In their continued look at Mary Jane Watson's comic book history, CSBG spotlights one of the darkest periods in MJ's comic career - this haircut!
“Is that a masturbation joke there? I love how MJ is totally into the joke.”
What masturbation joke? Oh I see.
This professional article didn’t put the scans in the right order.
“Why in the world would this be a surprise to Mary Jane? She’s plainly seen how much Peter is into Gwen, so it’s weird to see her act surprised. It’s one thing to act surprised in public, but this is her own private thoughts. Odd.
”No she hasn’t. She thought he liked her sure but not that he was that into her.You are projecting onto the character.“Peter manages to get Norman to agree to leave the party (through some trickery) and the two have a big fight.
”Peter didn’t get Norman to ‘agree’. He made the fireplace smoke up and Norman got angry and gave Peter the chance to escape.
“The Haircut Is So Bad That She Stops Appearing Period!”No she stopped appearing becausea) Lee had little to do for her once he resolved the love triangleb) He wanted to push the Gwen ship
“You have to love that Harry, who has been living with Peter for, like, 34 issues at this point, is ready to say that Flash was right about Peter way too quickly.”From Harry’s POV Peter is absent and not the best kind of friend.
In their latest look at abandoned comic book plots, CSBG explains the complicated story of how Polaris regained her mutant powers.
Short story: Lorna is definitely a mutant
I needed to cover that right out of the gate because the wording of the title makes it sound like it’s uncertain and open to debate when it’s really not. She’s definitely a mutant.
Once you get past the clickbait-y title that could cause misunderstandings, this is a very good explainer of what happened. Cronin doesn’t just give the answer and leave it at that, he shows pages of how the loss of her powers affected her, which is perhaps the most important part of the article and that period for her.
Lorna’s time without her powers wasn’t just “lol she doesn’t have ‘em now so what.” It devastated her and really ripped up her sense of identity, and it led to some very painful moments for her (Lorna getting tortured while in space didn’t come up, but it had no bearing on the core question of the article either, so it makes sense it wouldn’t come up).
So as I said, overall good article. Worth reading if you haven’t seen the history yet. Only downside was the potential impressions made by the article title.
Also thought it was cool that Cronin’s friend Michael is a big enough fan for Cronin to write this article for him. Happy birthday, Michael!
This was passed to me by @lordtimeblogposts by the way.
In their continued look at Mary Jane Watson's comic book history, CSBG looks at how Gwen Stacy and MJ began to get passive-aggressive with each other!
While Peter is worrying about the situation, MJ comes in (I love that she enters rooms snapping her fingers) and Peter is a total jerk to her…Peter continues to be rude to her when Gwen enters and then MJ and Gwen banter a bit…It is times like these that I think that the retcon that Gwen knew Peter’s identity during this period actually works, as otherwise, why would MJ put up with this dude who is constantly a jerk to her?
Why has fandom over the past 10 years developed such a weird fetish for condemning Peter Parker and not bothering to look at things from his POV?
Why is he expected to be perfect all the time when not being perfect was the whole point of his character.
Like...yeah he’s rude to MJ.
She’s walking in all bubbly and peppy when the situation is actually incredibly serious and she doesn’t really want to help out, she’s there to sight see.
Peter meanwhile is justifiably incredibly concerned for his Aunt May’s welfare because this incredibly dangerous super villain has grown close to her and visited serious property damage (that he might have to PAY FOR) nearby her.
Like...I think he just MIGHT be allowed to not be the nicest person under these circumstances FFS.
Not to mention he isn’t even that rude to her.
He unenthusiastically says hello to her and tells her that his situation is no laughing matter, which is 100% accurate his MOTHER could’ve been seriously hurt and he might have to pay for something incredibly expensive he might not be able to afford.
Even if MJ DIDN’T know he was Spider-Man she’d rationally be able to cut him some slack for the (allegedly) rude behaviour he’s exhibiting here.
Again I ask what is up with CBR, and ComicsAlliance, and Tumblr and just about everybody’s weird, weird, weird, werid fetish for like...not bothering to actually consider things from Spider-Man’s POV.
In their latest spotlight on comic retcons they'd like to see, CSBG explains why Black Widow shouldn't be pushing 90 years old.
This write-up makes some good points, and is worth reading especially if you don't know the history of Natasha's history. I think it undersells two things:
The concept of "Russian spies" is indelibly tied to the Cold War. You can look at the MCU for a clear example of this: even though Natasha in that world is only the age of Scarlett Johansson, she still namedrops the KGB, not the GRU.
The Name of the Rose, the comic that, imo, made the best storytelling argument for having Natasha be secretly 80, is the version a lot of newer fans imprinted on.
In their continued look at Mary Jane Watson's comic book history, CSBG spotlights a rough patch when she's blamed for Harry's drug addiction!
“What I love the most about this scene is how they don’t give any more information about her show. Is it a play? Is it a one-woman show? It is a burlesque? There is a chance that we might never know, because Peter can’t let a person finish a goldarn sentence!!”
Question.
What is the point of this paragraph as the author literally answers his own question later in the article?
Is it a pot shot at Spidey?
Is it padding?
FFS
“This freaks the heck out of Gwen, who presumably thinks that Spider-Man has traveled to London on some sort of anti-Stacy vendetta to wipe the Stacy bloodline off of the planet. I imagine a similar vendetta is why we haven’t seen Gwen’s cousin, Jill, in years.”
I know this is a joke but it doesn’t make sense.
Jill Stacy hasn’t appeared due to Spidey’s anti-Stacy vendetta that is imagined by Gwen.
But Spidey doesn’t have one of those.
It’d had made a more logical joke if the punchline was about JILL imagining a vendetta like Gwen.
“As the issue opens, we learn that Mary Jane;s show is an Off-Broadway play… Mary Jane flirts with his aggressively in front of Harry Osborn… Less expected, though, is Norman Osborn basically telling his son how he would hot he finds his girlfriend.”
I’ve made numerous spelling mistakes whenever I make a post here or elsewhere.
The difference is it’s not an actual job I get money for.
Spellcheck FFS.
“Randy Robertson then shows up and he and Norman Osborn get into this hilariously overly dramatic fight about drugs on the street.”
Yeah. An old white rich businessman trying to wash his hands of responsibility having a heated argument with a young inner city African American male about drugs...in the 1970s no less...is ‘overly dramatic’.
Because in THIS day and age that’d be insane and nothing like that (or something on similar topics) could ever happen so back it’d be even further beyond believable.
Check it out from 50:30 onwards.
What’s annoying here is that MJ intimates that there is a specific reason why she’s doing things this way, but we never actually learn it.”
It’s very obviously that she is aware of Harry’s drug addiction dude.
It’s subtext but not unobvious subtext.
“Anyhow, blonde Stan Lee decides to take this time to get Harry hooked, with Harry’s mind filled with thoughts of MJ and Peter…”
No. He doesn’t.
This very panel posted IN THE ARTICLE ITSELF, makes it very clear that Harry was ALREADY a drug abuser before the scene in question.
“Harry then comes up to MJ on campus and acts like a jerk (by the way, is MJ going to college? That hasn’t been established, right?”
Yeah it has.
“After he gets rid of Norman at the start of the next issue, Peter gets Harry to the hospital and while he doesn’t outright blame MJ for the situation, he doesn’t NOT blame her, ya know?”
No I don’t know WTF does that even mean?
“Then, out of nowhere, Gwen shows up and they’re back together…”
OMFG Gwen STATED in the issue she was having a change of heart about the situation with Peter.
The START of that scene was again in one of the pages posted IN the article. THIS one!
