Mary Jane Watson-Parker Appreciation 2023

[WebLurker]

You're distorting the context.

Someone on Twitter accused Nick Lowe of cherry picking the letters they publish, because of One More Day stuff. Lowe responded by saying they get way more positive letters than negative and very few of them are about One More Day.

Lowe was speaking only of fan mail, he wasn't making some larger point. And Lowe wasn't the one who brought up the subject of fan mail, it was the complainer who did.

It was a specific reply to a specific complaint/accusation.

[double-checks]

I see. My mistake.

[Huntsman Spider]

Find someone who looks at you the way Zombie Spider-Man looks at MJ.

Is this from one of the later parts of the Marvel Zombies saga where Zombie Spider-Man went into another universe that resembled the Lee/Romita-era ASM comics, and ended up killing (almost) all of the Sinister Six there, only for Sandman to kill the native Spider-Man of that universe, mistaking him for Zombie Spider-Man, and then be used as a bioweapon by Zombie Spider-Man to kill all the Marvel Zombies, Zombie Spider-Man included --- which Zombie Spider-Man even saw as overdue justice for his killing and eating Aunt May and Mary Jane in his reality?

Speaking of Marvel Zombies and Spider-Man, though, any thoughts on the Resurrection miniseries from a couple of years back where MJ turned out to be one of the zombies and Peter was leading a group of survivors that somehow included Karla Sofen/Moonstone, of all people?

[Jman27]

oh yeah I remember reading that spidey had it rough but not as rough as franklin

[CaptainUniverse]

They really thought after 5 years...everyone would be over OMD. 15 years later...and still they wait...

And while they have waited for everyone to forget Mary Jane and her relationship to Peter (which is beyond ridiculous), Into the Spider-Verse featured two universes where Peter married Mary Jane to a much wider audience than what you find in comic books and it's sequel is about to depict Peter B. Parker as a dad to the ever-adorable Mayday Parker (whose mother is Mary Jane, obviously) while also featuring a cameo from RYV Mary Jane and their second daughter Annie. Also, the Insomniac games have Peter moving into Aunt May's old house with Mary Jane. I don't think anyone is going to forget anything anytime soon...if ever.

[Majesty]

The best way to get people over it is to put Peter and Mary Jane in serious relationships apart from one another and build good dynamics and likable characteristics in both of them. Then commit to those relationships for the long run. Eventually if you're good at the storytelling you'll have people that wind up enjoying those dynamics too and have different things to enjoy. You have to commit fully to it though and actually have good stories/chemistry surrounding it.

So when they did nothing with Mary Jane in terms of that in the Iron-Man comic, that was a missed opportunity I felt.

[CaptainUniverse]

The best way to get people over it is to put Peter and Mary Jane in serious relationships apart from one another and build good dynamics and likable characteristics in both of them. Then commit to those relationships for the long run. Eventually if you're good at the storytelling you'll have people that wind up enjoying those dynamics too and have different things to enjoy. You have to commit fully to it though and actually have good stories/chemistry surrounding it.

So when they did nothing with Mary Jane in terms of that in the Iron-Man comic, that was a missed opportunity I felt.

They already tried this with Carlie Cooper and it didn't work, and the reason for that is is because people see those characters exactly for what they are: yet another attempt to keep Peter and Mary Jane apart in order to try and turn Spider-Man into a whiny, pathetic harem protagonist who cannot win a single fight and given the highly negative reaction to this latest run, people are absolutely fed up with that crap.

[Malachi]

The best way to get people over it is to put Peter and Mary Jane in serious relationships apart from one another and build good dynamics and likable characteristics in both of them. Then commit to those relationships for the long run. Eventually if you're good at the storytelling you'll have people that wind up enjoying those dynamics too and have different things to enjoy. You have to commit fully to it though and actually have good stories/chemistry surrounding it.

So when they did nothing with Mary Jane in terms of that in the Iron-Man comic, that was a missed opportunity I felt.

They aren't really interested in using Mary Jane. That was why Bendis was able to get her for Iron-Man.

I think Dan Slott said that he found it difficult to use her since he knew what he couldn't do with her. Spencer said that he was invited to a dinner with Quesada where Joe said it was ok for him to go ahead with his idea of having Peter and MJ in a relationship again. That her absence after OMD wasn't intended(by OMD that is) and it just worked out that way. I take Quesadas words with a grain of salt. The gist of it seems like they aren't just that interested in using her. Therefore they aren't that interested in seperating her and Peter, it's a nonissue for them becasue they are over it.

