Bye. Hey everyone, and welcome to The Webline, a podcast about Spider-Man and his amazing world. Here, we discuss all aspects of our favorite web-slinger in a fun, informal, but informative forum. I am your humble host, the Spidey librarian, and we are in the start of February this week. And as we inch closer to Valentine's Day, I am rejoined by former guest Jale Najafali, a former writer with me on the Superior Spider Talk website.
as we focus our character spotlight on the arguable love of Peter's life, Mary Jane Watson. Jale, welcome back to the show. How are you doing? How has 2024 been for you so far? I'm doing great. 2024 has been busy, but a lot of fun so far. Yeah, well, it is always good to have you back. I'm glad to hear that things are going well. And I would just like to quickly note that Michael Greenhale was also supposed to join us today.
But unfortunately, he got sick at the last minute. So we'll miss you this episode, Michael, and hope that you get well soon. And hopefully I'll get you on a different episode some other time. The web line streams on Sundays at 2 p.m. Central Time on my YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe there as well as on your favorite podcast service. And leave us a like, review, and follow where appropriate.
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But, before we do a daring deep dive into our timely topic, it's time to dish on the latest spider-rific developments with our knockout news segment, The Bugle News Flash. Okay, all right. So we've only got two news items this week, and we kind of discussed them on the way into the show, so to speak.
So the first one, I looked at this headline and I was like, this is so stupid. Why would you do this? So Marvel's Spider-Man 2, great game, by the way, if you haven't played it, totally should play it. It's getting... It's getting a trial release on PlayStation Plus Premium. So you pay for PlayStation Plus and then...
I think premium is the highest tier. I'm not an expert on my PlayStation Plus here because I don't subscribe to it, but it kind of functions like Game Pass, all right? And so you're paying for this tier of it, and... If you're doing that, then let's see. Sony gives you the ability to download the game for free. And then you've basically got like a two-hour timer on the game. You can play the game for two hours before you have to make a decision whether or not to purchase it at that point. And...
I don't know. For me, this just seems like it does not seem to be the way that this should work. If you are paying for one of those types of services, should you not just have access to those games? And if you're going to make a trial version, just call it a demo and then release it to everyone so that they can make the decision whether or not...
I don't know. I feel like they're leaving money on the table, and I also feel like they're simultaneously being greedy. So, I don't know. Xali, do you have any opinion on this? I feel like they're being greedy and stupid at the same time. I agree with that. It does seem super greedy. If I paid for a subscription like that and then played two hours of a game and then they said, okay, now you have to buy it. At full price. Exactly. I'd be pretty pissed.
Yeah, I don't get it. You do enough gaming to understand at least the basics behind how all this stuff works. And I was just like, I read that headline and I was like, this is so stupid. I have to report on it. So who knows? I mean, I'm not a financial or business genius or anything, but I'm just kind of. blabbergasted by that headline and yeah i don't know okay let's move on only other piece of news that i found worthy to report on this week comes
basically from Donald Glover himself. As quite a few of you are probably aware, Donald Glover has an interesting tie to Spider-Man lore. He basically said when they were casting for The Amazing Spider-Man that he would like to play Spider-Man. And then went on an episode of Community wearing like these Spider-Man pajamas and it looked really good and everything. And I think when he saw that, Brian Michael Bendis was like, hey.
You know, he looked pretty good there. And that helped along with a couple of other cultural and political factors to give rise to. Miles Morales being created and everything. Donald Glover also voiced Miles Morales in, I think it was the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. And so he's got a lot of ties to Spider-Man lore. He also played Aaron Davis in Spider-Man Homecoming.
Well, I think people keep talking about wanting to see him play Miles at this point. And Donald Glover himself has just basically said, I'm too old. I'm too old at this point. I don't know if that's because he doesn't want to play the character or if he's just trying to be realistic. But, I mean, the way I see it... You could always, if you really wanted to just cast Donald Glover as Miles Morales, you could do some kind of like alt multiverse, you know.
This is Miles after 30 years of superheroing or 20 years of superheroing or whatever. And do it that way if you really wanted to. Now, there hasn't been a lot done with Miles as an older superhero, which I think is... fine because he's still you know he's still going through the motions of being a young hero i think um there's gonna be a title released called uh Spectacular Spider-Man, where he and Peter finally have a sort of partnership on the regular, where one is mentoring the other.
So I'm fine with all of that, and I do agree that he's probably too old to play that version of Miles. But I wouldn't write it off completely. I don't know. Jale, do you have any thoughts on this? I'm a big fan of Donald Glover, especially as he relates to the Spider-Man universe. I think if you were going to do an older Miles, he would definitely make sense. I do think it has to be like some sort of multiverse alternate reality kind of thing.
And maybe by the time they'd even get that together, he would probably be way too old to play. But right now, I think he could play older Miles for sure. I assume you've seen Across the Spider-Verse, right? Yes. Okay, so that version of him when he has that little cameo and he tells Miles it's rude to stare and everything.
So I don't remember where I read this, but somewhere someone said, that's actually the MCU version of Aaron Davis, like in the Prowler costume and everything. And so I was like... so that's the same character from spider-man homecoming and it's like yes it apparently is um i don't i don't know how like rock solid
truth like truthful that is but but it's it's fun to think about you know it's like oh yeah i i i could i could get behind that so i don't know all right and that's all the spidey news for this week Now, let's get ready for our feature segment, the character spotlight on Mary Jane M.J. Watson. I think I learned about MJ when I started reading the comics on my own. Before that, when I was...
