#i love peter/mj but like. having seen them in various canons since i was a kid | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

traincat · 4 years

Note

opinions on the new taylor swift album (in terms of spider-man ships) ? 👀👀

YES okay yes I have lots of thoughts. One of my favorite things is when a new Taylor Swift album comes out and I get to decide which songs are what Spider-Man ships. I did a twitter thread about this when the album first came out, which has my initial reactions, but I’ve had time to sit with it now, so let’s dive back in:

the 1: first reading is this is a Peter/Felicia post-breakup. But we were something, don't you think so?/Roaring twenties, tossing pennies in the pool/And if my wishes came true/It would've been you.

(Spectacular Spider-Man #112)

However, I think Taylor Swift’s oeuvre is one especially good for applying to One More Day from Mary Jane’s point of view (New Year’s Day, anyone?) and the 1 doesn’t let us down here.

I have this dream you're doing cool shit/Having adventures on your own/You meet some woman on the Internet and take her home/We never painted by the numbers, baby/But we were making it count/You know the greatest loves of all time are over now. (ASM #561)

cardigan: My first impression was that this is like the ultimate college years Peter/MJ/Gwen song -- leaning slightly more towards the GwenMJ leg of the love triangle/threesome -- and I have not changed on that front. Sequin smile, black lipstick/Sensual politics/When you are young, they assume you know nothing? A friend to all is a friend to none/Chase two girls, lose the one?? 'Cause I knew you/Stepping on the last train/Marked me like a bloodstain??? Tried to change the ending/Peter losing (G)Wendy?????????????

You drew stars around my scars, but now I’m bleeding/”She saw through the party girl mask I always wore. Saw the frightened, abused kid inside.” (Marvel 1000)

the last great american dynasty: this one’s a little too biographical to work for a Spider-Man ship but I think it could be a good women of Spider-Man song. The maddest woman this town has ever seen etc etc. Alternatively it’s for the version of canon where Doc Ock marries May for her nuclear power plant inheritance and then she turns the tables and poisons him for his criminal empire. good for her.

exile: look, this is a love triangle tragic breakup song, and Spider-Man is the king of both of these things. I’m going to make a call and say that exile, while I think it’s both an excellent PeterFelicia and PeterMJ, leans towards PeterMJ after MJ rejects his first proposal, when they’re seeing other people but everyone keeps trying to get them back together. I can see you starin', honey/Like he's just your understudy/Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me/Second, third, and hundredth chances/Balancin' on breaking branches/Those eyes add insult to injury.

The dueling narration of 'Cause you never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs) and I never learned to read your mind (Never learned to read my mind) is a pretty perfect early PeterMJ summary.

my tears ricochet: okay okay okay so my tears ricochet + mad woman are my ideal “Gwen Stacy gets a resurrection revenge narrative ala Bucky Barnes and Jason Todd” song duo. And if I'm on fire/You'll be made of ashes, too.

mirrorball: Taylor Swift released THE definitive Mary Jane Watson song in 2020. We are talking about the feminine art of performance, we are talking about masks, we are talking about trauma baby!!! I want you to know/I'm a mirrorball/I can change everything about me to fit in/You are not like the regulars/The masquerade revelers/Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten.

I've never been a natural/All I do is try, try, try (ASM #143)

We are ALSO thinking about Mary Jane’s iconic mirrored mini dress from ASM #59. An entire Mary Jane anthem.

seven: this song CRIES OUT for childhood friends, which Spider-Man is a bit lacking in, what with the entire friend group coming together in college, but in my head it belongs to a version of canon where Gwen and Mary Jane were friends as children and lost touch with each other. alternatively, it’s the Peter/Flash childhood friends song, since they’re as close as we get to childhood friends in canon, and also because these lyrics in conjunction with that make me want to cry: And I've been meaning to tell you/I think your house is haunted/Your dad is always mad and that must be why/And I think you should come live with/Me and we can be pirates/Then you won't have to cry.

Also, “just like a folk song, our love will be passed on” makes me cry thinking about longform storytelling like superhero comics so like that’s fun. A real Spidey fivesome sort of feeling.

august: I’ve been thinking about it, and I think this is a Peter/Betty set during their initial romantic relationship. Your back/Beneath the sun/Wishing I could write my name on it/Will you call when you're back at school?/I remember thinking I had you.

this is me trying: A FLASH THOMPSON SONG. Like, I think “I didn’t know if you’d care if I came back/I have a lot of regrets about that” is a big PeterMJ sentiment during several key points of their relationship, but overall the vibe of this song is a Flash. Probably a Peter/Flash, while we’re at it.

illicit affairs: okay, in my heart, I want this to be another Peter/Betty, because the point in canon where they’re sleeping together behind Ned’s back is just so sexy of them, and it’s a favorite fictional extramarital affair. However, I also don’t feel like this song is straight enough as its core to be about them. I also feel like “and you want to scream don’t call me kid, don’t call me baby” is a BIG Gwen Stacy mood. So I’m kind of leaning towards an MJ/Gwen affair while PeterGwen is happening. Which would also be very fun of them all. I think at a push we could also make this a Peter/Flash while Flash is seeing Sha Shan, if we wanted to warp canon around to have a good time. What I’m saying is Spider-Man should have a few more affairs in its body of canon. For the song.

mad woman: I mentioned this up with my tears ricochet but we’re going to say AGAIN for the people in the BACK: this is a Gwen Stacy jam. If they were ever to make an extremely good movie about resurrected Gwen on a murderous revenge spree, this song should be playing in it. What do you sing on your drive home?/Do you see my face in the neighbor's lawn?/Does she smile?/Or does she mouth "fuck you forever"?

