least one time there was a really some really weird misinterpretations of her relationship with Spidey.

I remembered reading an interview where Slott said that MJ learning that Peter is Spidey so early meant that she loved Spidey, not Peter, and I found that to be such an awkward opinion, and I was surprised when I randomly found about this page and saw that, it basically says the same thing as that interview, 'cause Peter is talking like MJ doesn't really love him, and that he's trying to do stuff right by not telling it to Carlie that he's Spidey too early, because he's seeing himself as just "plain ol' Pete", which makes no sense, since Spider-Man is a huge part of his life too, Spidey doesn't have that silly silver age logic (Not even in Ditko's run, and it's worth noting because Thor and I think Iron Man did use that).

It's not like Slott only did bad stuff though, his writing style being "plot over character" means she got random benefits from it, Spider-Island and RYV are easy examples, and in End of the Earth she was only supportive of Spidey too, and recently I read ASM#678/679 and MJ sounded alright there
It's a bit generic but at least there's an attempt to treat her with respect, and then at times Slott just, doesn't do that, and it gets annoying. She can go from someone who thinks Spidey is the best hero of all time who can casually defeat Doctor Doom by punching him in the face, to someone shivers in disgust if a word that rhymes with "Spider" is said at the flip of a coin, though, any major character in Slott's run had this kind of extreme treatment (Even the favorite Otto), it does still look meh when it happens, but, again, she's hardly unique in that regard.

Slott doesn't write characters, he writes action figures who have no consistent interior life or personality but are twisted and pounded into whatever hole he thinks he needs to fill. His Mary Jane is highly inconsistent and isn't treated as if she's a three-dimensional character, but then no one is, not even Peter.

Slott's depiction of women is...well, weird is being generous, from Anna Maria being a-ok with Otto deceiving her to the super gross Silk pheromones, and MJ has borne the brunt; he rightfully gets a lot of flack for calling Peter's love for Mary Jane "anti-Marvel" (no, Dan, the hyphen is not pronounced) simply because he thinks Mary Jane is too beautiful to be a Marvel character -

which A) has he read Marvel comics? Has he seen how, for just one example, how Sue Storm has been depicted from the beginning? Has he seen how Betty and Liz Allen and Gwen Stacy were portrayed from the beginning? Or even Peter himself?! Or Flash? Only Harry can be justifably termed rather "interesting" looking instead of conventionally handsome, and he's rich - which is also not very "the world outside your window." B) That was the joke Lee and Ditko intended from MJ's first "appearance" in ASM 25, so he's calling Lee and Ditko "anti-Marvel" and C) Conventionally attractive women are inherently "less than" just because of their looks? Conventionally attractive women don't exist in the real world (since he based his assertion on Marvel "being the world outside your window" which is why MJ is "anti-Marvel")? Conventionally attractive women aren't people, too? It's such a weird and anti-woman thing to say, and reinforces that women should be judged on their looks (and is especially strange to apply to MJ, whose personality is a huge reason for her popularity, not just her looks).

Also, even if Slott decides to disregard Parallel Lives (it's in continuity, Dan, so sorry), ASM 258/259 pretty firmly establish MJ cares for Peter - she left New York and turned down his first proposal because of her concern for him, not Spider-Man. Sometimes I think Marvel should institute a basic reading comprehension test before they give people books to write.

Here are the pages for some of the other examples you mentioned:

Mean-spiritedly mocking her intellect (get it? She's pretty and she likes fashion, so she's obviously too stupid to follow Peter's and Carlie's conversation and too self-involved to ask clarifying questions and join in their discussion):

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FW2BcOVU...g&name=900x900


Makes her sit passively in a fire just waiting for rescue like a mindless damsel, not even lifting a pinkie to self rescue. At least in the Hellfire Gala story Duggan and Wells have the very minor cover of MJ being sedated, here Slott just actively assassinates her:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FW2BxWTU...jpg&name=large

[Frontier]

Randy kind of let himself go in the 90's.

I feel like writers who ship Peter with Black Cat just want them together for superficial reasons, and don't bother to look at how toxic and incompatible they were in the 80's comics. I mean, everything in the Stern/DeFalco run proves they shouldn't be together, not that they should.

Sure, Felicia later changed for the better... but that was only after Peter got married. And the shippers usually ignore all of her pre-OMD development anyway so... yeah.

It comes off like they just want the self-insert protagonist to date the hot chick in leather, and not like they read and bothered to understand these characters.

For me I think they're just fun together and Peter paired with a fellow Superheroine (and quite the daring one at that) is neat, even if I ultimately prefer MJ.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Randy kind of let himself go in the 90's.

For me I think they're just fun together and Peter paired with a fellow Superheroine (and quite the daring one at that) is neat, even if I ultimately prefer MJ.

That's fair, but any new writer would have to get them to a point where it's believable they can be a healthy couple together. And it's hard to do that when they ignore Felicia's development.

The other problem is that Felicia's development came from Peter getting with MJ again and eventually marrying her, but current ASM has to ignore that.