Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #13

December 26, 2006

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: The Parker Thing
Rating: All Ages

Gwen Stacy needs help with her new boyfriend – so she turns to Mary Jane!

Writer: Sean McKeever
Art: Takeshi Miyazawa & Rick Mays
Colors: Christina Strain
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Cover Art: Tak, N. Lee & Christina Strain
Publisher: Marvel Comics

As Mary Jane tries to deal with the fact that Peter Parker has a new girlfriend, Gwen Stacy grows more and more upset over Peter’s frequent absences and lame excuses. She’s still new at Midtown High, though, and doesn’t have many friends, so she turns to the one person who may have some insight into Peter’s behavior… Mary Jane. MJ is having enough trouble just trying to remain civil to Gwen, but the idea of giving her advice, helping her stay in the graces of the boy they both have a thing for… it gets to be a bit more than MJ can handle.

This is actually my first exposure to the “Mary Jane” universe, and I have to admit, the appeal is obvious. This reads a bit like an old-fashioned romance comic, but with enough of a contemporary flavor to make it easily accessible and enjoyable to a modern teen audience. The book is a wonderful blend of Marvel canon, romance comic style and modern writing. It’s not perfect – Gwen’s narration of a battle between Spidey and the Sandman starts out cute but begins getting a little tedious – but it still has a very realistic flavor, and that’s a point in its favor.

Miyazawa’s art style seems a natural fit for the comic – while it obviously has a Manga feel to it, the soft lines and wide-eyed expressions are a natural for a romance comic (which is what this is, let’s be honest). His fight scene is somewhat constrained by being filtered through Gwen’s perceptions, but for what it is, it works.

Overall, this is a fun comic, and the sort of thing that comics need to do more of: expand their horizons.

Rating: 8/10