(Spider-Island: Deadly Foes) Also, not that the Gwen clones get like, full narratives or are allowed to be their own individual characters like the Peter clones (it’s the misogyny) but if they were, mad woman would be such a good Gwen clone song. No one likes a mad woman/You made her like that.

epiphany: this is very rare for me in Taylor Swift’s discography, but I think this is really a Peter solo song.

Crawling up the beaches now/Sir I think he’s bleeding out (Peter Parker #89)

betty: You have no idea how badly I wanted this to be a Peter/Betty, but it is just not. I think there’s a version of Spider-Man high school canon though where this is a Betty/Liz.

peace: This album is light on Taylor Swift Spideytorch hits -- previous examples including Love Story and Call It What You Want To, among many others -- but peace is such a Spideytorch. But I'm a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm/If your cascade ocean wave blues come/All these people think love's for show/But I would die for you in secret/The devil's in the details/But you got a friend in me/Would it be enough/If I could never give you peace?

(ASM #790) @bipeteparker said that Johnny COULD give Peter peace but they’re dramatic, so it works, and I stand by that, but I also like it with the juxtaposition of their lives -- Johnny being so famous and such a public figure and Peter having eschewed that life by keeping the mask on.

hoax: and we’re closing the album the same way we started! I think there are various Spider-Man readings you could do, but my big two are PeterFelicia and PeterMJ -- both with the lens of the post-One More Day deal and how that altered both of their relationships with him.

Your faithless love's the only hoax I believe in (ASM #16HU)

My only one/My kingdom come undone (ASM #545)

#spiderman #traincat talks comics #gratuitous taylor swift spider-man readings #*replies #long post/#taylor swift

26 notes · View notes

wildlyfamousmusic · 5 years

Text

Another message to Webweildingavenger

Bullshit.

You are essentially arguing that if Gwen Stacy came back and the Green Goblin killed her but it was ‘different’ that’d be okay, even though it’s literally the same versions of the characters. I’m not even talking about an AU or an adaptation I’m talking about Sandman having TWO heartfelt sombee death stories in his canonical biography. This may surprise you but most people die just the once in real life, therefore that should ideally extend to fictional characters intended to be reflections of us too.

Uh huh. And just because Sandman is dying, doesn’t make this story any less bad nor intriguing. Infact, it could be a heartfelt story and one that could serve an importance later on or at least an impact.

Killing off Sandman is inherently stupid in the first place as you are removing one of Spider-Man’s more memorable villains off the table, but literally having the same concept behind the story is asinine.

I don’t see the point. Sandman could be dying. Or at least lead to something interesting that could serve Spidey and him. Something to do with that depending on what the story may take. It’s not as bad as randomly killing off characters good or evil in poor taste unlike the previous run.....

This isn’t like Hunted where killing Kraven again for starters wasn’t the same concept but more specifically was a means to an end, that end being course correcting the fact he ever came back.

Yep. That was the best part. This however is different for a story like Sandman compared to others.

With Sandman Zdarsky, as is routine with him, arbitrarily ignored whatever he wanted and ploughed on ahead with HIS version of Sandman’s death rooted in the same concept.

Same concept with an interesting idea. Whatever Flint was going through compared to his other experience, it could lead somewhere.

So what’s next?

Are we going to go ahead and accept Aunt May finding out Peter is Spider-Man again if it ignores that she already knew or indeed that she finds out after she finds him beat up and they have an issue long conversation about it? Will it be okay for Kingpin to target Aunt May prompting Spider-Man to kill him again?

None of those would likely be what Sandman had gone through. Whatever Aunt May’s death would be, it should be a satisfying and impactful end to her character.

“Really,it honestly shows you have some kind of feelings towards Zdarsky.”

a) Duh I hate his work because it sucks shit and

No, not really.

b) I can say the same of you in the opposite direction

“Ho early, his work had been great under Spidey.”

No, it absolutely has not. As I’ve pointed out time and time again it’s shit.

And your reasons weren’t good enough nor really fair and I brought up how they were. you just didn’t respond or accept it.

"Honestly, Nick Spencer is great. But,even his stuff has problems.”

Never said it didn’t. I critiqued Hunted and his second issue and his latest issue in fact and even the issue where MJ opens up to the therapy group.

