Extra-07--Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane

I always felt the comic should have been called "Mary Jane Loves Spider-Man" but whatever.

Mary Jane hasn't really gotten much focus in my project, but I did an extra that fleshed out Gwen Stacy some, so let's do one for ole MJ here.

Much like in the original comics and Spectacular, Peter first hears about Mary Jane from Aunt May while still in high school.  While Peter pines for Betty or Liz (and Gwen secretly pines for Peter), Aunt May tries to set him up with the niece of their neighbor, Anna May Watson.  Peter hears about this Mary Jane Watson several times but is in no real hurry to meet her, figuring it was just his aunt being friendly.  It's not until homecoming when Peter tries to set himself up with a date with Betty Brant only to be rejected for being too young for her does he meet MJ for the first time.

And, you know, she says that famous phrase.

They go to homecoming together, which doesn't endear her to Gwen and Liz at first, but it's pretty clear they're not a couple at this point, and they seem to go their separate ways afterward.  But MJ soon makes a reappearance at Midtown High.  This is a few weeks later, and at this point Gwen is Peter's girlfriend and confidant, so Gwen's a little wary of seeing her, but MJ reveals she actually transferred to Midtown after learning about Midtown's theater program and getting to know the other students there.  From there on she becomes part of the clique that Peter hangs out with.  She even goes out with Peter's friend Harry a couple times, though that doesn't amount to much when it's clear he was more using her to get his father's acceptance.

But transferring to a whole new high school in your senior year seems kind of rash just for a theater program.  While this was partially the truth of her move MJ had another motive.  Mary Jane's home life wasn't really ideal--she had the attitude of a no worries party girl, but it was actually a front to hide her actually far more reserved and timid core due to her father.  Her father was an angry, abusive drunk who MJ and her mother felt powerless against.  On one of her many nights running away from home in the middle of the night MJ ended up taking a train into downtown and foolishly running into some really bad neighborhoods.  It was then when she found herself in the middle of a showdown between Spider-man, in one of his first appearances, and the Enforcers.  Spider-man ended up taking out the Enforcers and saving MJ in the midst of the battle, and ever since then, she's had a secret--she had a crush on the webhead.  At the homecoming dance MJ had heard some of the students whisper rumors that Spider-man actually went to school at Midtown, and after doing a little research herself and finding out there seemed to be a common connection there, she made the decision to transfer in hopes to find her hero.

It takes MJ a while to find out the truth.  Nobody at the school seemed to fit the bill, and she certainly didn't suspect Spider-man to be puny Parker.  She doesn't make any real headway until the first showdown between Spider-man and Mysterio.  Mysterio was originally a performance magician who was secretly robbing his entranced audience.  He was done in when Gwen decided to take Peter to one of his shows to cheer him up (the Silvermane/Smythe incidents had happened recently and had kind of soured his mood), and MJ went along with them as she was a big fan of theatrics.  Peter's spider sense is what tips him off that something was wrong with Mysterio's act and when he motions to Gwen about it, she motions to him to do something about it.  They thought Mysterio's show was doing too good of a job keeping his audience's attention for anyone to notice Peter going missing, but MJ, who was actually too busy dissecting the show in her head to really be paying attention to it caught Peter and Gwen's silent conversation, and when Peter disappeared and Spider-man suddenly showed up, a light bulb went off in MJ's head.  Suddenly Peter and Gwen's weird secrecy made sense.

But MJ decided to keep her knowledge a secret from them.  After her revelation she found herself drawn to Peter more but she did not feel comfortable about betraying Gwen, who she considered her best friend at this point.  Even after Peter and Gwen broke up after the death of Gwen's father MJ kept her distance.  And when they graduated from Midtown MJ didn't enroll in Empire State University like many of the others ended up doing, but still kept in touch with everyone.  It was during this period after Peter and Gwen's breakup that MJ came to know Gwen much better and began to realize what a strain Spider-man had been on their relationship (even if Gwen wouldn't tell her directly).  So MJ's image of Spider-man transformed into a more well rounded one--he wasn't an infallible idol, he was a guy just like all the others she knew.  That still didn't stop her from wanting him, but she continued to keep her distance out of respect for Gwen.  Meanwhile MJ actually started trying to work her way into theater and got in touch with a modeling agency on the way.

Then Gwen died.  Devastating for MJ to lose her closest friend, but she also knew how much Peter was hurting, too.  She was there to comfort him during his Spider-man no more phase that followed, though they still weren't really a couple, and MJ still kept her knowledge of his true identity a secret, still not knowing how to broach the subject.  She was there to sort of guide him, though--she was the one who had found Gwen's chest of Spider-man belongings and had given it to Peter.  When Peter finally opened it, found a new Spider-man costume and saw that Gwen still saw hope for them, he felt as if a huge weight was lifted off of his shoulders and he went back to being Spider-man.  It was at this point that Peter felt right to move on and started to realize his own feelings for MJ--but she continued to be sort of cagey with him, especially after he saved her from her ex-boyfriend turned Hydro-Man named Morris Bench.  It was complicated.

So for a little while there they were kind of an on again, off again thing, with MJ not really wanting to commit to anything yet.  But then the events of the end of the Revenge of the Sinister Six take place--which you should definitely read before reading this!  If you recall, Spider-man fakes his death to escape from the Sinister Six and Doctor Octopus and to hopefully pit them against each other (which is what happens), but what he didn't anticipate was that the media would loudly pronounce him dead.  So when he returns back to his apartment late that night he unexpectedly finds MJ there, crying her eyes out as news on the television announced the details of his supposed demise.  Upon seeing him MJ just slaps him in the face.  And at that point everyone's secrets are out.

From there onward they're a pretty stable couple and she's his main confidant as Spider-man.  I'll stop there for now.

----

I decided to be a little more frequent with the extras as I realized I had a lot of stuff I wanted to get through and maybe not as much time to get through them as I had thought!  This is one I had wanted to do for a while as MJ is really *the* supporting character in my mind in not only Spider-man but really the entire Marvel universe, at least as far as I'm concerned, so she deserved some more focus.  Their relationship of course changes and develops as we go further into the story (if you recall by the time Silk shows up they're taking a break), but this gives you the overall reason for why they're together to begin with.

For the picture I really wanted to do something completely different from my previous Extras--most, or pretty much all, of my Extras have been very dark, gritty, and villain focused--even the Amazing Friends one had Doom lording over everything.  So here I tried out a much more lighthearted picture, a sunny, almost nostalgic good old days type of Spider-man swinging from building to building with MJ in tow.  Which meant I had to draw an actual background!  Ye gods!  I'm going to be honest, this background is actually mostly traced from a photo I found with some major and minor alterations to make it look better.  It still ended up taking forever.  I don't know how professional Spider-man artists do a full issue of this stuff every month or even bi-monthly.