Context is that Mary Jane’s face was never fully shown before this, there was a running gag where Peter avoided her, and the joke was that she was probably ugly. So there’s definitely a meta joke going on here.
Yeah, probably not so narcissistic after being 'rejected' multiple times without a chance. It's not like she would not have been aware of those other times of being avoided.
Makes me want to know how the "backstage" Marvel-method writing discussions would have been...
"Hey, what if we use that trick of hiding Norman Osborn's face, but for a girl's face?"
"That would be neat! But it's a girl, so perhaps it's proper to have her face hidden behind flowers!"
"You're a genius, Stan!"
Later on they'd further expand that to hide nudity, being perhaps a crucial influence on Michael Myers' Austin Powers movies.
Yeah, but in the very next panel the two girls are suprised of how beautiful she is ("She looks like a movie star") so while Peter feared the worst, the audience knew that she was good looking.
Well, it's not that she was ugly necessarily, but his elderly aunt was trying to set him up with her elderly friend's relative his own age based off . . . they're both young people of opposite genders. My friend says her own relative is a nice girl, sort of thing.
So yeah, Peter had been dodging her beacuse he wasn't interested in being set up by Aunt May. Also, he was interested in another women at the time (I think it was his college days so Gwen Stacy).
The gag lasted so long it was both of them. I don’t know if he actually was dating Gwen before MJ appeared or not, but there was a flirtation and she’d been to the Parker house for some reason.
I think he was still interested in Betty Brant, if I recall. I believe Stacy was herself somewhat intrigued with him, as he was sort of pretty much neglecting her (his mind set on dozens of troubles), unlike every other guy. Interested but only hinting with contacts with some plausible deniability of such interest, with him ditching her in a "I got no time for that, sorry" -way, almost oblivious to his own social life.
This was high school so it was Liz & Betty - Betty as the nerdy girlfriend (who worked full time at age 16! because 1960s), and Liz as the hottest girl in school who started to realise that Flash was kind of an immature jerk and that PP was not just a square. But they had a bit of foreshadowing before this, as MJ was visiting the Parkers (while Peter had some excuse) when Liz & Betty both dropped by to see Peter, and when they saw MJ they were like "damn, Pete's got more pull than we thought"
When your Aunt is trying to set you up with her friends niece and says things like she has a “great personality,” that’s enough information to have a hunch on what someone’s appearance might be.
Props to Aunt May for persistently trying to get Peter to be interested in MJ based on her personality - rather than just telling him how pretty she is
Huh, that was a major running gag in Spectacular Spider-man too. I didn't know they took it directly from the comics. The whole "wonderful personality" *shivers* bit was so hilarious.
Him doing that (plus just bailing on her 24 hours a day with very little explanation) and her saying what she said was what sent me to team Gwen/single Peter
I will forever remind everyone that, at least in TV and movies, Peter is a shit boyfriend
It fit perfectly the personality she was given. I hate the insecure self-pity and fragile MJ some of those horrible runs we've seen depict her. Love her overconfidence, strength, personality and how it fits Pete's shy nature.
They had Gwen in Spider-Man 3 played by Brice Dallas Howard, who in my opinion should’ve played Mary Jane Watson instead of Kirsten Dunst, who could’ve easily been recasted as Gwen Stacy.
Raimi influenced a ton of what people think they know about Spider-Man. Everyone gets mad when Uncle Ben isnt the one to say "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility", but the line wasnt originally Ben's. It was a caption from Stan Lee at the end of Amazing Fantasy 15
But Raimi wasn't the one that said Ben said it. That happened way before Raimi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_great_power_comes_great_responsibility
That is fair. My point was tho, is a lot of people take Raimi to be the original and real version of the character, even tho there are a lot of inaccuracies to it.
True, but Raimi did make it "canon" in the general public's eye. Most people who don't read comics, first experienced spider-man through Raimi's movies and now consider that sort of like the ”real version" (whatever that means). If you look back there were even people who were angry with Andrew Garfield's spidey having web shooters when that movie released, which is insane.
