Mary Jane Watson-Parker - apparently a millstone. [RANT, high sarcasm warning.]
From here: Once again talking at length about his feelings on “aging” characters (in a nutshell, he’s against) and how he feels it’s best as much as possible to keep characters in a “stasis” age-wise, the talk led to the always-controversial subject of Spider-Man’s marriage. This time around, Quesada explained that he thinks it’s not just him who feels as he does about the marriage, and that if you went around the editors and Marvel creators teams you have a hard time finding one that doesn’t want to write or create stories about the unmarried Peter Parker.
Perhaps the strongest indication to-date that Peter won’t be celebrating his next anniversary, Quesada went on to explain that the climate in Marvel Editorial right now is trying to see how they could work out Peter being single again. Quesada said if they could ever comeup with a story, he’s want to do it, but once again emphasized he won’t have Peter and Mary Jane divorce, which was met by rousing applause by the audience.
Quesada responded to the ovation, saying, that he said he wasn’t divorcing them, but there is a lot of other stuff they could do. Asked to confirm or deny rumors of Mary Jane being killed off, Quesada said he could not do either.
What, this again? Mr. Quesada and company don't seem to realize that:
- if they de-marriageify Peter and MJ, but keep them together (this has been suggested), this is going to make it look like MJ is somehow not good enough to be worth marrying, not to mention that it will contradict about forty years of Peter's characterization (he tried to marry Betty Brant, for Chrissakes)
- if they kill MJ, they will be repeating a plotline that plummeted sales, and not really add anything to the Spidey mythos because he already has a "dead lover" millstone around his neck
- the whole "marriage makes characters boring" viewpoint is kind of scary, especially since the "single, swinging Parker" era they want to hearken back to was INCREDIBLY SEXIST, with the romance subplots being consistently the weakest parts of the run.
This disgusts me on a political level - it's misogynist, it smacks of anti-marriage, it treats divorce like something dirty. It disgusts me on a creative level - how many stories of the hot but gawky young man and his shenanigans with a bevy of nearly identical females are there, already? There are so many creative opportunities with Peter and MJ, the spidey-couple. We're talking about a sexy, intelligent, forthright woman who willingly risks death, kidnapping and worse on a daily basis - and the scorn and puzzlement of a community that doesn't really get why she's with spazzy Parker, anyway - because she's that much in love. And we're also talking about a man whose life experiences have shown him that he's not allowed to be close to anyone, who's opened up and allowed the woman he loves to choose what risks she'll take, because she's taught him that much about love and respect.
Also, she can beat up supervillains with a baseball bat.
This is not exactly creative bankruptcy, here. Despite the selective blinders Marvel editorial seems to wear, there is plenty of support for Spidey and MJ, and there are plenty of testimonials (often on forums that Mr. Quesada has certainly read) stating that yes, nine-year-olds are perfectly fine reading about a married superhero, so long as the stories are good. Not that nine-year-olds read comics anymore, anyway. It's always "think of the children," isn't it?
Okay, it's letter campaign time - grassroots, snail preferred but e-mail also fine, more widely spread out the better. I need to think over how to organize this for a couple of days, but if anyone has some ideas, wants to volunteer a little time to spread word of the campaign around/organize, etc, do let me know. Or if you're just like, "I agree, and will be writing a letter, though I don't have time to do much else," - GREAT. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Tentative ideas:
- muster support at gw.org
- official blog or website? (I'd need help for this, definitely, for writing and mostly for the coding)
- buttons (digital)
- letter campaign: form letters/suggested content?
- pimp at scans_daily (with scans of MJ badassery) and give_spidey_lov (MJ gives Spidey love, after all)
- look up the sales figures on Web of Romance and Spidey <3 MJ
In case anyone was wondering, my icon represents the spectre of feminism strangling the life out of sexy, swinging Spidey, bastion of masculinity that he is.
