Has the Spider-Man franchise not been treating Mary Jane right?

[Tre Styles]

I remember when Spider-Man had lots of good stories utilizing many supporting characters that really are no longer in Spidey's world. MJ of course, Robbie Robertson, Betty Brant, Ned Leeds, Harry Osborn, Liz Allen (although they are doing something with her with the Alchemex thing) Glory Grant, etc. So I think that the "joke" has some truth to it. MJ hasn't been utilized because of the editorial changes in later years, and now she has an interesting role in Iron Man, and hints of her connection with Peter are there too. So for now, she seems to be an IM supporting cast character, and it seems to fit.

[Phantom Roxas]

Oh! Mary Jane also gave Peter a heart-to-heart to get him out of his No One Dies funk.

But hey, let's ignore the long-standing history of comic book characters not putting two and two together because they weren't supposed to find out yet. It's clearly a more modern practice. And by modern, I fully mean it just being during a run you dislike because it doesn't have the marriage.

So! All you really got is Superior, and clearly that wasn't supposed to have her in a big role. I mentioned a lot more examples than that.

All of the examples you cited, with the sole exception of Renew Your Vows, happened before what I cited, so the mistreatment is a more recent issue independent of the marriage. Targeting my opinion on the marriage has nothing to do with any of the points I made about Superior, even though I had also focused on Volume 3. The only reason I haven't used more examples is because those were among the latest examples of appearances she had before Renew Your Vows. There was also Spider-Verse, where an alternate universe version of Mary Jane was made up for no purpose other than to get punched by Jessica. As you had said, these weren't supposed to have her in a big role. However, as I mentioned twice before, Frontier said "And even what few scenes she did get weren't necessarily very flattering or true to her character." So it doesn't actually matter how big her role is. The issue Frontier brought up is how she is portrayed when she has a role regardless. So what stories in that history excuses Mary Jane being portrayed like a complete moron to the point that she was given a personal psychic blindspot specifically for Superior?

[Dr. Skeleton]

Yes she has ever since Clone Saga. I'm surprised she hasn't bailed on Peter years ago, but some people get to attached I suppose.

[theshow07]

She's been written completely out of character for a while and the relationship between her and Peter has been cheapened, with the emphasis on her only dating him because he's Spider-Man since OMD.

omd had nothing to do with it that blame goes to parallels lives which to me did more damage their relationship

[MarvelMaster616]

In the letters page for Invincible Iron Man #7, a fan wrote in a letter expressing bewilderment about Mary Jane being taken away from the Spider-books and showing up in Iron Man. The book's assistant editor, Alanna Smith, replied half-jokingly by stating "THEY WEREN'T TREATING HER RIGHT, GOSH DARNIT. NO ONE PUTS MJ IN A CORNER."

There's an old saying, "Many a true word is spoken in jest."

Do you think that is the case here?

I think it's valid to a degree. Granted, Bendis was being snarky here. But I think he saw that the Spider-Man comics just weren't using Mary Jane anymore. And I agree with that. Mary Jane was effectively benched by Slott after Superior and I can understand way. Slott gives the impression that he's more a fan of Peter Parker than he is Mary Jane. He wants to focus on Peter and his own set of characters that influence him. At the moment, he just doesn't have a role for Mary Jane to play. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not like he killed her off or anything. So I'm glad Bendis picked her up because Mary Jane is one of those characters that he has written very well. He's been writing her since the early days of his Ultimate Spider-Man run. He gets Mary Jane in ways few writers do. I think it's great that he found a role for her in Iron Man, but I don't think she has that role because the Spider-Man comics have been treating her poorly. They just haven't had a role for her.

[Mister Mets]

Since there is a feeling among some Spider-Man fans that Mary Jane isn't being treated right, it does make sense for an Iron Man writer to make a play for those guys, a good chunk of whom would otherwise not have picked up a series about another superhero.

[The Ice-Guy]

If MJ being in Invincible IM puts her back into the spotlight and gives her more story focus while also giving other writers materials to use for her in other books, i"m all for it. I really would've liked to see peter and Mj take on the world figuratively in this new chapter of peter's life but dann just really doesn't want them to be a thing now, which is a shame because he was constantly teasing it around bigtime and through superior.

But at some point her character went from "Peter's in trouble and not himself, I have to help him/ figure this out!" to "Oh my God, I can't believe peter was in trouble and I had to help him/figure it out. I'm just done"

oddly enough the same character shift happened more or less with anna maria, black cat and the horizen labs team.

[Phantom Roxas]

Since there is a feeling among some Spider-Man fans that Mary Jane isn't being treated right, it does make sense for an Iron Man writer to make a play for those guys, a good chunk of whom would otherwise not have picked up a series about anothrt superhero.