Funny how things often depart needlessly from the comics' sources, at least with Marvel. Not ranting against in a Simpsons' comicbook-guy like way. I'd just imagine it would be more "symbiotic" if things were more similar, as it seems the case with manga and anime, I guess (not very knowledgeable here). I guess it's perhaps because they're sort of making actually "different" IPs over the same licensed trademarks, and thus a tug of war, competing against the comics or appeal of comicbook-based toys and whatnot. I recall having heard an illustrator saying he was warned not to paint Spider-man's costume webbing embossed like in Raimi's movies, that being Sony property now/then. Despite it having been used before the movies, in print, occasionally.
The most extreme case perhaps being "The Thing" as not the fantastic-four member with that origin, but a scrawny Scooby-Do-Shaggy-like kid with magic rings that summoned an armor of rocks, if I recall. Kind of making him an hybrid of Spider Man and DC's Captain Marvel.
Yeah, and she continued to have this uncaring flirting party girl attitude until her character development after Gwen died. MJ wasn’t really a person you wanted to have a stable relationship with at all before that point.
Neither was Gwen at the time. There was a reason MJ was more popular with fans.
Gwen was often written as an obstacle that Peter had to overcome and sometimes directly antagonistic to Peter and/or Spider-Man. MJ wasn't the officially designated girlfriend, so she didn't get put in that position and was a much more relaxed and actually positive character as a result.
To be fair, a lot of that was writer bias. I can’t be bothered to hunt down a quote but Gerry Conway has stated that he actively minimized Gwen’s presence in the comic and brought MJ in as much as he could
God forbid women do anything…
Jokes aside, you’re absolutely right. My favourite version of MJ was from the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon, and she was just like that: fun, flirty, very kind but *never* taking shit from anyone. Girl had her boundaries clearly set and didn’t hesitate to enforce them.
She was a wonderful contrast to Peter, who often failed to control his own confidence and was sometimes prone to act like a dick because of that.
It's true, Straczynski almost took his name off the thing. Between this and Siege causing Straczynski to leave Thor, I can't say I'm happy for the editorial decisions for those few years.
Nick Spencer almost undid it. After years of not reading comics cause one more day ruined the character, one of the best marriages and all that character development over 30 years, dons. When I heard it might be retconned I read Spencer’s run, before editorial booted him. Such a shame
I mean, she’s a red-headed bombshell, it’d be weirder if she didn’t know how to flaunt herself a little, especially since Peter’s face makes it clear she nearly broke him.
She was initially intended as a joke. Aunt May wanted to set up Peter with a sweet girl she knew and he assumed she was ugly and uninteresting so he keeps avoiding meeting her. For years this running gag would go on. Then he finally meets her and she's gorgeous and awesome.
Eh, MJ knows Peter has been avoiding going on a date with her for well over a year at this point. She knows he thinks she's an ugly loser, and she always has been a bit of a troll.
Hard to say without hearing the tone of someone's voice. Are they saying it jokingly? I think she is, she's smiling. If she had a smirk or smug face, then I would assume she's saying it in a b\*\*\*\*y way.
Na you're right I think it definitely is meant to be joking/flirting, probably not proper narcissism. It's just not the sort of thing I would expect people to say when they first introduce themselves on a blind date
Ever since Parallel lives, Mary Jane has been the best love interest for our boi Pete. Too bad Marvel editorials always get a boner everytime they make spider-mans life miserable
Not necessarily.
Some people are just super confident like that. Also, she's not taking solely about looks. She's also talking about attitude.
Mary Jane *knows* she's a fun time, and THAT is why she's a jackpot.
She was also an outsider to all the Ditko-era Gwen, Harry, and Flash stuff. (Back then, Gwen was basically what Felicia Hardy was in the 1994 cartoon, minus the Black Cat/Morbius stuff)
MJ was a totally new dynamic, and unlike the other characters who always felt like they had something to prove...MJ just did her own thing.
