Thursday, July 24, 2008

Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane (sorta)

"Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane" is a Mary-Jane-Watson-centered comic.
This is more of a (whoops, almost said Dawson's Creek) Hannah Montana style comic, but still has Spider-Man in it.

It's a really good comic for new readers, as it starts out in the high school times.
You don't need to be a comic geek or know years of Spider-Man history.

Marvel released this preview without words - and once again, I added the missing dialogue.



The inside jokes here:
1. In the current "superhero" Spider-Man comics, there's a redheaded heroine named Jackpot who looks like Mary Jane - but no one's sure yet.

2. "Gwen" is Gwen Stacy - Peter Parker's other potential love interest of mythos. In the "superhero"/twenty years ago history, Green Gobin dropped her off a bridge (yeah, that's where the movie stole it from and replaced her with MJ)

3. "One Day" is a reference to One More Day - probably still the worst thing they've done to Spider-Man.



The inside joke here: "My God. Bees." is a Batman quote. It comes from arguably the worst story of the year "Amazons Attack". One of their weapons: bees.



The inside joke here:
1. This ties in to Marvel's "Secret Invasion". They're not bees. They're Skrulls. Pretending to be bees.

And in all seriousness, sometimes that one page non-crossover like this counts as a "crossover" issue, kind of a way to get people who don't normally buy a book to buy it. Then they get upset. It's why people read books off the shelf.

2. Joe may or may not be a reference to Joe Quesada, who was in charge of Spider-Man's storyline "One More Day" - where magically overnight Spider-Man was no longer married to MJ . If it was Joe, then it would make sense that he would be here to break up the relationship. He has openly said that a happily married Spider-Man was boring for stories. Many disagree.



The blatant joke here: Cherry Chapstick.

The inside joke here: Another dig at the "One More Day" storyline in Spider-Man. If Peter was always and forever going to choose his Aunt over MJ, would MJ have ever bothered to have a relationship with him? Doubtful.



The Bizarro joke: If you am not know Bizarro means backwards, me am have so much sympathy for you.

The inside joke here: Maria Hill is a relatively new character - she's the #2 person in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D. which in the Marvel comics universe is an international military force. Like the Kids Next Door - but grownups. And their main base pretty much crashes in every single comic book where it shows up.



There is no inside joke here - just plain and simple humor.

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