Starting to express my curiosity about comic books, I had an uncle who had a big collection and everything. And he told me about Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin and how her death had impacted Spider-Man. But I don't remember hearing anything from him about MJ and her impact on his life. When I started reading Spider-Man comics, they were already married, and the writers...
seemed to be having a really hard time just making that work. I remember seeing storyline after storyline that revolved around her, you know. It just seemed like they wanted to create drama. She was... tense about peter being gone all the way all the time and so she started smoking and you know just a bunch of other things that didn't really give me a good kind of first impression of her when i first started
reading her for myself. But as I delved into her history and then got my hands on some stories that really kind of elevated her character, my opinion of her started to change. And now I'm happy to say I'm... I'm pretty good with her character, you know, for the most part. I have some issues with how they're treating her now, but I suppose we can get into that. Jalet! How were you introduced to MJ? What were your initial impressions of her? And how have those impressions changed over time?
So I think my first impression of her probably would have been from the 90s cartoon, the Spider-Man cartoon, because I watched that definitely before reading comics at all. And so in my mind, yeah, they were supposed to be together. And that was his main love interest. And maybe a little bit similar to you when I read the comic books.
initially I thought the same thing, like they belong together. And now I'm kind of like, I just, I either want them to be dating or I kind of want her to like go away for a bit. Cause it's so much drama. It's so much of the same, like, um, what's the term, like star-crossed lovers kind of stuff and they date for a little bit and then there's so much something that breaks them up and then there's all this longing and I feel like I've read it like 82 times at this point. So...
I'd like to see something a little bit different. Yeah. And I mean, like, it's just funny, too, because I've had so many discussions with so many other guests on this show about the kind of this cycle that they've got.
peter trapped in where they they're trying to keep him as like a young kind of man childish person of indeterminate age and like that that affects how they write as relationships too and and you know the idea is that they just can't let peter be happy like they you know they always have to they they give him little bit of a relationship a little bit of a glimpse of happiness and they're just like we're gonna yank that away now and you can come you know catch it and and and I get the idea of like
When you're writing, one of the rules is you need to kill your darlings, basically. You need to put them through the ringer. to give them a story and to make life interesting. But it feels like it has been done with Peter so many times over and over again that it's just like, God. come on let it grow up stop it i don't do you feel that way at all or i definitely feel that way and i think i i still read the comics but whereas before you know
I was, I wanted to go pick up the comics every single week and read them. Now I'm like, okay, well, I feel like I know what's going to happen or, you know. I'm reading the same thing over again. So it's not quite as much of a rush to go out and read the comics and read the story because it is just the same things over again. And I think it's hard just with the nature of comics. It's kind of hard.
probably to do otherwise, but at some point you're like, okay, I know exactly where this is going. I've read it 10 times before with Peter and maybe it's not quite as gripping as it used to be.
Yeah, and you can tell, like, you know, like I still... i i still i still listen to amazing spider talk whenever i get the opportunity and you can you can just hear it in dan and mark's takes on these things i mean they've clearly been reading the comics forever and they're just they're you know like they're really good at just spotting yep this has happened before nope i don't want to i don't want to deal with this anymore so um quick question have you um
Have you heard of or read the new Ultimate Spider-Man comic that just came out? I have not. Oh boy. Okay. All right. I can't wait to share this with you then. There is a new Ultimate Spider-Man comic, and the premise of the story is essentially that Peter is in his... mid to late 30s. He has not been bitten by the spider. He is married to MJ. He has kids. And, um... He's got a family life and everything. His uncle Ben is alive and works at the Daily Bugle.
I think his aunt may, I think she may have died in some kind of a terrorist attack that also killed Norman Osborn and Emily Osborn. And so different reality here. And then Peter, he's happy enough with his life, but he's kind of got this feeling that something's missing. And so you can just see that he's kind of like, I'm just kind of going through life. I'm doing my thing.
And then he gets basically this message from like a looks like a teenage looking Tony Stark who basically says, OK, so you're going to have to come with me on this one because you're not going to believe this. And he says. basically when this reality was created the person who created it tried to take superheroes completely out of the equation and he basically uh
Basically gives him a little, I guess, test tube or whatever that has the spider that apparently bit Peter Parker. And basically says, you are actually a superhero. You were among the best of us. And so Peter, after kind of checking in with his family and basically like, I think I want to try something new. They're all like, do it. So he takes the spider out and lets the spider bite him.