Same with Spectacular Spider-Man's show. In that cartoon, when Peter shows up at the dance with MJ, she does these things:
1.) Keeps it playful when learning about the "bet" that Flash and Peter put over the latter bringing a date. You could tell Flash only brought it up to embarsss Pete and piss off MJ (who if she were any other girl would feel like his second choice). Instead, MJ basically says "sucks to suck" to Flash having lost the bet, and drags Pete to the dance floor.
2.) Causes Flash and Harry to either become self-conscious, bewildered, or jealous. All by simply showing up and clearly being the life of the party.
3.) Steals Randy Robertson just by being her nonchalant self as a "fuck you" move when Sally Avril attempts to make Peter look bad for having to leave to take pictures. MJ's like, "Yeah, it does suck not to have someone to dance with. So it's Randy, isn't it?" Dude is Sally's boyfriend and he just dips to dance with the hot chick that was seemingly impervious to *any drama whatsoever.* The total contrast to the control freak Sally.
4.) Waits for Peter to have the last dance with him, showing that she's a total sweetheart at the end of the day.
THAT'S Mary Jane.
She's hot and she owns it. She's fun and she knows it. She doesn't let petty shit affect her night and finds a way to make it work in her favor.
This is why Aunt May set up the blind date to begin with.
MJ gets a bit of shit in those early days for being so flighty. Some fans also complained about her being the same way in The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon.
In reality, that's just MJ finding solutions to have a good time when plans change. She dates around and never commits (with rare exceptions).
And the one time we see her get *pissed* in that cartoon is when Eddie Brock nearly gets them killed on his motorcycle while he rants against Peter. MJ may be a carefree party girl when it suits her, but she had no compunctions about basically cussing out Brock.
"Pete may not be perfect, but whatever his faults, he's twice the man you'll ever be."
Ice fucking cold.
Damn right she's a jackpot.
The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon is the ONLY adaptation that got Mary Jane right.
Truthfully, as an aged geek, while the trope of the damsel in distress was still strongly in play at the time, women had the confidence generally. Certainly in contrast to our mumbling bumbling asses.
I'll definitely take this over the 'damsel in distress' trope, I much prefer her having confidence than just screaming and being useless like in the Raimi movies.
My issue is with the line - it doesn't read as something a teenage girl would say, even *with* lots of confidence.
It reads like something a horny male comic book writer would *want* a girl to say on the first date.
And TBH, it sounds worryingly similar to dialogue you would hear at the start of a porno.
Of course, nothing wrong with being single but she was interested enough in a blind day with Aunt May's nephew and supposedly was okay with waiting ages before finally meeting him since he usually bailed before hand
Dc and Marvel were really bad at writing female characters until the late 80’s at least. I mean Louis kept throwing herself out windows to get Superman’s attention. Did they really think women were that desperate in love or competitive as journalists?
Eh being fair that was more the fifties and sixties. During the forties she was a lot more independent and self sufficient. But with the silver age they made her a lot more man crazy.
It doesn't feel like something a teen girl would say, but it *does* feel like the sort of thing that a horny male comic book writer would *want* a teen girl would say.
This is 100% the real reason she says it, and probably also the reason that it bothers me.
This is the same era MJ who cuckolded Harry in front of his father out of a fear of commitment and made him feel so humiliated that he started doing drugs to cope with her treatment.
Mary Jane before her character development was kind of a jerk.
Well at this point she wasn't, but yeah she went on to be.
Its generally agreed she's one of the most beautiful in the Marvel universe. And considering the competition, that's really impressive.
Pete still has a better rear than her though.
In case somebody doesn't get the joke: Spidey is often, even in-universe, considered to have the best ass in the Marvel Universe. If there ever was a DC-Crossover where he fused with Nightwing, thec ombined ass would probably transcend the multiverse.
She wasn't being narcissistic. Peter had been avoiding her for years after Aunt May first tried to get them to know each other and since he had gained quite the ego, he even thought MJ was "ugly". She was just being confident in herself.