Yes, he has some good stuff and great stuff. But, his strength his missing. He needs to put in more of those strength.

But there is a difference between having problems but being good on balance and killing off Sandman AGAIN, having Jameson find out AGAIN but ignoring what happened the first time he knew, establishing Spidey has a secret agent secret sister from his secret agents parents’ secret pregnancy and having an embarassing lack of knowledge about how the Cold War worked!

Stuff with Jameson was not how we wanted. But, it’s a start. And the stuff prior to it like his annual was fine enough. Teresa was one fans from what I’ve seen wanted back and were interested in see how much she could play into the mythos. infact, it would not be just Zdarsky who would find her interesting but so would Nick Spencer, Gerry Duggan, Donny Cates, and may other writers.

“Like, some of his stories aren’t strong enough. Even Hunted which had a strong beginning and end had a pretty weak middle that was holding back on things.”

The middle wasn’t weak, it had weaknesses that’s not the same thing.

Weak, Weaknesses, same thing. And if you read my previous message you would understand why. It didn’t feel like the horror survival that it could. It felt like it was holding itself back. just putting some filler HU like Vulture. The middle could’ve been stronger if it felt more like a horror survival.

Game of Thrones had a strong start but grew weak in the middle and ended weakly. The Infinity Saga had weaknesses at various points but none of the 3 phrases were weak. See the difference?

Game Of Thrones was a series with plenty of episodes that had 8 seasons. Infinity Saga had a strong beginning, middle, and end with what has been given to us. Hunted is an arc that had a strong beginning and end but had a weak middle for many reasons like it didn’t feel horrifying enough, the HUs like Vulture weren’t strong enough, the deaths in the survival weren’t hard hitting aside from Gibbon, things with Vermin before the end was bizarre, everything in the middle felt like it was holding back.

“Really, as much as Nick Spencer is bringing things back, his writing isn’t really shown the same when it comes to the level of quality like Zdarsky and even Donny Cates.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Okay I loves Cates and I’m not going to criticise him. His work is very strong. As strong as Spencer’s? I’d say just different, neither better nor worse. I think some of the concepts he comes up with could be communicated a little better and he ignores continuity to an extent but the continuity he ignores in his Venom run is stuff that’s already a mess anyway.

Yeah, That strong.

As for Zdarsky ***** please.

Zdarsky is a better Spider-Man writer than Spencer.

Let’s put aside how if that’s true it’s incredibly unlikely that Spencer would’ve gotten that gig instead of Zdarsky. Zdarsky was popuiar at a time when Spencer was reviled. Zdarsky had well recieved work on actual Spider-Man projects whilst Spencer merely had Superior Foes, an acclaimed book not actually about Spider-Man and circa 2018 a long since cancelled title.

How the flying fuck exactly can Zdarsky, the dude who literally IGNORED Jameson’s decades long characterization, his co-writer Slott’s own continuity regarding the mind wipe AND mere 10 year old continuity, be doing a good job?

Be better than Slott. you see, for a while, we had so much bad stuff from Slott that he basically nearly ruined everything that made the Spider-Man Mythos so unique and brilliant. Zdarsky was the guy to help fix things for a while with better writing, impactful stories, brilliant handlings of the characters, and a much more satisfying end to his run before Nick Spencer took over to fix things and bring some interesting stuff as well as Tom Taylor who mostly has some good stuff and sometimes not and Donny Cates who’ve brought some interesting things. Same with Saladin Ahmed for Miles.

Do you get it? That’s OBJECTIVELY BAD writing!

Read my previous post ontop. No, it’s not. It’s Really not.

Spencer meanwhile went ahead and refamiliarized himself with most Spider-Man stories, used that stuff and generally keeps it in line, keeping everyone in character and consistent to their established characterization.

yes, but while he does that, what I want is better and stronger writing. What he needs is to make things stronger. Because if there were ever story arcs we would expect in the near future, he needs to make them stronger. And so far, his 2099 arc seems to be that/

When he killed someone off a second time he did it with the explicit intention of fixing the fact he ever came back and acknowledging the prior time he died. The story was also different in concept to the original, not the same general idea at all.

Same with Zdarsky. But, the story with Nick Spencer was a very brilliant conclusion to Kraven and a brilliant take on the story at the end.

Zdarsky had Spider-Man go on adventures in time travel and alien crap before following up with the single most overrated Spider-Man mini/AU of all time where he systemically wrote Peter, MJ, and indeed most everyone out of character and failed to demonstrate even basic knowledge of real life history.

Aliens and other stuff. But, it did give The Tinkerer a very interesting take making him relatable to his views on humanity and an interesting backstory when he confronted Spidey at the end. Plus, the time travel stuff was very well handled bringing in some interesting stuff, emotional and impactful moments, some interesting results, and some brilliant high end struggle. The stuff was bizarre but handled well. Especially with what it’s like meeting your past self and fix all those mistakes and teaching him to be a better person.

The stuff with the Nukes was already explained and the stuff took place while the heroes were in Secret Wars.