That's the start of the Spider-Man story right there. So it takes away the entire young Spider-Man thing and puts Peter in a completely different stage of life.
when he gets the spider bite. And I've read the first issue. I loved it. I'm ready for it. My only reservation about it so far and this really isn't a critique more than just a this is really different is that usually the spider bite seems to occur accidentally like it's just happenstance when he gets bitten here he's literally making the decision
to let it happen and um i don't know like it it's going to change things up and i'm really interested to see where it goes but the just just based on what i told you how does that sound That sounds really interesting to me. Because it is. It's a totally new take on it. You have different characters involved even now. So it sounds like more of a fresh idea. Yeah.
and i mean like he consults with mj beforehand like he doesn't say what he's gonna do but he's basically like i need to try something new i need to try something different and she's like okay i just have one question is it going to affect us and he's like no never she's like well then then then do it basically you know and so then he pulls out this thing and sees tony stark and then he's like okay fine bite and then yeah
there it starts so um we haven't seen too much of mj in this comic yet other than to establish that they're married they have kids and she's basically kind of you know she's she's the She's the better woman behind the man, basically. So we'll see what happens there. All right. Well, now that we've given our personal kind of takes on... mj uh we're gonna delve into brass tacks and talk about the minutiae of one mj watson and um it's funny to me because when i was titling this episode
i actually had a difficult time with the title i was like character spotlight mary jane watson okay but is that accurate anymore like um because i'm gonna just go ahead and say it from the get-go There is a really popular version of MJ that is not the comics version and that looks very different. and she's played by zendaya you know she's the mcu version of her and she is not mary jane watson at least that's not her name she is like a variant of mary jane but her name is actually michelle jones
And so I was really tempted to just put MJ or just MJ Watson or something. But these are the kinds of little minutia that I really kind of like agonize over when I'm trying to get this. This show on the road. We'll get into alternate versions of Mary Jane. I'm going to talk a little bit about the comic book, the 16 versions bio real quick. She was created in 1965 by Stan Lee and John Romita Jr. Her first appearance was actually technically in Amazing Spider-Man number 25.
back when Steve Ditko was still drawing it. And it was just kind of like the start of this kind of recurring joke where Aunt May is like, oh, I need to set you up with my friend Anna's... you know wonderful niece and peter's like yeah i know and then at one point um i think betty and liz were fighting over peter they're walking over to aunt may's house
And Mary Jane is there, but the thing is, is that her face was completely obscured by like a potted plant. And like, all you see are Betty and Liz's reactions to her. And they're like... What if this woman is looking for Peter? Like, what chance do we have kind of thing going on? It isn't until Amazing Spider-Man number 42 that we... We actually see her. John Romita is now drawing the comic. And you get that really popular, iconic panel. Face it, Tiger. You just hit the jackpot. And...
You know, that's considered one of the most iconic introductions in all of comic books because there was the buildup. There's the fact that MJ was exceptionally beautiful. She had the vibrant red hair and those green eyes and everything. And really, Stan Lee and company, they... didn't expect her to be as popular as she was. Reader feedback was just off the chart. And that started to change how...
the dynamic was going to go between Peter and Gwen, because originally Gwen had been the one true love. She was going to be the one that Peter settled down with and married, and MJ was just there kind of for fun. But eventually she married Peter. The marriage was undone in one more day. Don't get me started on that story. And they're currently... on again off again and now she's got powers as jackpot and that is just a very quick just like very glossed over
Here are the very basics on her biography. Jale, is there anything that you would like to add for that particular iteration, MJ, about her bio in the comics? I think you hit a lot of the important stuff. Yeah. I'm trying to be fairly quick about it, but also I don't want to delve into it. every detail i mean we could do that um but um i figured just kind of a a quick uh what is it survey we'll go with survey for now so um
Let me see. She had a very laid back kind of liberated personality when she was introduced. And Gwen was kind of more of a by the book kind of a daddy's girl. And, you know. uh she she was very conformist i suppose you could say in a lot of ways at least in comparison to mj um she again uh she's she's now running around as a jackpot and um i'll i'll i'll have i'll have words about that later right i'm not don't want to talk about that just now um
Let's see. I mean, I've pretty much covered everything here. First of all, I want to ask you, are you reading The Amazing Spider-Man right now? Yes, but on Marvel Unlimited. I've just sort of passed a lot of the, all the stuff with Paul and things. Okay. Has she gotten her jackpot powers yet for you? She's just gotten them. she's just gotten them okay all right so when they gave mj the jackpot powers i
I was just kind of like, why are you doing this? There are certain characters where you can see it as a part of their evolution that they get powers, and you're like, yay! But they've clearly... wanted them forever and you know they are aspiring to be superheroes i've never gotten that that feeling about mj you know
And I know that sometimes, like, the best heroes are the most reluctant ones, but this, I don't know, this just doesn't feel earned to me. I'm also not crazy about Jackpot's power set and how it's completely random. And it's like... Okay, so you have to learn to use your powers like on the fly. That sounds really hazardous. And I think like, because it's like she wears a bracelet.
And basically hits a button and then it's like, like the powers depend on the three kind of like slot machine pictures that come out of it. Right. I think. Okay. And if she gets like three skulls, then she could die or something? Did I read that correctly? I mean, that's my understanding of it. Why would you take this?
like why would you take this you know like like maybe yeah go ahead go ahead no i think it's super bizarre and i think i mean to your point too i've never thought of her as somebody that i want particularly wanted to see as a superhero. And especially because that's a huge point of contention between her and Peter at different points in their relationship for not wanting him to be, you know. as so involved in being Spider-Man, it is kind of weird that she's doing this jackpot thing now.