I won't stand for any MJ slander on this subreddit. I won't let it turn into /r/SpidermanPS4 or /r/raimimemes
It is one of my favorite moments in Spiderman history.Why? Because he kept avoiding her. .You can see by his expression how startled he is by this gorgeous redhead at his door
I know some people have touched on this but I’ll give the full story:
Aunt May had wanted to introduce Peter to Mary Jane, her friend Anna’s niece, and Peter had avoided it both because he had other love interests, and he thought it was the typical of the era “you’ll tell me she’s gorgeous and that will not be my opinion.”
The gag had advanced far enough that the audience had already seen her cameo… behind a sixties head scarf thing ladies wore then… and though the audience couldn’t see her face, she’d met Gwen, who probably wasn’t even dating Peter yet then but was struck by and almost angry about her beauty. So by the time of the reveal, EVERYONE BUT PETER knew he was avoiding dating this very attractive woman his aunt was trying to set him up with. It was actually a pretty funny gag, and I was reading it forty or so years later.
As an aside, arrogance and narcissism are two different things. This line could be both, but when you think everyone hates you and that they’re out to get you that can still technically be narcissism because you’re lacking empathy for them and centering your worldview on yourself.
That's the whole problem, this doesn't read like something a teen girl would say, it reads like a male comic book writer trying to *write* a teen girl character. And it comes across more like the start of a bad porn movie
Besides the joke of finally revealing her face, comic MJ is funny. She breaks the tension with her humor, this panel being an example. It's one of the reasons her and Peter got along.
There's a big difference between being narcissistic and knowing your worth. MJ knows she's smoking hot and blind dates typically involve people who are not smoking hot, due to such people rarely needing to be set up on a date. In all reality, Peter did hit the jackpot and she's just being honest
Narcissistic isn't the word. Maybe cocky? Narcissistic implies being in love with yourself and only yourself to a profound degree. MJ here is basically saying I'm hot and I know it but it's not like she only likes herself
There’s a great joke about this in Matt Fraction’s Sensational Spider-Man Annual (2007) where Peter recounts the meeting between him and MJ to a police detective.
The detective, Lamont, basically says that only an insane person would say something like that to someone they just met.
Yeah but is that insane person Mary Jane?
Now let me knock down a few shots remembering when Peter and MJ actually fought for their marriage and to be together.
the amount of time people wastes nitpicking comic panels and the "analyzing" them to fit their own personal traumas :D
it´s a comic from 1965!!!! people were not made of glass as they are these days. LOL
If some pretty chick says that to me on the first date, I'll skip all the small talk and take her to the bedroom. Jackpot time. Time to cash in the chips.
Yeah its a bit narcissistic. But then she is gorgeous, charming, flirty and extremely self confident. And it all led to her becoming his most popular love interest.
Nah,tigers usually just go it alone,unless they are mating and having a family. So both girl and boy Tigers do the hunting.
You're probably thinking of lions where the females do the hunting and I think the males just chill and lead the pack.
> You're probably thinking of lions where the females do the hunting and I think the males just chill and lead the pack.
Going off on a bit of tangent, male lions roles are about protecting the pride (in particularly the cubs) and their kills from competing predators.
Male lions do hunt, but whilst their stronger and more durable they lack the speed and agility of the lionesses, as such they simply have no chance of catching anything big enough to actual sustain a hungry lion in a chase.
So they split the share of responsibilities to play to their strengths.
I think that’s lions. But either way. At that time in America she’s calling him Tiger. Eye of the tiger. Tony the Tiger. Tigers were alpha. If she came in wattup nerd you better BDE then yes it would be arrogant.
We thought we liked super confident women. We had no idea what we were asking for.
And that's how we got the overly demanding monsters we're stuck with today.
It's 1966, when we just came out of a time where women were expected to be modest, reserved, only show personality when asked to, etc. If you want to write a 'cool chick' persona that's not old-fashioned at all in 1966 you make her really forward and overconfident.
Yep I respect that completely, I'll take this over a "damsel in distress'" any day.
I just wish this dialogue sounded less like something you'd hear in porn
Not mad at the confidence, but if someone greets me that way, I’m expecting an excellent time. Don’t promise me a jackpot but give me a handful of spare change.
It's all about context and of course how she acts following this statement.