Spencer in contrast deconstructed Peter’s character in 5 issues before reconstructing him and realigning him at the very least closer to who he is as opposed to what Slott, the BND staff and yes Zdarsky himself contorted him into for over 10 years.

No, Zdarsky did him well before Nick took over. He just made him more competent before Nick fixed his life. Like I said, woth Zdarsky, Peter

Made sacrifices for himself

made a villain a better person.

ouytbested the other heroes and foes.

fought off against a team of SWATs while they were gonna bring harm to his neighbors if he didn’t show.

turned himself in to save his Aunt May

Nearly risked his life to save all life

taught his younger self to be a better person

Gave Sandman the opportunity to have his final moments even nearly revealing himself especially since he sees the good in Flint at the end like he always had

Get treated with respect from the other heroes instead of being made fun of or look like an idiot

the final issue of his run.

stuff like that before Ni9ck took over. See what I mean when I said you ignore most pf what Zdarsky did. and compared to the likes of Slott, Waid, Bendis, and the others during BND, Zdrasky did it better. Better before Nick Spencer took over. Better before Sean Ryan took over. And as good as Donny Cates got involved.

Nick was fixing things and did some good and great things. But, compared to the strength in quality, it hasn’t picked up yet. And since his issue 29, Absolute Carnage Tie In, and first chapter of his 2099 arc, it looks like it’s starting to pick up. And what Nick needs is that level of quality in his work.

Shit dude, Spencer even USED Zdarsky’s own continuity better than he did in the Lifetime Achievement arc where he gave us a potted summation of exactly who Jameson is!

No, not really. His Jamson arc was good. But, like I said, the quality of his work needed to be stronger.

Zdarsky throughout his run has REJECTED the idea of the wider Marvel universe intruding upon Peter’s adventures and thereby making him look weaker and less competent as a result. Zdarsky WASTED a 300th issue on that and followed it up with a shitty Black Cat story.

HOW? He bested both TChalla and Hawkeye making them look like fools, he bested the Six, tried to outbest The Tinkerer, Beated Norman Osborn while trying to save his Aunt May and his younger self, made the boldest sacrifice in trying to stop The Tinkeer, made the Tinkerer into a better person connecting his essence with his, bested Norman’s police force, bested the SWAT team while he was on the run and while his neighbors were at risk from them, gave Sandmam his final moments. Please. Tell Me. How Did He Make Peter Entirely Incompetent The entire time. Because From What I’ve Seen, He Made The EXACT OPPOSSITE. I can expect a few hang ups from Nick’s take. But, neither of them were incompetent at all. it just shows you have some problems with Zdarsky overall. And whatever that is, you need to deal with that.

Also, his Black Cat story was suppose to be a gag issue. Infact, it was a Parody of Tom King’s Wedding arc of Batman and Catwoman in that exact moment Bruce proposed to Selina. Look it up.

Spencer took the Gibbon and in one issue wrote one of the best single issue Spider-Man stories of this decade. Zdarsky decided to take the Tinkerer and retcon that he WAS in fact associated with aliens, an idea so stupid Lee and Ditko distanced themselves from it and other better writers further buried that idea in the 1980s.

The Gibbon issue was good. But, Zdarsky made the thing with The Tinkerer better making him more relatable as well as getting some personal backstory he held for so long.

Shall we compare their pet projects? Okay.

Life Story vs. Superior Foes.

On the one hand a side splitting story that develops a C or D list character into a fan favourite and on the other a story that is so idiotic it thinks that that America wouldn’t simply win the Vietnam War if they had fucking superheroes on their side!

Nick made that work. So did Zdarsky, infact, many writers can make many C and D list characters better.

So….Spencer is worse than Zdarsky how again?

Not to mention btw, it’s pretty weak to try and build up Zdarsky by throwing shade at Spencer.

You make it li9ke you claim Spider-Man wasn’t better until Spencer took over which isn’t really the case especially with the @#$% Bendis, Slott, Waid, and the rest had given us before Zdarsky took over. So saying a brilliant writer handle come to fix things hadn’t existed is pretty insulting. Especially since a writer like Spencer, while he is fixing things, hasn’t reached to the level of quality it needed to be. And so far, his issue 29, Absolute Carnage, and 2099 were the strongest we’ve ever gotten in a while. I don’t hate Nick Spencer nor do I find him anything bad. What I want is that his work needs to be in the level of Quality as it should.

“Honestly, the best one he had since his first 4-5 issues of his ASM was his Absolute Carnage Tie in.”

a) There were 2 tie-in issues

Yes, both good.

b) Many people, myself would argue ASM #29 was better

29 was great. But the tie ins were an improvememt.

c) Even if one disagrees with that ASM #29 is simply different to the Absolute Carnage tie-in issues as they are distinctly different types of stories

d) Even if those WERE the best that doesn’t support any kind of argument against Spencer because 4/5 of the last 5 issues were good, just because one or two of them were the best of the bunch doesn’t discredit him. Shit the last 5 issues weren’t even BAD!

