One of the more controversial decisions by Marvel was to dissolve the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane through a deal with Mephisto in One More Day. By bringing back Aunt May and nullifying Peter’s marriage, Marvel was able to restore Peter to his “classic” status quo. Many felt it was symptomatic of Marvel and DC’s refusal to let their characters grow.
In early Spider-Man comics set in high school, there is a love triangle between Betty, Liz, and Peter. When you factor in Flash Thompson and Ned Leeds it becomes more of a love pentagon. Betty is Peter’s girlfriend, but she is the secretary of Jameson and hates Spider-Man just like he does. Later stories show her to be a chronic cheater and hardly great marriage material, though I still love her character.
Gwen is the iconic lost love interest. Stan Lee seemed to favor her as Peter’s girlfriend over Mary Jane. Shortly after Gerry Conway took over Spider-Man, he killed off Gwen. Stan claims it happened when he was out of town and he was ignorant of it all. Gerry claims Stan knew all along. Gerry felt he had to kill Gwen because there was nowhere to go but marriage for the character, though Stan always found reasons to keep them apart, usually involving Captain Stacey and Gwen blaming her father’s death on Spider-Man. Very similar to how Betty blamed her brother’s death on Spider-Man.
It’s clear the early writers didn’t want Peter getting married. Stan did break ground by having Mr Fantastic marry Invisible Girl, but Reed Richards is clearly an older character. If not for the sliding timescale, he would probably be about as old as Jimmy Carter. He is known to have served in WWII and is seen in Sgt Fury comics. Stan Lee stated he developed grey temples during the war, and he is always shown with grey hair from his first appearance. Peter is introduced as a teen character, more the age of Human Torch than Mr. Fantastic. Johnny Storm and Peter Parker both end up getting married in the mid 80s, but their marriages end up being retconned away. Johnny married a Skrull pretending to be Ben’s old girlfriend Alicia Masters, while Peter married Mary Jane only to make a deal with the devil to reverse it.
Mary Jane is used regularly through around issue 200. The early portrayal is party girl go go dancer. There is a hilarious issue of Deadpool from the 90s where him and Blind Al impersonate Peter and Aunt May after time traveling to the 60s, and they comment on how MJ seems to be on drugs. She just shows up, puts on some psychedelic rock music, and starts dancing wherever she goes, even at Aunt May’s house. All of her early appearances show her being generally flirty and fun, but it isn’t really clear if Stan would ever hook her up permanently with Flash, Harry, or Peter. Gerry Conway felt there was a hidden depth to the character. After killing off Gwen, who Gerry thought Stan saw his own wife in, Gerry introduces a clone of Gwen. He then has Peter see off the Gwen clone to live her own life, while Peter goes to Mary Jane for comfort after the first traumatic clone saga. After Conway leaves the book, Len Wein has Mary Jane as a close friend and sometime girlfriend lf Peter, but there are also issues where she is dating Flash and Peter gets jealous. Still, MJ does care about Peter and often is caring for his Aunt when she falls ill.
When Marv Wolfman takes over the book, he decides to take things in a new direction. Peter is out at the Bugle and in at the Globe. Spider-Man finally is exonerated for the murders of Norman and Gwen. Peter graduates college and moves on to graduate school where he makes new friends. Part of this new life for Peter was going to be making a wife of MJ, but she shoots down his proposal, saying she’s not the kind of girl to get tied down with one man. After that, Betty gets a key to Peter’s apartment from Mrs. Muggins the landlady. Lonely Peter goes along with her suggestion of an affair. He takes her on a romantic cruise where Harry and Liz seem to want to hook Peter and MJ up, but MJ has a different guy, and looks amused that Peter is openly dating his married girlfriend.
Betty and MJ sometimes hang out together at Peter’s apartment, and don’t seem to be on bad terms over him.
Eventually Peter dumps Betty in a brutal and public way, after Ned Leeds returns from Europe and repeatedly beats him up to get his wife back. Flash, Harry and the rest are disgusted and they only see each other sparingly (like at the premiere of Star Trek the Movie, or when Aunt May “died”) for the next several years. MJ goes back to Florida with Aunt Anna for a few years. Harry moves to New Jersey and doesn’t invite Peter to the wedding with Liz.
Peter starts dating another married Secretary, this time Deb Whitman at grad school. She turns out to be crazy and hiding her past. He tells her she’s Spider-Man but it breaks her mind and she goes back to her hometown to resolve things with her husband.
After that, Black Cat is the next love interest. Unlike the others, where Spider-Man kept them apart, she loves Spider-Man but finds Peter disgusting. Obviously she is too mentally unstable as a former criminal who can’t accept his human side, so he could never really be married to Black Cat. There are many ups and downs in this relationship which dominates the runs of Roger Stern, Bill Mantlo, Al Milgrom, Peter David, and Tom DeFalco.
During this years long stretch of the 80s, MJ does return. Her first few appearances are in the Roger Stern run, but Roger viewed her as a spoiler to cause Peter drama. She returns in a story where Peter is making out with Amy Powell, rival photographer Lance Bannon’s girlfriend. Again, MJ looks more amused than jealous.