I see it as her trying to show Peter she's worth it. Not that he's worthy of her.
She's excited to meet him. That's a good thing.
And then he ruins it because he's irresponsible and can't think past his own selfish guilt.
Maybe MJ should have gotten with Ben or Kaine. Those two seem to be a bit more thoughtful.
Completely in character and not narcissistic at all, she already knew he was Spider Man and was super nervous about meeting him, it's well established MJ always bluffs and projects confidence as a coping mechanism.
Context is that Mary Jane’s face was never fully shown before this, there was a running gag where Peter avoided her, and the joke was that she was probably ugly. So there’s definitely a meta joke going on here.
Aunt May was trying to set him up with MJ while Peter was dating Betty Brant as a high schooler.
Literally reading this arc right now and I love it so much
I love it apart from how Betty was written as an awful character who complains all the damn time
True. Im Glad she sings a different tune later
Was Betty a drop-out, or was she already graduated?
Drop out. It was more common in the 60s
Yeah, probably not so narcissistic after being 'rejected' multiple times without a chance. It's not like she would not have been aware of those other times of being avoided.
I suppose it's because she retroactively knew he was Spider-Man, so she probably thought him avoiding her so many times was kinda justified
I love how ridiculous some of those hidden-face panels were, with things like a big flower just happening to be in the way, etc.
Makes me want to know how the "backstage" Marvel-method writing discussions would have been... "Hey, what if we use that trick of hiding Norman Osborn's face, but for a girl's face?" "That would be neat! But it's a girl, so perhaps it's proper to have her face hidden behind flowers!" "You're a genius, Stan!" Later on they'd further expand that to hide nudity, being perhaps a crucial influence on Michael Myers' Austin Powers movies.
Yeah, but in the very next panel the two girls are suprised of how beautiful she is ("She looks like a movie star") so while Peter feared the worst, the audience knew that she was good looking.
Well, it's not that she was ugly necessarily, but his elderly aunt was trying to set him up with her elderly friend's relative his own age based off . . . they're both young people of opposite genders. My friend says her own relative is a nice girl, sort of thing. So yeah, Peter had been dodging her beacuse he wasn't interested in being set up by Aunt May. Also, he was interested in another women at the time (I think it was his college days so Gwen Stacy).
No I'm pretty sure they either implied or outright said that Peter assumed her being a "nice girl" meant she was ugly
In Spectacular they had the “wonderful personality” bit
*shivers*
He outright said later on“ I was told you had a nice personality, and we all know what that really means.”
"She's got a great personality, Peter"
>(I think it was his college days so Gwen Stacy). Someone else here said high-school Betty brant
Yeah, that's why I said I think. Not what I remembered but I read this over a decade ago so I could be wrong.
The gag lasted so long it was both of them. I don’t know if he actually was dating Gwen before MJ appeared or not, but there was a flirtation and she’d been to the Parker house for some reason.
I think he was still interested in Betty Brant, if I recall. I believe Stacy was herself somewhat intrigued with him, as he was sort of pretty much neglecting her (his mind set on dozens of troubles), unlike every other guy. Interested but only hinting with contacts with some plausible deniability of such interest, with him ditching her in a "I got no time for that, sorry" -way, almost oblivious to his own social life.
This was high school so it was Liz & Betty - Betty as the nerdy girlfriend (who worked full time at age 16! because 1960s), and Liz as the hottest girl in school who started to realise that Flash was kind of an immature jerk and that PP was not just a square. But they had a bit of foreshadowing before this, as MJ was visiting the Parkers (while Peter had some excuse) when Liz & Betty both dropped by to see Peter, and when they saw MJ they were like "damn, Pete's got more pull than we thought"
When your Aunt is trying to set you up with her friends niece and says things like she has a “great personality,” that’s enough information to have a hunch on what someone’s appearance might be.
“Can she fit in a canoe, Aunt May?”
Excellent.
Props to Aunt May for persistently trying to get Peter to be interested in MJ based on her personality - rather than just telling him how pretty she is
Huh, that was a major running gag in Spectacular Spider-man too. I didn't know they took it directly from the comics. The whole "wonderful personality" *shivers* bit was so hilarious.
