I know that MJ is Peter's main squeeze...

[Frontier]

Stan has established himself as a pretty pro Peter and MJ guy.

Not to say he was when Gwen died, but I think he came around to their relationship in a big way.

He even endorsed it in the PS4 game .

[boots]

Stan has established himself as a pretty pro Peter and MJ guy.

Not to say he was when Gwen died, but I think he came around to their relationship in a big way.

He even endorsed it in the PS4 game .

stan did like endorsing stuff

[Frontier]

stan did like endorsing stuff

Especially if he really believed in 'em .

[boots]

Especially if he really believed in 'em .

only stan can say for sure

in any public career, all have bullshitted support for something at one point or another

edit: that might read like i’m throwing doubt on stan’s mj love- i’m not. i have no opinion on it.

but it does raise an interesting thought; people are constantly growing (you hope) and new perspectives will come with age, and we make the assumption that it’s a positive progression. we assume wisdom is gained

that’s not always the case

who’s to say that a 30 year old stan, arguing with a 70 year old stan wouldn’t be right?

[Frontier]

only stan can say for sure

in any public career, we’ve all bullshitted our support for something at one point or another

edit: that might read like i’m throwing doubt on stan’s mj love- i’m not. i have no opinion on it.

but it does raise an interesting thought; people are constantly growing (you hope) and new perspectives will come with age, and we make the assumption that it’s a positive progression. we assume wisdom is gained

that’s not always the case

who’s to say that a 30 year old stan, arguing with a 70 year old stan wouldn’t be right?

I just think it's reasonable to assume that Stan has had a fondness for Peter and MJ as a couple given how he's promoted and supported them, even at times when Marvel editorial didn't.

[boots]

I just think it's reasonable to assume that Stan has had a fondness for Peter and MJ as a couple given how he's promoted and supported them, even at times when Marvel editorial didn't.

yeah, it’s not unreasonable

but from the keyboard of the man himself :

Reilly: Mr. Lee, I'm the President of the Bring Back Ben Group, and I was wondering if you liked Ben Reilly.

Host Stan_Lee: I like every character we've ever had since the dawn of time

[Kevinroc]

I think people just look at the newspaper strip, where Stan made Peter/MJ official, when he didn't have to do that. He could have done whatever he wanted there.

[boots]

I think people just look at the newspaper strip, where Stan made Peter/MJ official, when he didn't have to do that. He could have done whatever he wanted there.

for sure

but there’s a few considerations that come into “whatever he wanted”. it’s not necessary that he shipped her hard or in the way fans feel

in any case, i’m not big on calls to authority. it matters as much as it matters to you at the end of the day

[Frontier]

for sure

but there’s a few considerations that come into “whatever he wanted”. it’s not necessary that he shipped her hard or in the way fans feel

in any case, i’m not big on calls to authority. it matters as much as it matters to you at the end of the day

I think what's important is that he's shipped it enough where it counts .

[boots]

I think what's important is that he's shipped it enough where it counts .

true enough, the results are what’s important.

which is why i think discussing his intentions, beyond maybe an interesting examination of the creative process, is ultimately useless

at least insofar as proving the superiority of any character

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I think people just look at the newspaper strip, where Stan made Peter/MJ official, when he didn't have to do that. He could have done whatever he wanted there.

Stan Lee always wanted to be everyone's friend. He was Mr. Consensus. He always wanted any fan no matter what they believed or expressed to be able to claim him. So you can find Lee's statements in support for practically anything and everything. Lee was also laissez-faire and moderate by nature. He didn't have skin in the game. Conway whacked Gwen and replaced her with MJ and after initial backlash, MJ was popular...Lee shrugged and moved on. If Lee wanted, he could have insisted, nay demanded, Gwen Stacy be returned for real. Instead he was satisfied with the clone story and the letters and personal complaints to him drying up. He saw that Peter/MJ had become truly popular and decided from then that this would be the main romance.

The one thing that Lee definitely believed in was that Spider-Man needed to have one leading-lady. He definitely felt that Spider-Man needed to have a "lois lane". He tried to make Gwen that, and when he saw that MJ fit that better, he chose her and never backed down once. The famous "illusion of change" speech which people misunderstand apparently had him saying (since this was reported second hand by others, we don't actually know the contents of what he said) -- "I don't want progress; I want the illusion of progress now. We don't want people dying and coming out of the strips [a reference to the death of Gwen Stacy], we don't want new girlfriends, we want to try to keep it the same."What he meant by that of course was that he didn't want anyone after MJ. So basically the attempt by Spider-Man writers to try and have Peter bounce between love interests as in OMD would not have been to his liking. He said at other times that Peter isn't supposed to be a playboy type. He's supposed to find one girl and that'd be it.

When Jon Semper who made the Fox Cartoon dealt with Lee (who was a producer), Lee insisted they make MJ the leading lady and main romance and that Spider-Man not have any other romances but her. Semper disagreed with that but he had to argue with him many times to get Lee to agree with him. IF you read the backup non-canon stories that Lee did with Marcos Martin, they all feature Peter with MJ and make meta-jokes about how the continuity makes no sense. "Identity Crisis" is especially hilarious to read.

[Lee]

And if Gwen hadn't been killed off, she could very easily have become "the girlfriend" in the newspaper strip, and you'd all have grown up with Spider-Man married to Gwen.

[Miles To Go]

And if Gwen hadn't been killed off, she could very easily have become "the girlfriend" in the newspaper strip, and you'd all have grown up with Spider-Man married to Gwen.

That would depend on people (writers as well as fans) taking to Gwen as the long-term love interest, it would also depend on MJ's vastly superior popularity wavering.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

And if Gwen hadn't been killed off, she could very easily have become "the girlfriend" in the newspaper strip, and you'd all have grown up with Spider-Man married to Gwen.

What is your point?

If Lee went with Jack Kirby's original concept for Spider-Man, we'd likely all have grown up with a stocky teenager who fires a gun with webs and wears a costume entirely diferent from what we have? Most likely not, since that concept would maybe not ever have done well and we'd have a Marvel Universe without Spider-Man

If John Romita Sr. won the initial difference of opinion (i.e. he felt that MJ should be the girlfriend early in the run based on Ditko's set-up and not Gwen but Lee insisted and JRSR defered) then MJ would have dated Peter and been the girlfriend and there would not have been a Peter/Gwen relationship to start with.

If Ditko had stuck around and revealed MJ, she would have had an entirely different design and personality (based on the fact that Ditko had her wear a babushka and showed her owning and driving a car implying she was more middle-class, and unfashionable, than what JRSR designed).

Also, if Ditko had convinced Lee and killed off Betty Brant early in his run (in an accident and not a criminal incident), she would have been the "Gwen Stacy" of the stories and the lost love.

There's basically an endless number of "Ifs" in Spider-Man titles. None of it means anything by itself.

[Lee]

I didn't bring up the hypothetical, but yes, that is how hypothetical scenarios work.

If Ditko had stuck around and revealed MJ, she would have had an entirely different design and personality (based on the fact that Ditko had her wear a babushka and showed her owning and driving a car implying she was more middle-class, and unfashionable, than what JRSR designed).

Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly? She was clearly being coded as glamorous.