There is little sense that she is willing to settle down with Peter, and seems content to be a friend. There are several scenes where their aunts, Harry and Liz, and Betty and Ned, try to set them up at dinners. All of these scenes are awkward and there is no spark. I am not sure where Roger planned for this to go, but he was so opposed to the marriage that he rejected an offer to come back to writing Spider-Man shortly after the marriage.
Tom DeFalco has MJ reveal she knows Peter’s secret identity, and has for years. This feels like a retcon since she often wondered why Peter was blowing her off when they dated in the 70s. It does however create a closeness he never had with Betty and Gwen. Still, this hardly makes her unique as he also told Deb Whitman and Black Cat. After the Black Cat relationship takes a snag because of her bad luck powers, Peter does gravitate towards Mary Jane more, but it is a competitive love triangle with the Black Cat involved up through the Gang War and the death of Ned Leeds.
Tom DeFalco had previously proposed a story where the marriage would almost happen but MJ leaves him alone at the altar. His artist partner Ron Frenz describes her as Peter’s best friend during their run. Most of their time together in the DeFalco run are scenes like MJ helping Peter repaint his apartment after a fire. They have a good bond, but it is nothing definitively romantic. During the turnover, this eventually becomes an actual marriage.
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The marriage happens during the transition from the DeFalco/Owsley/Shooter era to the David Michelinie era. It apparently occurred because of an incident at a comics convention where Stan Lee asked the crowd if they wanted Peter and MJ to tie the knot, which received applause in the room. Jim Shooter felt obliged to go through with it, but unenthusiastic.
After the changeover, there are around a hundred issues by David Michelinie. Todd McFarlane redesigns Mary Jane into a sexy supermodel. While she was always pretty, we start seeing more cheesecake shots of her in the late 80s and early 90s. Her classic straight red hair starts looking more like poofy 80s hair. She spends much of the marriage worrying about Peter as he is always off fighting villains. This even drives her to smoke for a while, until a Bugle colleague of Peter’s dies of lung cancer. Soon after she quits smoking, she finds out she’s pregnant. She is poisoned, the child is seemingly dead, and stolen by Norman Osborn. Then Marvel has a plane crash that seems to kill her. Later they separate with MJ living apart from Peter. It seems like other than Michelinie and Conway, almost every writer tried to run away from the Peter and Mary Jane relationship.
I don’t mind the issues when they are together, but it just seems like one relationship among many for Peter. I think her initial rejection, and the plans for a second one, were indicative that most Marvel writers never really wrote them as destined to be together. Could it really have worked out when so few writers agreed with this portrayal of the characters?
Edit: I recommend the series by Brian Cronin on Mary Jane’s history:
www.cbr.com
In early Spider-Man comics set in high school, there is a love triangle between Betty, Liz, and Peter. When you factor in Flash Thompson and Ned Leeds it becomes more of a love pentagon. Betty is Peter’s girlfriend, but she is the secretary of Jameson and hates Spider-Man just like he does. Later stories show her to be a chronic cheater and hardly great marriage material, though I still love her character.
Gwen is the iconic lost love interest. Stan Lee seemed to favor her as Peter’s girlfriend over Mary Jane. Shortly after Gerry Conway took over Spider-Man, he killed off Gwen. Stan claims it happened when he was out of town and he was ignorant of it all. Gerry claims Stan knew all along. Gerry felt he had to kill Gwen because there was nowhere to go but marriage for the character, though Stan always found reasons to keep them apart, usually involving Captain Stacey and Gwen blaming her father’s death on Spider-Man. Very similar to how Betty blamed her brother’s death on Spider-Man.
It’s clear the early writers didn’t want Peter getting married. Stan did break ground by having Mr Fantastic marry Invisible Girl, but Reed Richards is clearly an older character. If not for the sliding timescale, he would probably be about as old as Jimmy Carter. He is known to have served in WWII and is seen in Sgt Fury comics. Stan Lee stated he developed grey temples during the war, and he is always shown with grey hair from his first appearance. Peter is introduced as a teen character, more the age of Human Torch than Mr. Fantastic. Johnny Storm and Peter Parker both end up getting married in the mid 80s, but their marriages end up being retconned away. Johnny married a Skrull pretending to be Ben’s old girlfriend Alicia Masters, while Peter married Mary Jane only to make a deal with the devil to reverse it.
Mary Jane is used regularly through around issue 200. The early portrayal is party girl go go dancer. There is a hilarious issue of Deadpool from the 90s where him and Blind Al impersonate Peter and Aunt May after time traveling to the 60s, and they comment on how MJ seems to be on drugs. She just shows up, puts on some psychedelic rock music, and starts dancing wherever she goes, even at Aunt May’s house. All of her early appearances show her being generally flirty and fun, but it isn’t really clear if Stan would ever hook her up permanently with Flash, Harry, or Peter. Gerry Conway felt there was a hidden depth to the character. After killing off Gwen, who Gerry thought Stan saw his own wife in, Gerry introduces a clone of Gwen. He then has Peter see off the Gwen clone to live her own life, while Peter goes to Mary Jane for comfort after the first traumatic clone saga. After Conway leaves the book, Len Wein has Mary Jane as a close friend and sometime girlfriend lf Peter, but there are also issues where she is dating Flash and Peter gets jealous. Still, MJ does care about Peter and often is caring for his Aunt when she falls ill.