[Kevinroc]

They aren't really interested in using Mary Jane. That was why Bendis was able to get her for Iron-Man.

I think Dan Slott said that he found it difficult to use her since he knew what he couldn't do with her. Spencer said that he was invited to a dinner with Quesada where Joe said it was ok for him to go ahead with his idea of having Peter and MJ in a relationship again. That her absence after OMD wasn't intended(by OMD that is) and it just worked out that way. I take Quesadas words with a grain of salt. The gist of it seems like they aren't just that interested in using her. Therefore they aren't that interested in seperating her and Peter, it's a nonissue for them becasue they are over it.

It's pretty clear they didn't think this through. "Spider-Man can't be married" is the extent of their thought process.

The BND writers seemed to have no interest in writing Peter and MJ together after such an extreme story. But once Spencer brought them back together as an unmarried couple, it was game over for pulling that again. That Wells immediately split them up has essentially caused the fanbase to revolt.

[Frontier]

I think if the writers could spin serious and likeable love interests for Peter and MJ separate from each other, they would have done it by now (I mean, it's been what...15-16 years since One More Day? And what do they have to show for it?).

But I guess it could just be that most modern writers on Spider-Man aren't great at writing romance.

[Lukmendes]

Save for that brief period where the comic strip adapted BND .

Aren't most adaptations and variants of "Barry" these days just Wally with Barry's name and job?

Beats me, haven't been keeping up besides vaguely hearing some shit.

Sure, MJ and Gwen in movie three did kinda mix and match traits (heck, in the SM2 bonus features, it was admitted that MJ was a composite of herself and Gwen). Frankly, I kinda found that amusing (just like how they cast a blond-actress to play the redhead character of the two and vice versa). Granted, the Raimi movies were my gateway to Spider-Man, so that was the character for me.

Well, mixing anyone with a nothing character like Gwen is never a good idea lol.

That said, I did like some of the subtle touches that you can see across the series. The extra scene in SM2.1 where MJ discusses her engagement puts a lot of her decisions in context across the series (between that her bad reaction to the negative review in movie three make the point that she's an emotional abuse survivor and, while no longer in the situation, still carries scars). Appreciated that we see her and Peter making an emotional connection before she starts falling for him (like how she's having fun during the impromptu photo shoot at the field trip or that she's willing to open up to him despite keeping a mask up most of the time). She may not have been the most lively character, but the writing was solid and we got to see the couple go from high school crush to adults dealing with baggage as the relationship had become something serious.

(Also, given the limited screen time, I kinda think it was a good call not to put so much emphasis on the shallow persona that MJ used as a teen in the comics; if we didn't get some early cues that there was more to her than that, it's harder to root for Peter.)

The problem is that she doesn't develop that much besides randomly implying shit, and considering she gets so much screen time across three movies, that's no excuse, movies with less runtime have done more.

It also doesn't help that she has zero chemistry with Spidey, and I'll always find it colossally depressing that Betty, a character who has less than 5 minutes across the entire damn movie franchise, has better chemistry with Spidey than MJ lol.

She's kinda MJ in background and with her career choice, but Gwen in spirit, and you never, ever should be Gwen in spirit.

It sucks if you don't like the current run, but I guess, taking the longer view, we don't have enough context to know how this all fits together or what the intent of this mess is (heck, we don't know yet if Marvel really is planning to kill MJ off or if this's just fans online being mistaken).

While I doubt they'll actually kill her, the way she keeps getting disrespected does it no favors, so even if she doesn't get killed, she'll still be written by Wells.

The way I see this all playing out is MJ's relationship with Paul will be revealed to be a lie, something MJ lied about for what she thinks was the greater good. Once Paul and the kids are gone (because they were never going to last), Peter and MJ won't get back together right away. Neither of them (but especially Peter) want to hurt Felicia.

The relationship, and this run, will end when Felicia realizes all of this, and that Peter STILL wants to be with MJ, and let him go so that can happen. It's probably the most mature way to end that relationship without shoving Felicia under the bus.

I really get the feeling this is denial speaking.

I have to wonder, why do the people at Marvel seem shocked every single time by the fact that people get really, really angry over them breaking up Peter and MJ?

Companies are very good at being out of touch with their fanbase.