Yeah, it is. And I mean, you know, you could make the I suppose if you really wanted to, you could make the argument that, well, you know, like, this is how she's evolved over time. And I'm like, sitting here thinking under. you know whispering under my breath yeah that that's how you wrote her that's not how she evolved you know um but i suppose in that way like i could make the same argument with
MJ having jackpot powers that I could with Gwen being considered kind of an inferior personality character in comparison to MJ. Like, it's really... I feel like at the end of the day, it's the fault of the writers. It's like, okay, you tried to make them more interesting and you couldn't. That tells me that you have a lot to do. Do you have any... We're going to go back a ways. Do you have any favorite MJ stories or moments that you think make her the one true pairing for Peter?
Or just on her own being badass, too. So, I mean, early stuff, definitely those issues after Gwen dies are super important. because that is when you see, I think, more of a change in her character. And I always liked, oh my God, why can't I think of the storyline? When she's like out, some of the storylines where she's out when she's acting, when she's out in LA and things like that. I think those are interesting because she's away from Peter. So you see a little bit more of who.
MJ is um not not to bring it back to Gwen but I think one of the maybe issues with Gwen is that because they wrote her to be the one true love like everything about Gwen was written uh in a in you know in light in her in light of her relationship to peter whereas mj has a little bit of development outside of that relationship with peter yeah and i mean you know it doesn't it doesn't help that like
Gwen was very clearly Stanley inserting his wife into the comics. And so that was just kind of the intention. He'd kind of had a... This is the destiny, like kind of right from the beginning, you know. And so I guess when you do that kind of thing, it kind of closes off all of the avenues. that you could take to perhaps develop this character in a way that maybe you didn't intend to at first. And I find that good characters...
They tend to take over a little bit. I've actually had it happen when I've written stories where I feel like I'm just moving the pencil, but my... my character is the one that's like i've got this scene don't don't you worry about it and And so it feels like that kind of was taken away from her. Whereas with Mary Jane, you really had that opportunity. She's just this, you know, she's this kind of fun, freewheeling.
Maybe a bit more laid back character and she's just going to do her own thing. And so, you know, like maybe you just have more of an opportunity for that to happen. I really find that. The stories where MJ is away from Peter, particularly during JMS's run on Amazing Spider-Man, are really good and really kind of just establish, like, again, who she is. And also, like, it shows that while Peter may not, you know, need her...
She definitely kind of fills a void that he is less... He's more prone to give in to. like without her around um and i feel like you know i don't really feel like it says as much about them being lovers as it as it says about them being friends essentially like like
If you're someone who is always by yourself, and maybe you're a very self-sufficient person, that's great. But without your friends around to ground you and keep you... reminding you of what's important in life it can be very easy to forget what's important and kind of get pulled into that void and i feel like mj you know yes she's his wife or was his wife you know
um and yes you know she's she's very pretty she's a supermodel and an actress and all these other things that i was just like can you really be all those things you know and then date a photographer okay sure whatever but but you know she really kind of like does a good job of centering him and and especially for someone as neurotic as peter you need that you know so um
Obviously, she has had a huge impact, not just on Spider-Man, but just on readers in general, comic books in general. And she's definitely, I mean... Gwen stans are probably going to hate me for saying this. She's the definitive love of Peter's life. I would say by any objective measure, she is. Gwen...
Unfortunately, that thread was cut short, and we're probably never going to actually get to see that except for in things like House of M, where they literally have to change reality all the time. I think that... I think that MJ has just made a lot of impact though because she's not only been integral to Peter's story in the 616 comics, but there have also been just a huge number.
different versions of her that people love or may favor one over the other. Do you have a favorite non-616 MJ that you think is... just as impactful, if not more than the comic book version that we've been talking about. I think it's got to be the Zendaya version. You know, I remember when she was cast as MJ, there were so many people that were like, that is not MJ, or I think the hashtag was not my MJ or something like that.
and they were like i don't i don't want to get too much into it because i'm pretty sure we know what was driving those criticisms but like i think one of the big complaints was that she mj has red hair and i'm like Okay, look. Yes, she has had red hair in those various incarnations, but when has the red hair been important to her character? And then I saw a picture of Zendaya with her hair dyed red, and I was like, there you go. You can shut up now. Why do you like that version so much?
So I do think, well, I think the criticism of it was really dumb, but she isn't like the comic book version of MJ, or at least what I think of is the comic book version of MJ at all. But I find her a lot more interesting. She, you know, has a lot of personality. She definitely... has a life outside of Peter, which is interesting. She's really funny on the screen. So I think she's, you know, a love interest that's still a really engaging character without...
You know, even if you take away the relationship part of it. Well, and she's so much more relatable, I think, in the MCU. You know, she's very, like, she's not, like, pretty Miss Popular. She's a lot more of a misfit, I suppose. She's the smart kid that will talk back to teachers. I loved when they were in Washington, D.C.
and her teacher's trying to get her to go on the tour. And she's like, I don't really want to, you know, glorify a building that was built by slaves. And the teacher's like, are you sure? And then he looks at a nearby security guard.
black security guard and the guy's like you don't wanna you don't wanna go down this route and he's like okay carry on i i thought that was a brilliant brilliant scene and and really did a good job of showing who she was and how smart she was and and um you know i mean like she grat they gradually kind of pretty her up i guess throughout the movie is like a little bit at a time but she's never like i'm going to be a supermodel like you know and i mean we've all seen zendaya she
Totally good supermodel. I get that. But they made that character like, yes, she's a good love interest, but she has no interest and certainly wasn't made to look.
like that so um so yeah no i think that's a good pick um do you uh did you ever read the i know i mentioned ultimate spider-man earlier but i'm talking about the old school ultimate spider-man did you ever read that one i've read a little bit of it but not a ton of it the interesting thing for me about that mj is that she she's still she's she's a pretty girl
She got the green eyes and the red hair and all that stuff and everything. And she grows up kind of like alongside Peter. She's the first person that he tells about being Spider-Man. So the dynamic is a little bit different. What's interesting to me is that this MJ never becomes like an actress or a model, partially because they're still in high school when everything ends, but also because...