I’m not saying the last 5 were bad. The Syndicate arc was a bit weak but good. But, it’s not up to the same level of quality as issue 29, Absolute Carnage Tie In, and 2099 later on.

e) If hypothetically the Absolute Carnage tie-ins WERE the best issues he did out of the last 5 how does this devalue Spencer? Spencer made 2 issues hijacking his book due to an event, in which the inherently asinine idea of Norman as Carnage was a thing, work to exceptional effect. That doesn’t devalue him that shows you how skilled he is.

Yes, that’s what I meant when his story on that was the best. And his 2099 seems to be reaching there as well.

“Honestly,he has alot of stories to unfold in the future. And if he continues to hold back on them,then he Really needs either a co-writer or just put more thought into them.”

Please. Just cut the shit okay.

You are at this point dissing Spencer who doesn’t deserve it (’he needs a co-writer’ my ass) to build up your favourite horse.

I’m not dissing him as a writer. I Want him to be greater. I Want him to reach that level of quality. If you ignored a previous writer’s best work and said none of the stuff ever happened Before that writer showed up even though that writer’s quality is not up to par, it’s not only ignorant, but, also insulting. After all this time Spider-Man fans suffered, saying this type of @#$% is insulting. And Really, I Want Nick Spener to Reach that level of work. And if we ever get to a very important story arc or more like with some very important ones like Goblin, Kindred, Otto, and stuff, then Nick Spencer NEEDS to put in that same level of quality. otherwise the whole thing would suffer and be for nothing.

#hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger #nick spencer #chip zdarsky #donny cates #spider-man #spider-man 2099 #goblin #jj jameson #tinkerer

1 note · View note

mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker · 7 years

Text

One of my pet peeves is when fellow Spider-Man fans argue that Peter and Mary Jane not being together romantically will condemn them both to a lifetime of eternal misery or when people argue that their love and marriage have survived too many hardships in the past (such as the tragic loss of their baby daughter in particular) for them to ever break up.

Peter and Mary Jane are my favourite fictional couple of all time (always have been, always will be) and I want them to love each other and for them to be together until the stars turn cold and falls out of the sky but I refuse to accept the notion that they are each the other persons only sources of happiness. Also there is no such thing as a point of no return were a couple can no longer decide to end their relationship ever because of having endured too much together. That is not how relationships work, that is not how humans work!

Mary Jane could live a perfectly fulfilling life without Peter! She doesn’t need him but she chooses to be with him because she loves him and being with him makes her happy! That is a good thing dammit!

Peter once believed that Gwen was the love of his life and that he would marry her. Following her death he became depressed and sincerely questioned if it would ever be possible for him to love another person like he loved her, a most realistic concern after suffering such a devastating loss. But his life went on and we all know the answer to that question.

Later in life he even started to question if his relationship with Gwen, (the very person he once thought of as the love of his life) would have lasted even if she had lived, thinking that he and Gwen just weren’t compatible enough for their relationship to survive in the long run and that he most likely still would have ended up falling in love with Mary Jane regardless.

If he lost Mary Jane too it would probably be even more devastating than when he lost Gwen, but he survived that loss and he would ultimately survive losing Mary Jane as well.

In summary: I want to think that Peter and Mary Jane stays together because they love each other and want to spend their lives together and not because they each represent the other persons only chance of ever finding happiness.

For me a big part of the appeal of Pete/MJ is that they’re both flawed, messy, real-seeming fictional people who work hard for their relationship, which by definition means that, yes, they could split up. That’s something that can happen with real people, even ones who love each other very much.

To be fair, I think a lot of fans (including me sometimes!) use “Peter and MJ would never break up!” as hyperbolic shorthand when what they mean is, “Okay, I can see xyz scenario where Peter and MJ would split up and it would make sense, but not because Peter gaslights MJ into agreeing to a deal with the devil who then alters reality so that a brick falls onto Peter’s head the night before the wedding because Marvel thought Peter getting a divorce would age Spider-Man too much, are you f***ing kiding me–”

Yeah I think a lot of the miserable without each other stuff is an interpretation/no prize style fix fic of the terms of whatever the Mesphito deal exactly is. Supposedly they’re supposed to unfulfilled without each other per the deal, but because OMD is a piece of shit comic we never really delve into how (except for oddly a small tease in the deadpool/spider-man comic of all ducking unlikely places). Especially since if we accept current events in the comics as the canon they’re supposed to be doing fairly okay (Peter is a goddamn billionaire and MJ’s doing her own thing with Tony and pals).

My personal interpretation of that is the deal is doing more than affecting than romantic lives and is undermining them in other aspects in the long term (they’re stuck in a perpetual one step forward two step back thing-Peter’s company will be lost and he’ll be poorer than before, MJ’s acting dream keeps getting snatched from her despite the obvious successes she’s had there on top of how every time they get closer to together some outside force intervenes and pushes them apart etc.) Although full disclosure, for the time being I’ve dropped Slott’s amazing run.