Also, a belated addition! I would like to note that Comic Book Resources' write-up of the panel has an ad for Tim Sale's new pin-up book. The image? A mostly naked MJ cradling Spidey's mask to her chest.
Yeah, having Spidey married really threatens Peter's ability to be young and hip. I mean, clearly readers wonder every issue when he's going to start wearing Depends.
Perhaps the strongest indication to-date that Peter won’t be celebrating his next anniversary, Quesada went on to explain that the climate in Marvel Editorial right now is trying to see how they could work out Peter being single again. Quesada said if they could ever comeup with a story, he’s want to do it, but once again emphasized he won’t have Peter and Mary Jane divorce, which was met by rousing applause by the audience.
Quesada responded to the ovation, saying, that he said he wasn’t divorcing them, but there is a lot of other stuff they could do. Asked to confirm or deny rumors of Mary Jane being killed off, Quesada said he could not do either.
What, this again? Mr. Quesada and company don't seem to realize that:
- if they de-marriageify Peter and MJ, but keep them together (this has been suggested), this is going to make it look like MJ is somehow not good enough to be worth marrying, not to mention that it will contradict about forty years of Peter's characterization (he tried to marry Betty Brant, for Chrissakes)
- if they kill MJ, they will be repeating a plotline that plummeted sales, and not really add anything to the Spidey mythos because he already has a "dead lover" millstone around his neck
- the whole "marriage makes characters boring" viewpoint is kind of scary, especially since the "single, swinging Parker" era they want to hearken back to was INCREDIBLY SEXIST, with the romance subplots being consistently the weakest parts of the run.
This disgusts me on a political level - it's misogynist, it smacks of anti-marriage, it treats divorce like something dirty. It disgusts me on a creative level - how many stories of the hot but gawky young man and his shenanigans with a bevy of nearly identical females are there, already? There are so many creative opportunities with Peter and MJ, the spidey-couple. We're talking about a sexy, intelligent, forthright woman who willingly risks death, kidnapping and worse on a daily basis - and the scorn and puzzlement of a community that doesn't really get why she's with spazzy Parker, anyway - because she's that much in love. And we're also talking about a man whose life experiences have shown him that he's not allowed to be close to anyone, who's opened up and allowed the woman he loves to choose what risks she'll take, because she's taught him that much about love and respect.
Also, she can beat up supervillains with a baseball bat.
This is not exactly creative bankruptcy, here. Despite the selective blinders Marvel editorial seems to wear, there is plenty of support for Spidey and MJ, and there are plenty of testimonials (often on forums that Mr. Quesada has certainly read) stating that yes, nine-year-olds are perfectly fine reading about a married superhero, so long as the stories are good. Not that nine-year-olds read comics anymore, anyway. It's always "think of the children," isn't it?
Okay, it's letter campaign time - grassroots, snail preferred but e-mail also fine, more widely spread out the better. I need to think over how to organize this for a couple of days, but if anyone has some ideas, wants to volunteer a little time to spread word of the campaign around/organize, etc, do let me know. Or if you're just like, "I agree, and will be writing a letter, though I don't have time to do much else," - GREAT. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Tentative ideas:
- muster support at gw.org
- official blog or website? (I'd need help for this, definitely, for writing and mostly for the coding)
- buttons (digital)
- letter campaign: form letters/suggested content?
- pimp at scans_daily (with scans of MJ badassery) and give_spidey_lov (MJ gives Spidey love, after all)
- look up the sales figures on Web of Romance and Spidey <3 MJ
In case anyone was wondering, my icon represents the spectre of feminism strangling the life out of sexy, swinging Spidey, bastion of masculinity that he is.
Also, a belated addition! I would like to note that Comic Book Resources' write-up of the panel has an ad for Tim Sale's new pin-up book. The image? A mostly naked MJ cradling Spidey's mask to her chest.
Yeah, having Spidey married really threatens Peter's ability to be young and hip. I mean, clearly readers wonder every issue when he's going to start wearing Depends.