She seems a lot more interested in becoming like... kind of like lois lane like she she's more of a reporter she likes to try to figure out things and stuff like that and they really tried to move her away from the whole supermodel bit they gave her glasses and everything And I thought it was a really refreshing take on the character that, you know... Maybe before I'd read it, I would have been like, nah, MJ has to be super pretty and she's got to be a supermodel and all this stuff.
And it's like, nah, she really doesn't have to be. Like, she can still be the love of Peter's life and be... She can have a different career, I guess, you know? You know, maybe one day we'll get a multiverse where MJ is like a lawyer or something, you know, like that would be pretty cool. So what about another version? Because again. She's just had so many memorable versions that I think are really cool. You mentioned earlier the animated series version, right?
I've watched it and it's been a while, but I don't remember too much about her. Do you want to talk a little bit about her? I mean, I just remember, well, obviously she was a critical part of that story. She was still like mostly there just to be Peters. love interest because the most memorable thing for me is obviously the cliffhanger that that series ends on where you find out that um she's actually like the mj that peter is with is not really her and she's been
Oh, so there's a storyline. It's been a while since I watched it, but basically it ends up when you find out that MJ was not. like it's like not a clone well maybe it was a clone but there's another mj with peter that is not the real mj and this other mj is like out in like you see her like spinning so i guess she's like out in i don't know not space but like she's out somewhere lost and um she's out of sync with reality basically ah okay see it's
it must have been a while since i've seen it because i don't remember that i don't remember that at all maybe i didn't watch it all the way through which i'll have to correct that at some point but that okay wow um did not realize that was a thing so So the series ends with that cliffhanger? Yes. I mean, they didn't know it was ending, but that's the end of the series. Wow. You're like spinning on the screen in this out of reality.
reality that she's in okay all right that's that is nuts i'm now now i've got to watch it um I'll probably be as mad as I was at the end of Spectacular Spider-Man when they ended Season 2 with a lot of loose ends, but for different reasons. Let's see. Karma is in the chat and asking, are we also talking about the CGI MTV Spider-Man show, MJ? I think he's talking about... Spider-Man, the new animated series. Did you ever watch that? I think I watched one episode and I could not. Yeah.
I couldn't do it. I saw like three or four episodes of it. I've actually got it on DVD. I just have not sat down and watched it yet. The interesting thing about that was that they were trying to connect it to the Raimi films. And they couldn't. They did, but they also didn't. It was clearly something that was happening in its own dimension, reality, multiverse, whatever you want to call it.
But they kept making allusions to some of the events from the movies and some of the relationships from the movies and everything. All I really know about that MJ, because again, I've only watched a couple of episodes of it. She was voiced by Lisa Loeb. Do you know who that is? Yes, she does. That song, Stay. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
um and that's that's like all i know about her like i remember seeing it and i'm like oh lisa lobe yeah i know i know that i know her from that one song you know but um but yeah like They were trying to cross-promote that series with the movies and tie them together as much as possible. And as far as I could tell, it just does not work. Again, I need to watch more. But I don't know when I'm going to find the time to do that. What do you think? I've done a review of the Raimi films.
um on this on this podcast already and i think i need to revisit them and get a guest to review them with me because i don't know i just felt like i was just talking to myself the whole time but um What do you think of the Raimi-verse, MJ, the one portrayed by Kirsten Dunst? So I have a lot of nostalgia for those movies. Because I mean, that was sort of the first...
You know, when that was coming out in X-Men, like I was really getting into superheroes at that point in my life. But when I rewatched them, I'll still rewatch them. Well, except for the third one, but I'll still rewatch. See, I don't understand why the third one gets as much hate as it does, but that's just me. The funny thing is I own the third one for...
who knows what reason twice on DVD, but I think, I think my mom gifted me one and I was like, she's like, Oh, I saw this on sale. I got it. Cause I know you like Spider-Man. So it was very thoughtful, but I was like, I did not need a second. That's fair. That's fair. I think she's a little bit boring, though, in the movies when you go back and rewatch them. I mean, like, yeah, and also... I hate to say this about her character, but I think she's kind of awful in those movies.
Kirsten Dunst is a fine actress, and I'm not slamming her portrayal. What I'm slamming is the writing behind that character. She's not very likable. i i feel like a lot of the time like i think she i i think she like i think she cheats on both peter and john jamison in the second movie or something like that and and i'm you know it's like
I remember, because like you, I've got a lot of nostalgia for the Raimi films. Those were, I mean, you know, that was the first live action Spider-Man movie, you know. And so I look on those. very fondly but like you know on a rewatch i was just like god she's kind of horrible what why what does peter see in her you know and um i don't know i i She's just been written so well so many times that I really...
have a hard time understanding how they could fumble the ball so badly with her when when they're doing like these first movies you know i i get that peter is the main character and that you want peter to look good and everything but like she is a really important part of this life why would you
make him look good at the expense of her looking bad i guess you know um which you know it's it's a blemish on an otherwise i feel very you know sterling series that, you know, was the first cinematic take on the wall crawler and therefore MJ.