But otherwise yes. The above. What makes both Peter and MJ interesting as characters is that they actually have flaws and their own characters outside of one another. And those flaws complement each other in a very real way that works for a relationship that feels organic. But MJ is such a developed character she can (and does) support stories without needing Peter’s presence to make us care about her. Or in other words, she’s the mythical strong female supporting character who’s life does not revolve solely around her love interest.

I have to disagree with the points made here. Esepcially the OP...a lot.

First of all...actually there is such a phenomenon wherein a couple will not break up. Different humans behave in different ways...but if you know enough about psychoplogy you’d know actually a lot of human behaviour can be predicted if you have a detailed enough psychological profile. And part and parcel of that is consistent behavioural patterns. The nature of comics essentially means we know EVERYTHING about a character because we live in their heads and are privy to all relevant information about them. Consequently by and large for the characters who’ve been around long enough and in enough situations we know what they are going to act most of the time. In theory if you knew as much about a human being the same would apply. In fact most of the time when we see people act in ways we didn’t expect or claim human behaviour is unpredictable or ‘people change’ the truth is that’s just us trying to explain behaviours that we didn’t know would happen due to a lack of information. We don’t know what exact variables are bouncing around and influencing someone’s thoughts and feelings which would lead to them acting a certain way, or don’t know that person’s behavioural history well enough to have seen a certain action coming. But we do with many fictional characters which means you cannot simply treat them psychologically or emotionally the same way you’d treat a real person and have them act arbitrarily differently because ‘humans don’t workt hat way’.

Which brings us to this point. When people have been in a relationship for a long enough amount of time and endured certain things that act as bonding experiences it becomes less and less likely that they would split for various reasons. One of which being that they are among the only people who understand what it was like to go through said bonding experiences which can take the form of traumatic experiences. This is why veterans or war or even of the police, specifically ones who’ve fought together are often so close and stay friends for most of their lives following a traumatic event.

So in Peter and MJ’s case your talking about people who’ve lived though shittons of tragedies and hardships indivoidually and faced obstacles to wanting to enter into a relationship together. MJ was almost pathologically opposed to any form of commitment due to a traumatic upbringing but still renegaded on that because of her feelings for Peter, an event which occurred following the knowledge that her very life would be at risk through association with him. You cannot sell short how big of a deal for someone in her position thus its a testament to the degree to which she wanted to be involved with Peter, even when she was trying to actively stop herself from being so.

Your talking about someone who for years knew fully well from first hand experience that she was going to deal with being stood up, with a lot of worrying and that she could be killed at any time and her actual biggest issue with getting together with him was worrying that she’d wind up trapped and miserable. But in reality she gained a lot of emotional fulfilment from being involved with Peter even though it actually required MORE commitment than her mother or sister or brother-in-law ever had to deal with. Those issues for her stemming all the way back to childhood (you know the shit which absolutely stays with you in life) was so deep rooted that she was still tempted to run away the night before her wedding but never did.

She had other options at her disposal. Any number of people with money, security or almost anything she wanted would’ve liked to date her or be in a long term relationship with her but she never went for them. At that point you are dealing with someone who is very, very, very seriously dead set on being attached to the person they want to be with.

And then on top of all this your dealing with people who’ve been through multiple immensely stressful and traumatic bonding experiences over the course of several years and both have a consistent track record of responding to such tragedies and traumas by growing closer together never apart. As an acquaintance of mine has said, conflict in life and in marriage either drives you apart or closer together.

Sure, enduring a miscarriage doesn’t mean 100% two people aren’t going to split up. But in Peter and MJ’s case you aren’t dealing with JUST that you are dealing with that on top of everything else in their lives and relationship and then they went ahead and had even more of that crap thrown at them after the clone saga and during the JMS run. In fact they were much closer after the miscarriage and during the JMS run than they’d been even before, highlighting what I said before about how they react to tragedies and traumas.

And here is the thing, the OP and other observers making similar points are making the error of not actually looking at the specifics of the Peter/MJ relationship but rather utilizing knowledge garnered from most people’s relationships, normal relationships. I’m not suggesting Peter and MJ have some sort of magical miracle romance or anything but it is precisely because of their lives before and during their relationships and the tragedies and traumas they faced that it is illogical to judge them the same way you judge most people’s relationships. It’s atypical even for the closest real life equivalencies such as police officers and their spouses.

So yes in fact in real life and in fiction even moreso you can definitely say past actions inform how someone is going to act now or in the future. And in this case your essentially dealing with two people who’s relationship on an emotional level doesn’t erode as crap keeps getting piled on top of it but consistently actually deepens. Could there be something hurtful enough to facilitate them ending their relationship? Maybe...but realistically its very unlikely unless they just fundamentally change as people. The notion that their relationship will end b because they get fed up with the lifestyle one another have led up until this point is ridiculous or they go through something really hurtful and traumatic is essentially ridiculous. When you’ve got people who stayed together and grew closer after multiple kidnappings, multiple near fatal attacks, stalkers, home invasions, the belief that one another were dead for 2 weeks-six months and then a miscarriage which was just the chrery on top then yes...ending it due to something like that is something that would’ve happened a long ass time ago, not at the end of over 5 years of marriage and 10 years of friendship. That is in fact extremely unbelievable and realistic.