On Reddit, there was a thread discussing a Twitter post from Nick Lowe basically stating that more people liked the OMD status quo than hated it (citing that they lot more positive letters than not). Most of the users there didn't believe it or at least rejected the idea that that represented the majority. While I don't think we have all the numbers to know for sure the percentages of positive vs negative and all that, it could be possible that the readers who like the post-OMD variant of Spider-Man are more likely to write it, thus leaving Marvel a little surprised when fans of the pre-OMD variant express their distaste elsewhere online.

I really doubt that's the case, people really like to talk about how pissed they are, it's just that the letters published will be more likely to be positive ones.

Like, even if we have more people enjoying post-OMD than not, that isn't because people are more likely to send letters when they're happy lol.

Find someone who looks at you the way Zombie Spider-Man looks at MJ.

Please don't give Wells ideas.

Speaking of Marvel Zombies and Spider-Man, though, any thoughts on the Resurrection miniseries from a couple of years back where MJ turned out to be one of the zombies and Peter was leading a group of survivors that somehow included Karla Sofen/Moonstone, of all people?

What the hell? Spidey/Karla team-up? That's, different.

And while they have waited for everyone to forget Mary Jane and her relationship to Peter (which is beyond ridiculous), Into the Spider-Verse featured two universes where Peter married Mary Jane to a much wider audience than what you find in comic books and it's sequel is about to depict Peter B. Parker as a dad to the ever-adorable Mayday Parker (whose mother is Mary Jane, obviously) while also featuring a cameo from RYV Mary Jane and their second daughter Annie.

Huh, how brief was that cameo? I really don't remember it.

I think if the writers could spin serious and likeable love interests for Peter and MJ separate from each other, they would have done it by now (I mean, it's been what...15-16 years since One More Day? And what do they have to show for it?).

But I guess it could just be that most modern writers on Spider-Man aren't great at writing romance.

Spidey writers aren't that good at romance in general, very few of Spidey's love interests were even decent.

And yes, that includes Lee/Ditko (Whose relationship with Betty was only annoying drama after a while, though maybe that was the point, as Spidey himself points out he moved on from her rather quickly), and Lee/Romita (Gwen sucks), and while we can get a few that are fine or even good like Conway and DeMatteis, a lot of the times the relationships were underdeveloped, or just more trouble than it's worth, because the women aren't really characters, just drama machines, MJ and Felicia stand out so much because they have more characterization going on than just drama (Though Felicia herself was a drama machine, but on her own way, and she wasn't just that).

So yeah, current writers can be rather bad with romance, but they definitely aren't improving if they base their ideas on classic Spidey romances, which were also bad.

[CaptainUniverse]

Save for that brief period where the comic strip adapted BND .

Stan Lee is the greatest of all time for making BND nothing more than a nightmare.

Companies are very good at being out of touch with their fanbase.

No kidding.

Huh, how brief was that cameo? I really don't remember it.

Pretty brief, she and Annie are seen walking on a central walkway in the ATSV trailer when they pull back to reveal all of the different Spider-Men and Spider-Women. Spinneret is also on the movie poster:

[Kevinroc]

Pretty brief, she and Annie are seen walking on a central walkway in the ATSV trailer when they pull back to reveal all of the different Spider-Men and Spider-Women. Spinneret is also on the movie poster:

You know they're going to just say Spinneret is from a universe where MJ was bitten by the Spider instead of Peter. I wonder if she'll have any lines in the movie.

I really get the feeling this is denial speaking.

I don't think it's denial.

[CaptainUniverse]

You know they're going to just say Spinneret is from a universe where MJ was bitten by the Spider instead of Peter. I wonder if she'll have any lines in the movie.

It is always possible, I suppose. Although I haven't heard anything about Zoe Kravitz coming back for ATSV, so we will have to just wait and see. I would like to see her interact with Peter B. and Mayday though, that would be interesting.

[Kevinroc]

It is always possible, I suppose. Although I haven't heard anything about Zoe Kravitz coming back for ATSV, so we will have to just wait and see. I would like to see her interact with Peter B. and Mayday though, that would be interesting.

Different universe. They don't have to hire the same VA to play a different version of the character.

(Although it would be nice.)

[CaptainUniverse]

Different universe. They don't have to hire the same VA to play a different version of the character.

(Although it would be nice.)

True, they did get three different people to play different versions of Peter after all. Like you said though, it would be nice, I really liked her performance as Mary Jane even if it was a small one.