Now, she didn't appear in the Andrew Garfield movies, but apparently the actress Shailene Woodley was supposed to... have like a cameo appearance as mj in the second movie but i guess her scene got cut or something to that effect which you know at this point i'm kind of glad like if i have so many issues
about how they introduced harry in that movie yeah and it's like it's like don't do that again please don't don't do that with mj you know um What do you think of Mary Jane from the Spider-Verse films, the one from Peter B. Parker's reality? I like her. I mean, I don't think we get a ton of time with her, but so to me, she's not like super memorable, except again, like to Peter's reality, but I don't have any issues with her.
she's she's very like i don't know i i like that because we hardly we hardly saw her in the first one like she's got like one kind of really important scene and then aside from that she's just seen in flashbacks yeah but in the second one like you know clearly some time has passed they've had a kid and uh and i thought i thought she was kind of cheeky and and kind of funny in certain places like i think i think when peter was like looking over um uh mayday's bed at her and everything is like
Are we sure we're up for this? And she's like, you're asking that now? Are you sure that you've got this sequence in the right order, pal? Oh yeah, the baby's awesome. What I love about the baby is when Hobie is holding her. and he's like that's right you're taking a crap on the establishment you're an anarchist i salute you you know love that love that um
There are two more versions of MJ that I would really like to talk about because, again, I think they all make different impacts in different ways. I want to talk about... Have you heard of the continuity called MC2? It is ringing a bell. Marvel Comics 2, it's the universe in which... I think it's The Amazing Spider Girl takes place. And the reason I want to mention this one is because, of course, you know...
One more day. For those of you that can't see, I was shaking my fist. But essentially, Joe Quesada, whom I do not like, has basically said that the MC2 universe is kind of essentially like a natural... depiction of what probably would have happened if peter and mj had stayed together essentially and so i i want to mention that simply because like you know it's kind of one of those things where it's like if you really hated one more day
then you can always read that to see what actually happens. And I would argue at this point you could probably read Ultimate Spider-Man now. you know, depending on what Jonathan Hickman does with the story going forward. But I mean, it's Jonathan Hickman. I like the way he writes. So at least in the beginning. I don't know how he does when he has to stick around for too long, but we'll see. And then finally, the other one is I'd like to talk a little bit about Spinner Rats.
Basically, this is Mary Jane from the Renew Your Vowels continuity, and I'm gonna see... Hold on, I'm trying to... There we go. And of course, now that I've moved us, we're covering Spinnerette. Can I change this? Nope, I can't. All right, I'm screwed. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. Anyways, so Spinnerette is over on the left-hand side of this. As you can see, it's basically MJ and she's wearing like a...
Spider-Man-looking kind of costume, and she appears to have her own set of spider powers and everything. Now, unfortunately... I've only read like one or two issues of Renew Your Vows, and I really enjoyed it. And for me, in a lot of ways, it is kind of Jerry Conway's redemption for killing off Gwen. I still never... cared for his decision to do that um but you know he's basically writing in a continuity that you know it's it's another post one more day hey this is what could have happened had
Peter and MJ State together. They've got a kid with spider powers, and I think her name is Annie. But MJ herself, like... is also she's like doing the co-parenting with peter and they're also going out on family missions together and again i've only read a little bit of this um not really enough to comment on it but i feel it's one of those interesting depictions where We've had enough people say that there is this desire for not just Peter and MJ to actually be together.
For good, you know, but to also have them having like a stable kind of family life, you know, however you want to interpret stable, I guess, because I would say. going out patrolling city as a family i i don't know if i'd call that a stable activity but um but like it's just funny because you know MC2, Mary Jane, Spinnerette, and even this new ultimate Spider-Man universe. They all kind of speak to that desire that...
hey, this is a thing that readers really want. Readers really want to see this. In the movies, I don't know if they're ever going to get to the point where they'll cast Spider-Man as a... middle age or whatever man and and and portray that except maybe like in the animated you know spider-verse movies or something but um you know i i think that in particular mj having spider-based powers at least in concept is a lot of fun and it's something that i definitely want to explore more of
are you are you are you familiar at all with the renew your vows comic have you have you read more of it than i don't know if i've read more of it than you i definitely didn't read all of it but i do remember Spinnerette and I remember like I don't know why I didn't read the whole thing because I remember like I didn't have any issues with it and for as much as I was just complaining about her having powers as jackpot for whatever reason with Spinnerette it did not bother me so
yeah i mean i guess like i mean that's a really good point too because i didn't i didn't really think about that um i guess in a way it maybe because they're spider powers and because it's kind of a natural extension of at least a natural narrative extension of her relationship with peter i guess maybe maybe that's why i didn't you know kind of catch that and go hey you know the the same way that that we did for jackpot but um you know i mean come on random powers give me a break you know
But I mean, I think overall, I don't know, I think her character design in pretty much all of these are really... i don't want to say consistent because they are pretty different i mean especially when you compare them to for instance zendaya who again you know is
She looks different from the two that you can see and then the other one on her other side right there. But I feel like when you are working with this character, when you're writing this character... I feel like a couple of things are important, and Jalé, please feel free to correct me, or if I... If I missed something, also be sure to throw that in. But I think if you're writing MJ, obviously, one, she is...