Moving on lets talk about the nature of need here.

MJ chooses to be with Peter because he makes her happy. So...she does in fact needs him to make her happy in regards to romantic/emotional fulfilment. She doesn’t need him for financial support, security, or the kind of fulfilment she gains from acting or the dignity that comes from having a career.

But...is she deep down happy with that stuff alone sans whatever fulfilment she gets from Peter? Not exactly no. Check the JMS run. MJ had a well earning career. She could be with her friends and family from NYC if she wanted and if not plenty of people in LA to hang around. She had a certain degree of fame and she lived in luxury. And she was...totally miserable. In fact before Gwen died we know MJ loved to party but actively chose to cut back on that because of her relationship with Peter. She decided that she was going to implicate herself in his life in the 1980s stories despite having a lot of those same career options and knowing the baggage Peter came with. As frustrated and upset as she got upon losing a lot of her success she prioritized her marriage above those things and made sacrifices for it’s sake.These are not merely the actions of someone who finds someone else makes her happy but clearly finds great fulfilment from said person.

I’m not saying MJ NEEDS Peter to survive and that she’d fall apart without him. But am I saying that she would be without a certain large source of fulfilment in her life without him? Or that Peter to her is much more than someone she loves and who makes her happy but whom she doesn’t exactly need as part of her life? Or that without him there would essentially always be something missing in her life she’d want to fill? Yes to all.

Indeed the idea MJ gets this type of deepset fulfilment from her relationship with Peter goes a Hell of a long way to explaining exactly why she has a Job-like patience and tolerance of the massive stress, danger and traumas that comes from being his friend, lover and spouse and why she made an exception for him as far as her commitment issues were concerned.

That doens’ make MJ weak or dependant at all. Different strokes for different folks and some people simply need certain fulfilment in their lives through a romantic relationship.

Now moving onto Peter...this is where the OP is really getting ridiculous.

Yeah Peter Parker, aged 19-20 years old tops who’d dated exactly 3 girls in his whole life and one of those was just a handful of casual dates thought that Gwen Stacy whom he’d known for at most a year and a half (as in had known her face/name for that long, not actually befriended, dated or been in love with her for that long) thought Gwen Stacy was the love of his life and the person he would marry...without telling her his secret identity.

It’s almost as though he was a young and naive idiot who whilst genuinely in love with someone for the first time ever and built it up to unrealistic levels in his head and heart precisely because he didn’t know any better. Peter didn’t have puppy love but...he kind of had the equivalent except he genuinely was in love with Gwen.

Simply put he was a very inexperienced naive kid who didn’t really know what he was doing...also he was like super stressed most of the time trying to save the world but that isn’t the point really....

Now yes after he died he did question if he could love another person like he loved Gwen and he was depressed.

And he got through that and did eventually love somebody like he loved Gwen. As in it was Mary Jane. As in this wasn’t him merely ‘moving on’ it was him moving on with someone very specific who helped him in very specific ways. More than once the Spider-Man narrative has made the clear cut point that Peter would have REMAINED depressed, and wouldn’t have moved on and would’ve gone off the deep end if it wasn’t for Mary Jane’s presence in his life at that time. He didn’t simply work to get over it and allow time to heal all wounds. From the moment Gwen died it was Mary Jane’s support and presence as a friend in his life which enabled him to survive losing Gwen that way. Conveying it as a simple case of someone losing a loved one and moving on like many people do is belying the actual specifics and realities of the situation as it was presented.

To reiterate Peter only moved on from Gwen the then love of his life because

a) He was making a bigger deal out of their relationship than was warranted and

b) Because Mary Jane herself was the one helping him to move on and was the person he moved on to. Flash Thompson and Aunt May weren’t the ones who were going to see him through that crisis

Att he same time....where precisely did Peter ever once say even if Gwen had lived he and MJ would’ve wound up together anyway? Never in all my years have I ever encountered such a story or moment.

The closest things I can think of are Webspinners Tales of Spider-Man where Peter wonders if he and Gwen would’ve stayed together if she’d lived or Web of Romance where he compares MJ to Gwen and says Gwen would’ve needed him to protect and support her most of the time whereas MJ didn’t because she was a stronger person.

The latter doesn’t really support the OP’s statements as it has nothing to do with Peter questioning if he and Gwen would’’ve been together later in life but is simply observing how MJ and Gwen cope differently and maybe that MJ is a better match.

The former however does have Peter questioning if him and Gwen would’ve stayed together...and not coming up with an ironclad answer. But even putting that aside that was a late 20s/early 30s year old Peter Parker who’d done a Hell of a lot of growing up since the days where he was dating Gwen Stacy as a much more naive kid. Of course he’d wonder if he and Gwen would’ve gotten married if she hadn’t died. He has hindsight on his side at that point and lacks youthful naivete to cloud his judgement.