When Marv Wolfman takes over the book, he decides to take things in a new direction. Peter is out at the Bugle and in at the Globe. Spider-Man finally is exonerated for the murders of Norman and Gwen. Peter graduates college and moves on to graduate school where he makes new friends. Part of this new life for Peter was going to be making a wife of MJ, but she shoots down his proposal, saying she’s not the kind of girl to get tied down with one man. After that, Betty gets a key to Peter’s apartment from Mrs. Muggins the landlady. Lonely Peter goes along with her suggestion of an affair. He takes her on a romantic cruise where Harry and Liz seem to want to hook Peter and MJ up, but MJ has a different guy, and looks amused that Peter is openly dating his married girlfriend.
Betty and MJ sometimes hang out together at Peter’s apartment, and don’t seem to be on bad terms over him.
Eventually Peter dumps Betty in a brutal and public way, after Ned Leeds returns from Europe and repeatedly beats him up to get his wife back. Flash, Harry and the rest are disgusted and they only see each other sparingly (like at the premiere of Star Trek the Movie, or when Aunt May “died”) for the next several years. MJ goes back to Florida with Aunt Anna for a few years. Harry moves to New Jersey and doesn’t invite Peter to the wedding with Liz.
Peter starts dating another married Secretary, this time Deb Whitman at grad school. She turns out to be crazy and hiding her past. He tells her she’s Spider-Man but it breaks her mind and she goes back to her hometown to resolve things with her husband.
After that, Black Cat is the next love interest. Unlike the others, where Spider-Man kept them apart, she loves Spider-Man but finds Peter disgusting. Obviously she is too mentally unstable as a former criminal who can’t accept his human side, so he could never really be married to Black Cat. There are many ups and downs in this relationship which dominates the runs of Roger Stern, Bill Mantlo, Al Milgrom, Peter David, and Tom DeFalco.
During this years long stretch of the 80s, MJ does return. Her first few appearances are in the Roger Stern run, but Roger viewed her as a spoiler to cause Peter drama. She returns in a story where Peter is making out with Amy Powell, rival photographer Lance Bannon’s girlfriend. Again, MJ looks more amused than jealous.
Tom DeFalco has MJ reveal she knows Peter’s secret identity, and has for years. This feels like a retcon since she often wondered why Peter was blowing her off when they dated in the 70s. It does however create a closeness he never had with Betty and Gwen. Still, this hardly makes her unique as he also told Deb Whitman and Black Cat. After the Black Cat relationship takes a snag because of her bad luck powers, Peter does gravitate towards Mary Jane more, but it is a competitive love triangle with the Black Cat involved up through the Gang War and the death of Ned Leeds.
Tom DeFalco had previously proposed a story where the marriage would almost happen but MJ leaves him alone at the altar. His artist partner Ron Frenz describes her as Peter’s best friend during their run. Most of their time together in the DeFalco run are scenes like MJ helping Peter repaint his apartment after a fire. They have a good bond, but it is nothing definitively romantic. During the turnover, this eventually becomes an actual marriage.
Comic Legends: Was Mary Jane Going to Leave Peter at the Altar?
In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, did Mary Jane almost leave Peter Parker at the aisle?
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The marriage happens during the transition from the DeFalco/Owsley/Shooter era to the David Michelinie era. It apparently occurred because of an incident at a comics convention where Stan Lee asked the crowd if they wanted Peter and MJ to tie the knot, which received applause in the room. Jim Shooter felt obliged to go through with it, but unenthusiastic.
After the changeover, there are around a hundred issues by David Michelinie. Todd McFarlane redesigns Mary Jane into a sexy supermodel. While she was always pretty, we start seeing more cheesecake shots of her in the late 80s and early 90s. Her classic straight red hair starts looking more like poofy 80s hair. She spends much of the marriage worrying about Peter as he is always off fighting villains. This even drives her to smoke for a while, until a Bugle colleague of Peter’s dies of lung cancer. Soon after she quits smoking, she finds out she’s pregnant. She is poisoned, the child is seemingly dead, and stolen by Norman Osborn. Then Marvel has a plane crash that seems to kill her. Later they separate with MJ living apart from Peter. It seems like other than Michelinie and Conway, almost every writer tried to run away from the Peter and Mary Jane relationship.
I don’t mind the issues when they are together, but it just seems like one relationship among many for Peter. I think her initial rejection, and the plans for a second one, were indicative that most Marvel writers never really wrote them as destined to be together. Could it really have worked out when so few writers agreed with this portrayal of the characters?
Edit: I recommend the series by Brian Cronin on Mary Jane’s history:
If Her Hair Was Still Red | CBR
The latest and exclusive If Her Hair Was Still Red coverage from CBR.
www.cbr.com
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