There is a difference between "most fans" and "some fans". "Most" implies a majority, while "some" applies nothing more than a minority, and as this poll and posts corresponding to the votes suggest, the feeling that Mary Jane isn't being treated right rests among most fans. Of course, "most" has the same purpose as "some", which is a weasel word. I'd highly advise giving that page a thorough read.

[jimishim12]

i feel people like mj and aunt may are better off away from peter, too show he can be independent own his own and grow away from coddled influences that limit his heroic potential. Plus thier non powered characters, they should just be less targeted from Spidey's rouges gallery just so they can live in peace(Ironic cuz MJ is with another superhero who has the same obsessive villains aiming to cause hell for him), well at least none of which are competely destined to suffer with Peter when one of them is hunting down Spider-Man for revenge. Seriously Spidey's rouges are the worst enemies to any hero to cause a personal problems towards, the smart ones are depraved and addicted to make Peter's life and his loved ones woefully damned to suffer and the stupid ones are the stronger foes that ruin the city and make Spiderman more hated which makes his loved ones more trapped in his misfortunes some how. I think they(the staff) did the Spider cast a big solid, probably ran out of ideas to make Peter come up short and barely make it through without having a mental breakdown with his life back to square one with MJ pretty much either getting ready to leave him but changes her mind at the last second and May getting ready to get a heart attack but at the last second survives the palpitations and it got old when Spider-Man got once more beaten to death and completely destroyed(broken shoulder, fractured femur and even bullet wounds with a limp Achilles tendon) and somehow can fight again tomorrow. Theirs overcoming adversity and theirs this, something I don't even want to take seriously because Spidey is not like Hulk or freaking thor, even he has his limits how much pain to register. At least he has the resources to protect himself now with parker industries. That fight with phoenix collossus and majik was Bullshit with a capital everything and should have killed him in two shots.

Maybe I'm overthinking this and applying logic to a guy bitten by a radioactive spider and can magically take as much as he can dish, that kinda contridicts Spider-Man being a everyman hero who can somehow defeat beings that cross demensions and eat spider people and can die and then come back to life with more magical upgrades to his already powerful superhuman abilities.

[Lee]

There is a difference between "most fans" and "some fans". "Most" implies a majority, while "some" applies nothing more than a minority, and as this poll and posts corresponding to the votes suggest, the feeling that Mary Jane isn't being treated right rests among most fans. Of course, "most" has the same purpose as "some", which is a weasel word. I'd highly advise giving that page a thorough read.

27 people is not most of the readership.

[GSman]

Of course. She got slapped with the worst of the taint of OMD to the extent that it's still hard for her character to appear around Spidey without it coming up in fans minds. Writers seemed to try to make us hate MJ and then forget her, but since neither worked until Bendis she sort of got tossed about on various ideas. Honestly having her in the Iron Man book is a good thing, long as she doesn't become a love interest (which given that she's his sis in law would be gross anyway).

Seriously she is not his sister in law Tony's parents are not going to be a bunch of nobody's like the Watsons, they will probably be villains or world leaders people with high intelligence which the Watsons are not. This whole sister thing is just what you tell yourself because you hope they don't get together admit it.

[Phantom Roxas]

27 people is not most of the readership.

True. But this poll does at least give a small sample of how the audience can be split, so even though it's only a small portion of people who think she's been mistreated, the people who believe she's been treated fairly represents an even smaller group than that.

[Derek Metaltron]

Seriously she is not his sister in law Tony's parents are not going to be a bunch of nobody's like the Watsons, they will probably be villains or world leaders people with high intelligence which the Watsons are not. This whole sister thing is just what you tell yourself because you hope they don't get together admit it.

Watson Sr was a drunk abusive hack writer with little to no ability to raise children, so he's pretty much the perfect choice to be Tony's actual dad if he gave him away. Just because the Watsons are apparently nobodies doesn't mean they are likely to be the truth. Being the child of a villain would be a real cliché. That's why Victor is in the comics, he and Stark are secretly half brothers.

And they won't get together even if it isn't the case, outside Bendis knowing how much hate he'd get from the majority of Spider-Man fans, it wouldn't go anywhere since we'd know Pepper and Tony would be pushed back together eventually anyway.

[Phantom Roxas]

Bendis has posted silly gifs on Tumblr, so while it's probably just that, being silly, I get the impression he really doesn't want them to hook up romantically. So, no, Derek, you're not in denial like GSman was accusing you. I just think that Bendis is just as opposed to the pairing as we are.

[Lee]

True. But this poll does at least give a small sample of how the audience can be split, so even though it's only a small portion of people who think she's been mistreated, the people who believe she's been treated fairly represents an even smaller group than that.

39 people have voted in this poll. It shows absolutely nothing. It's a laughably small sample for a comic series read by tens of thousands of people.