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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

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Amazing Mary Jane #1 Thoughts

Apologies for not getting to this, or indeed other of the recent comics sooner. I’ve felt unwell recently and had computer troubles which conspired to delay my reading and writing up about this.

As such this is possibly going to not be as nitty gritty as I maybe usually would do as I’m going off memories a bit.

TL:DR version is, it’s good with one, albeit notable, flaw.

And Hell let me get that out of the way immediately.

Why...isn’t Mary Jane informing Peter that she’s working alongside a bunch of criminals?

Now look...I’m willing to give the story and Leah Williams the benefit of the doubt. MAYBE Mary Jane is playing a long game here or something. But if she’s not...I mean...that’s kind of a big problem with the story isn’t it?

MJ is allowing actual criminals, including Mysterio, to roam free. Worse she’s arguably doing that because she wants to make the movie and have it be a success but...isn’t that rather irresponsible and selfish, to say nothing of dangerous to herself. Of course MJ is a bad ass and can handle herself. But she is literally surrounded by criminals including a guy who Spidey usually only beats because he has a magical danger sense to help him out. Unless she engages in some Batman levels of cunning she wouldn’t realistically survive this situation.

Now again MAYBE there is something more going on, I very much hope so and am waiting eagerly to see that, but if there isn’t it’s going to be a huge thing working against this series quality.

However apart from that literally everything else was firing on all cylinders.

It’s difficult to do anything other than gush.

First of all the artwork is fantastic. It’s like if Todd Nauch and Ramos had a kid and it looked stylized like Ramos but also how people should look like Nauck.

The characterization, exempting the one thing I spoke about, was also very much on point. I can’t recall Mysterio and MJ ever interacting much (if ever) before but the idea practically writes itself, it’s such a natural pairing!

The gag about being insured was great and clearly drawn from Leah Williams past experience in that business, I hope we get more of that.

MJ herself is presented very well. She’s confident, she’s serious, she’s determined, but also fun, upbeat and has dashes of goofiness and flirtation (with Peter I mean).

So far, so good Williams seems to have a strong grasp on her character (again sans that ONE problem I noted).

I especially liked how Mysterio wasn’t a typical thuggish villain like you’d imagine Scorpion or Electro being. For instance rather than make inappropriate remarks regarding MJ as the likes of Crusher Creel might do, he actually gets angry at the idea that she used sex to get her part. But here is the nuance in Williams writing. Because whilst it’d be typical to make Mysterio a thuggish villain like Rhino or Sandman or Electro, in it’s own way it also would’ve been typical to have made him a pseudo chivalrous villain who doesn’t tolerate sexism. Instead she sets that up but then veers to the side as Mysterio is actually angry at the idea that HE could be manipulated by sex (or ‘womanly wiles’ as he puts it) thus making Mysterio atypical but still most definitely a villain.

The idea of Mysterio as the ‘artiste’ of the Spidey rogues has been milked very effectively starting with Spencer’s run and the idea that he and MJ could honestly connect through their passion for their art is a great bit of character writing. It tells us a little about who Mysterio is whilst also demonstrating MJ’s own social skills. Peter and Mysterio could never get along this way, and I know that because they started to in Webspinners #1 (which Mysterio’s movie is based upon btw) but the conversation got awkward and they walked away from one another.

Other stuff I liked was the subversion of expectations. I walked into this believing the plot would likely be that about us readers fearing for MJ as she didn’t realize who she was working for and thus how much danger she was in. But Williams simply had MJ figure that out almost immediately and now, besides the Savage Six, we don’t know where things are going to go and that’s a good thing.

By the way, isn’t it great that this is a story where yes MJ’s association with Spider-Man has led MJ into working with one of his enemies and arguably being exposed to danger from him, but she herself deduces that, then chooses to continue taking that risk and isn’t bothered by it? The real danger is coming from Mysterio’s enemies not Peter’s (okay they are technically Peter’s enemies too but you see what I mean). Literally just 2 years ago this would’ve been fuel for the ‘see they can’t be together because it’s too dangerous for her’ jackasses like Slott.

Now it should go without saying (but I will say it anyway) that the PeterxMJ scenes were delightful.

For a split second was thinking phone sex isn’t really in character for Spider-Man. But then I thought you know...MJ has in the past had the effect of loosening him up (see every kinky 90s thing artists did with them) and you could arguably say they were being somewhat ironic anyway. Of course the shipper in me liked it all the same. As I did with the 20 second dance party which I suspect will be trotted out many times in years to come within the MJ fan community. Appropriately it was referenced in the same scene as her crowing moment of awesome, the Chameleon (who appeared in ASM the same day) baseball bat incident. Williams knows her shit it seems!

Now there is one other thing I feel I should talk about.

There was a rather lengthy scene regarding the writing of MJ’s character that was clearly intended to be meta commentary upon the portrayal of female characters.

The question is what specifically was Williams passing commentary on?

How Mary Jane has usually been written?

How she has usually been written until this solo book of her’s?

How women in comics are usually written?

Or how women in films/comic book movies are portrayed?

I’m not sure. I think if it’s options 1 or 2 that’s rather unfair and not really looking at the nuance of the character.

But to be honest looking at this book and Williams’ own comments regarding MJ in interviews prior to this book’s release I don’t buy that. Williams’ comments combined with some of the deepcut continuity she references here doesn’t paint her as someone who thinks MJ is underdeveloped or who’s only purpose in the story is to serve Spider-Man’s story. Indeed any MJ fan worth their salt is aware that part of what made MJ successful and popular to begin with in the 1960s was that she precisely DIDN’T do that.

As such I think options 3 or much more pressingly option 4 is what Williams is commenting upon.

The condensed nature of comic book films mean that it’s a rarity for characters beyond the lead or the villains to get much of their own stories to play out. This is certainly the case with Michelle in the MCU Spider-Man movies and Emma Stone in the Webb movies. But curiously less the case with Dunst’s Mary Jane.

Let’s also consider that this story was promoted as talking about the movie business, something Williams has insider knowledge of and thus it makes sense she’s commenting upon and satirizing that as opposed to comic books (hence we got that insurance gag early on).

In a sense you could say she’s using Mary Jane as a (logical and entirely in character) mouthpiece to comment upon how female characters in movies like Mysterio’s are more like Gwen Stacy but should be more like her, Mary Jane.

Although I must admit the dialogue where they talk about her character int he movie lacking powers and such did confuse me. I didn’t get that.

So over all...yeah...this was great. Again there is one notable problem I hope gets addressed before everything is said and done but in every other way this thing is scoring touchdowns all the way.

Buy it!

Buy 2 copies!

Buy 2 copies and some variants, then get the digital edition and pre-order the trade!

P.S. Thanks to this new comic I learned a new word! Ingenue, gotta find a way to slip that into conversation some time.

#Amazing Mary Jane #Leah Williams #mjwatsonedit #Mary Jane Watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #mj watson #Mysterio #quinten beck #Vulture #the vulture #adrian toomes #Spider-Man #Peter Parker

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