Yesterday, I flipped through the pages of Spiderman: India, wondering whether to buy it or not. I had already decided against it, when I suddenly came across MJ (I don't remember her name correctely, something like "Maya Jarrah").
At that moment I suddenly realized what had been bothering me about Spiderman for quite some time:
I'm fed up with Mary Jane. I mean, she's in 616-Spiderman (which I can live with), she's in Ultimate Spiderman, in the movies, in Spiderman India. It's like suddenly there had never been any other woman in Peter Parkers.
I found her apperance in Spiderman India especially bad, since she's this gorgeos girl, who kind of seems to fall for the nobody loser on first sight. That feels wrong, to me at last. They could at least have gone the way it was presented in the first movie, when she doesn't even realize Peter exists, until way ahead into the story.
Now, I don't care much about Spiderman: India, since I'm not going to read this book any further, but I do care about Ultimate Spiderman.
Perhaps my perception of teenager life is biased because of personal experiance, but I don't think you normaly stay together eternally with your first boy-friend/girl-friend. Am I the only one who kind of feels annoyed by seeing 15-year old Peter and MJ behave like they're married already?
I have thought about it for a while now, and I'd like to se a dramatic change of the status quo. I'm not talking about killing MJ off, like it has been done with Gwen (which I think was a big mistake, not because I'm pissed off by it, but because I think it was a waste of a very well done support character, who brought a lot of fun to the book; I might feel different, though, if her death had been properly adressed afterwards, but so far, we got one issue of Peter dealing with the loss and a few issues of silly team-ups, in which peter jumped back into costume like nothing had happened at all).
Instead I'm thinking about something that would ground Ultimate Spiderman a little more in real life again: How about if MJ fell in love with someone else, a football player possibly, or any other guy. We could see her growing cold on Peter, see the split up, see her get together with the other guy from afar (through Peter's eyes as he watches everything) and leave Peter behind with a broken heart. The interesting point would be however, that this change would be permanent. MJ wouldn't come back after a few issues, she'd just stay in love with this other guy (or eventually someone else).
Bendis once said that when he writes his stories, he thinks about the worst thing that could happen to the character and then he does that to him. This is pretty much what I'm talking about here, but this time it won't be some Spider-related crisis, but rather something every teenager has experienced before and could easily relate to. We'd see Peter go through a crisis, and eventually we'll see the introduction of someone else, some original girl, that Peter will get together with. It could be anyone. Possibly a shy science-nerd with zits and HUGE glasses. Or it could even be some other super-hero (if possibly, not the black cat, we've seen that already). Didn't Kitty Pryde have a crunch on Peter?
Anyway, Peter'd learn the hard way that you should't confine your secret identity to someone easily, since he'd always have to worry about MJ bluring it out in the future.
On a side note: I'm actually waiting and praying for Peter and Felicia to rekindle old feelings in the pages of MK: Spiderman. Call me biased, but the prospect of a possible affair between the two is what kept me buying the series at first.
I'm finished,
now you can flame me
Rick
At that moment I suddenly realized what had been bothering me about Spiderman for quite some time:
I'm fed up with Mary Jane. I mean, she's in 616-Spiderman (which I can live with), she's in Ultimate Spiderman, in the movies, in Spiderman India. It's like suddenly there had never been any other woman in Peter Parkers.
I found her apperance in Spiderman India especially bad, since she's this gorgeos girl, who kind of seems to fall for the nobody loser on first sight. That feels wrong, to me at last. They could at least have gone the way it was presented in the first movie, when she doesn't even realize Peter exists, until way ahead into the story.
Now, I don't care much about Spiderman: India, since I'm not going to read this book any further, but I do care about Ultimate Spiderman.
Perhaps my perception of teenager life is biased because of personal experiance, but I don't think you normaly stay together eternally with your first boy-friend/girl-friend. Am I the only one who kind of feels annoyed by seeing 15-year old Peter and MJ behave like they're married already?
I have thought about it for a while now, and I'd like to se a dramatic change of the status quo. I'm not talking about killing MJ off, like it has been done with Gwen (which I think was a big mistake, not because I'm pissed off by it, but because I think it was a waste of a very well done support character, who brought a lot of fun to the book; I might feel different, though, if her death had been properly adressed afterwards, but so far, we got one issue of Peter dealing with the loss and a few issues of silly team-ups, in which peter jumped back into costume like nothing had happened at all).
Instead I'm thinking about something that would ground Ultimate Spiderman a little more in real life again: How about if MJ fell in love with someone else, a football player possibly, or any other guy. We could see her growing cold on Peter, see the split up, see her get together with the other guy from afar (through Peter's eyes as he watches everything) and leave Peter behind with a broken heart. The interesting point would be however, that this change would be permanent. MJ wouldn't come back after a few issues, she'd just stay in love with this other guy (or eventually someone else).
Bendis once said that when he writes his stories, he thinks about the worst thing that could happen to the character and then he does that to him. This is pretty much what I'm talking about here, but this time it won't be some Spider-related crisis, but rather something every teenager has experienced before and could easily relate to. We'd see Peter go through a crisis, and eventually we'll see the introduction of someone else, some original girl, that Peter will get together with. It could be anyone. Possibly a shy science-nerd with zits and HUGE glasses. Or it could even be some other super-hero (if possibly, not the black cat, we've seen that already). Didn't Kitty Pryde have a crunch on Peter?
Anyway, Peter'd learn the hard way that you should't confine your secret identity to someone easily, since he'd always have to worry about MJ bluring it out in the future.
On a side note: I'm actually waiting and praying for Peter and Felicia to rekindle old feelings in the pages of MK: Spiderman. Call me biased, but the prospect of a possible affair between the two is what kept me buying the series at first.
I'm finished,
now you can flame me
Rick