In my opinion, the definitive love of Peter's life. Doesn't mean she has to be the only one, but I think she's the definitive one. She has been just in so much media. They've had so many good storylines that revolve around their love story. She is the definitive one. She also has a whole lot of agency. She may sometimes be a damsel in distress, but I've also seen a lot of stories where she gets herself out of a lot of sticky situations because she's either thought it through.
or she i think i think i remember reading one comic where she had a gun i was like whoa okay um i i remember seeing another one where she was um she had a pair of like peter's web shooters and i was like Okay. All right. We can go with that. So she's a character that very much, while she is part of Peter's life, she very much is capable of doing her own thing. Again.
portrayed also in the comics when she kind of left him for a little while um and then in one more day when they broke him up for good sorry i'm just gonna keep bringing up one more day every so often just so i can grumble so um and uh and i mean really aside from that she can you can give her any career you want it seems you know she can she can be a supermodel or an actress she can be a reporter she can be a student with a lot of promise that is uh you know gonna do her own thing
And again, I just feel like with her, as long as you have those two elements right there, you've essentially got your essential MJ. Jala, how did I do? I agree with that. Yeah? Anything you would add or? No, because I think, I mean, to me, MJ is, to your point about agency, she's a very independent woman. And I think, you know, that's sort of a critical.
uh element of her character but you know once you have those sort of basic things there's a you know that that's mj yeah yeah it is and i mean you know we love her for it because again we know She's the definitive love of Peter's life. I'm going to keep saying that phrase too. I'm going to keep saying just throughout the podcast occasionally, MJ, definitive love of Peter's life. And I'm going to keep saying one more day. Grrr. You know, those are going to be the hallmarks of this podcast.
All right. Finally, I mean, I suppose what I just said was kind of my personal take on the character. i really feel like you know again as as peter's love interest that's you know that's great uh hopefully every superhero you know deserves Deserves love, deserves their love interest, deserves that love story. But I also have grown to respect her. Like, I mean, there was a time probably just 10 or so years ago.
that I thought that Black Cat was a better match for her, you know, and my reasoning at the time, or for Peter, and my reasoning at the time was that, well, MJ is not, like, she... couldn't take care of herself in the way that felicia can okay and you know i kind of realized over time like that's really not the greatest thing to look for yes felicia can take care of herself
But that lady's going to steal Peter's web shooters out from under him as soon as she gets a chance, you know. And she may be cute, and she may be mischievous. and flirty but uh and yeah you know if the kingpin comes after her she can probably last a little bit longer but um At the end of the day, she doesn't have Peter's back the same way that MJ will. And I guess for me, that's probably... That's one of the more important qualities as she relates to Spider-Man lore, is that...
Sorry. Is that she not only has Peter's back, but is also able to kind of call him out and redirect him and make sure that he is not getting... so much inside his head that it interferes with his ability to be effective so i guess that's kind of my final personal take this character overall obviously she's very important from the comics but again there have just been so many iterations of her that I think you know
that it's important to look for the commonalities that they have. So, Jaleh, do you want to do kind of like a final personal take on MJ and just kind of close us out on this section? Yeah, I mean, I think MJ is definitely Peter's main love interest. I think one of the problems with that is that when they're not together, it can be a little... Like her story is just not always as interesting when they're not together and they're not in a relationship for me.
Whereas with somebody like Felicia, I like the stories when they're dating, the stories when they're flirting, the stories when they're sort of on opposite sides of things. And I think because MJ is so tied to... her relationship with peter even if even if she has agency and a life outside of that which is really good and makes her a more interesting character to read i think for me the stories that work are the ones where she is with peter and like
driving him to be better and driving him to think about like, well, you know, what's my personal life versus what do I need to do as Spider-Man? How much of my life do I need to devote to Spider-Man? And I think she's interesting in that.
You know, it's interesting that you put it that way. Let's see. You have not played Marvel's Spider-Man 2, right? Right. Okay. The reason I'm bringing this up is... kind of because of what you said there because you see it in the in the first and then in the second game you see that and i know this has come up in the comics as well but you see that a lot of um
mj's life tends to take a back seat to peter's you know she's got to support him she's got to do this for him um you know and it oftentimes seems that You know, because, you know, he's being he's doing big, important superhero things. There are matters of life and death at hand and everything. And and but there is a really good scene.
where MJ actually temporarily gets taken over by a symbiote. And she becomes the supervillain's scream. And she's fighting Peter, and the symbiote is taking all of her resentments. And just pulling them up to the surface and just throwing them at Peter while they're fighting. And so it's a really good boss battle, but she's also just talking about... You know, I have to do all of these things. I have to make all of these sacrifices for you. I have to do all of this. And you never notice.
and like it's like during the fight you could you can like hear peter like crying as he's realizing like how unintentionally shitty a boyfriend he's been to her and and again like i i i feel like i don't know maybe we didn't discuss that much this round but i feel like maybe that's a theme that occasionally gets revisited with mj where it's like
Because you had said when she's away from Peter, she's not always as interesting. And it feels like it's kind of like subordinating her life to Peter's superhero life.