The OP’s point was Peter thoguth Gwen was the one and only person he could ever be with but she wasn’t and he even questioned it as such therefore the same logic should apply to Mary Jane or any woman he was with. But this again takes a broadbrush 1:1 approach to both relationships.

Mary Jane and Gwen and their respective relationships with Peter are immensely different. Just because Peter at one point believed Gwen was the one and only person he’d ever love and no one else could compare and was proven wrong doesn’t mean that in reality he’d be wrong for holding the same belief about Mary Jane at a much later point in life. Because again it’s coming from a completely different place in his life and from an entirely different emotional level.

So no. If Peter lost MJ he would absolutely not survive that loss the way he survived Gwen. Because again...he only survived losing Gwen because of Mary Jane. People forget this but Peter is someone who isn’t at the end of the day a great loner. He really does need people and I don’t just mean for the sake of emotional fulfilment. Peter didn’t just love MJ or feel she made him happy. He literally needed her presence in his life as proven by stories like Kraven’s Last Hunt, ASM #150, the Clone Saga, Doomed Affairs, etc. MJ was vital to keeping him afloat and he’d have gone down a long time ago without her influence.

So yeah Peter and MJ do stay together because they want to and because they love one another. But more than likely when you break down the characters and their experiences, especially in Peter’s case...yeah. Actually there probably isn’t anyone else for either of them. Not at the very least to fulfil them AS much as they would otherwise be in one another’s company.

I know we like Peter and Mj becuase they are more realistic and try to make things work but...honestly there comes a point where you really do have to look at the charaacters and what they are and have dealt with and see them for how they’ve been defined.

Sure their relationship is messy and requires them to work hard in spite of character flaws. But it honestly at this point (or rather before OMD anyway) would be immensely difficult to believably and yes realistically split them up

The only way to do it is if you have them completely change in their personalities and lose the very aspects that one of them loved about the other. And outside of very mean spirited stories where they have kids who are violently killed or where Mary jane is victimized in some way (which Marvel would never due out of fear of the PR and the desire to keep using the character for branding purposes) those changes aren’t going to happen. Marvel would of course never change Spider-Man permanently in any significant way to the point where he loses his personality because again branding.

But if we’re talking about stuff we’ve already seen before now, if we’re saying they remain essentially the same in their personalities and they go through similar tragedies and traumas as they’ve gone through up until now and those things break them up...Hell no. they aren’t going to split up over that stuff. If they were it would’ve happened decades ago. It’d have to be something really extreme or out of the ordinary like one of them being rendered disabled and blaming the other or something. But even that...I don’t buy they’d do that given the losses they’ve endured already. Losing your kid is so much worse than that.

As for the ramifications of OMD...as I’ve said before OMD is a different continuity from pre-OMD Spider-Man and furthermore is literally a consistent series of OOC BS moments stretching across years. Sure if we look at the current stories and say Peter and MJ are perfectly happy without one another...but it isn’t that that proves that actually they are fine without one another. It just proves how deeply the post-OMD comics misunderstand the characters and the series. This stuff has little to do with OMD and actually goes back way into their histories, for example in the JMS run BOTH of them were miserable and missing each other a Hell of a lot.

We never even SAW either of them post-OMD all that upset that the most significant romantic relationship in their lives which was stated in and out of universe to be tantamount to a marriage. Not once. We hit the ground and Peter is macking on some stranger and MJ is dating some loser actor. Not even a hint of them being upset over breaking up and we’ve to this day never seen anything accurately reflect the realistic sadness either would feel, even if this was like a fairly standard relationship.

To reiterate, I’m not saying Peter and MJ have some kind of miracle magic romance where everything is lovey dovey all the time. But I’m just saying because of who they are and what they’ve been through yes it is actually very difficult to dream up a realistic scenario wherein they’d believably break up like many people do. Because many people have not lived thorugh what they have and have not developed their personal relationships in the same ways.

@horselover107 I don’t disagree with your last paragraph but I think there is a difference in discussing a character’s creative standing and issues of mental/emotional satisfaction and fulfilment. Similarly someone doesn’t need their lives to REVOLVE around someone they love for that person to still be fulfilling in their lives and the most important person or aspect to it. MJ herself acknowledged this as such. She acknowledged Peter was more important to her than anyone or anything else in her life but that didn’t mean everything she did hinged upon taking him into account or that she didn’t have her own things going on. Ditto for Peter. He’s acknowledged MJ as the person he loves most and needs in his life but he has other shit to do as well. But that doesn’t mean that for MJ there would be a big hole missing in her life without Peter leaving her at least never as happy as she would be with him, or that for Peter he wouldn’t eventually fall apart without MJ supporting him.

#mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #Spider-Man #Peter Parker #Gwen Stacy

26 notes · View notes