you got that theme very kind of explicitly at a certain point in the spider-man 2 game um it's a playstation 5 exclusive i don't know if you have a ps5 but if if you get the chance to play it like i would highly like i i know you'd love it so it's a lot of fun so but um but yeah i i just i i felt like that was too cool a point not to bring up at the at the end here so all right anything else you want to say about this character before we go or before we go to the next section no we can i'm good
Okay. All right. And that closes out our character spotlight segment. Thanks again to Jale for coming back and helping me out with this take on MJ. It's always good to have you back on the show. Do you have any projects you'd like to plug or want to tell people where you can be found online? If you want to be found. If you want to find me online, I'm mostly on Instagram under PB and Jollet.
P.B. Angela, yes. And I follow her as well. All right. Thank you for listening. And now let's move on to the Web Spinner's recommendations. For this week's Web Spinner's recommendation, I'd like to recommend the online cozy game, Pallia. This is a game that my fiancé actually introduced me to a few weeks ago.
And it's sort of like Stardew Valley, except Stardew Valley kind of in MMO form. So better graphics, and you are a human that appears like you just kind of... appear from this crystal and and you're one of a bunch of other humans that are suddenly returning to i guess what is now earth but other races have kind of taken over as as the main species and so they welcome you and they give you a plot of your own land that you can build on you clean it up you can you can create a farm
And again, it's sort of like Stardew Valley, but with better graphics. And you can play it online. And there's no combat. So if you're one of those people that just kind of likes to chill with a nice little cozy game... You grow your crops, you feed your animals, you maybe do some crafting, and that's your progression.
I've really enjoyed it. I've spent way, well, maybe not way more hours, but I've spent more hours on it than I normally would this kind of thing. I'm also someone who really likes a game like Stardew Valley, though. Like, that is an excellent, just fun game. And Pallia is basically trying to cross Stardew Valley with a multiplayer, a massive multiplayer online role-playing game sort of thing. But they've taken out the combat. You know what?
find that that actually works for me. There are times when I just don't want to deal with fighting dark elves or anything. So if you're looking for something nice and relaxing that you can play online, I would check out palia it's spelled p-a-l-i-a and it is free you do not have to pay for it and uh yeah give it a try tell me what you think Do you have any media recommendations this week for my listeners to read, watch, play, or listen to?
Well, I know I mentioned it to you earlier. I'll just go with the, I mean, obviously behind the tides on this one, but the Legends of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom game. Such a good game. So great. uh definitely spend probably more time playing that than i uh should be so if you don't mind me asking how far along are you in it uh not very far along
Okay. I feel like I have died so many times in this game. Okay. So definitely not very far. I've devoted several hours to it already, but I got it as a Christmas gift from my brother. so oh wow so you just got it yeah i just got it oh wow okay all right well um i'm pretty far into it i haven't i haven't beaten the story yet and the game has been out for almost a year at this point but like
I like taking my time with it. But all I'm going to say is it's huge. Did you ever play Breath of the Wild, the game that came before it? I did not play Breath of the Wild. Okay, Breath of the Wild. It was huge. What I loved about Tears of the Kingdom is it not only is even bigger than Breath of the Wild, despite having the same map, actually, but...
You are able to do things with the... What is it? It's the crafting hand thing. You have... you have the ability to create so many things and you can you can do a lot of game breaking with it you can uh
I don't know, if you go on TikTok or anything or YouTube Shorts, you can find... First of all, you can see people tormenting Koroks, which is kind of... darkly hilarious but like i've also seen people like take down bosses by like putting them in a cage of their own invention that has like a laser things just spinning around until it kills them oh my god
It's ridiculously fun, and I think Tears of the Kingdom really did a good job of making me just yell spontaneously, God, I love this game, just because of all of the invented things that you can do. so i'm i'm i'm excited for you to get further in this game because i think you'll find that it's very rewarding so but uh
But yeah, I can also say that that is an excellent game. So if you have not played it and you have a Nintendo Switch, what is wrong with you? Go get that game and play it and thank me later. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you for your recommendation. And I believe that brings us close to the end of the show. If you enjoyed this episode of The Web Line, please be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast on my YouTube channel, simply named Spidey Librarian.
where I also maintain a playlist of all podcast episodes. The webline is also available on audio services, so when you see us on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or another such service, Please leave a review, rating, and where possible, follow us as well. You can find me on my socials under the name SpideyLibrarian on threads, Twitter slash X, which I'm now calling Twixter, Instagram,
Facebook, WordPress, and Twitch. Finally, if you'd like to shoot me an email, you can contact me at spideelibrarian at gmail.com, where I'll be happy to hear your thoughts, rants, and ideas. You never know. Your email might be featured in an upcoming episode. Next Sunday, February 11th, will be a bit of deja vu for you. Jalet will be back.
And as we covered MJ in today's episode, we'll be looking over the other women who've been love interests in Peter's life. Do we think any of them have the goods to compare to MJ? You'll have to join us next week on Sunday, February 11th, to find out. Thanks again to Jalet for returning to the podcast and doing this episode with me. It was a pleasure, as always, having you here. And thank you for listening. Until the next episode, I'll be wishing you a good day.