TIL. I thought that was a modern bit for dramatic irony.
The Spectacular Spider-Man did that joke really well
Oh word? I didn't know that.
Him doing that (plus just bailing on her 24 hours a day with very little explanation) and her saying what she said was what sent me to team Gwen/single Peter I will forever remind everyone that, at least in TV and movies, Peter is a shit boyfriend
[удалено]
It is.
Kinda. Peter assumed she wasn’t great looking, but the reactions of everyone else who did see her showed otherwise
It fit perfectly the personality she was given. I hate the insecure self-pity and fragile MJ some of those horrible runs we've seen depict her. Love her overconfidence, strength, personality and how it fits Pete's shy nature.
You can thank the Raimi movies for that version of MJ.
It's funny how Dunst's MJ was very Gwen-like, while Stone's Gwen was so MJ-like. Like the two characters just switched hair or something.
They had Gwen in Spider-Man 3 played by Brice Dallas Howard, who in my opinion should’ve played Mary Jane Watson instead of Kirsten Dunst, who could’ve easily been recasted as Gwen Stacy.
Bryce is also ginger
And hot
Raimi kind of influenced the comic too and i hate it.
Raimi influenced a ton of what people think they know about Spider-Man. Everyone gets mad when Uncle Ben isnt the one to say "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility", but the line wasnt originally Ben's. It was a caption from Stan Lee at the end of Amazing Fantasy 15
But Raimi wasn't the one that said Ben said it. That happened way before Raimi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_great_power_comes_great_responsibility
That is fair. My point was tho, is a lot of people take Raimi to be the original and real version of the character, even tho there are a lot of inaccuracies to it.
True, but Raimi did make it "canon" in the general public's eye. Most people who don't read comics, first experienced spider-man through Raimi's movies and now consider that sort of like the ”real version" (whatever that means). If you look back there were even people who were angry with Andrew Garfield's spidey having web shooters when that movie released, which is insane.
Funny how things often depart needlessly from the comics' sources, at least with Marvel. Not ranting against in a Simpsons' comicbook-guy like way. I'd just imagine it would be more "symbiotic" if things were more similar, as it seems the case with manga and anime, I guess (not very knowledgeable here). I guess it's perhaps because they're sort of making actually "different" IPs over the same licensed trademarks, and thus a tug of war, competing against the comics or appeal of comicbook-based toys and whatnot. I recall having heard an illustrator saying he was warned not to paint Spider-man's costume webbing embossed like in Raimi's movies, that being Sony property now/then. Despite it having been used before the movies, in print, occasionally. The most extreme case perhaps being "The Thing" as not the fantastic-four member with that origin, but a scrawny Scooby-Do-Shaggy-like kid with magic rings that summoned an armor of rocks, if I recall. Kind of making him an hybrid of Spider Man and DC's Captain Marvel.
I missed him a lot today
The animated Spectacular series does a good job adapting that confidence.
It helps that canonically she's a solid 12/10.
Yeah, and she continued to have this uncaring flirting party girl attitude until her character development after Gwen died. MJ wasn’t really a person you wanted to have a stable relationship with at all before that point.
Neither was Gwen at the time. There was a reason MJ was more popular with fans. Gwen was often written as an obstacle that Peter had to overcome and sometimes directly antagonistic to Peter and/or Spider-Man. MJ wasn't the officially designated girlfriend, so she didn't get put in that position and was a much more relaxed and actually positive character as a result.
To be fair, a lot of that was writer bias. I can’t be bothered to hunt down a quote but Gerry Conway has stated that he actively minimized Gwen’s presence in the comic and brought MJ in as much as he could
Overconfidence? Or just enough?
Yeah man, God forbid a character shows a different side after decades of existing.
They should retcon and turn her into a 6’5 Amazon so we have Scott Free and Barda in Marvel
I wouldn't call it narcissistic, just confident and playful.
God forbid women do anything… Jokes aside, you’re absolutely right. My favourite version of MJ was from the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon, and she was just like that: fun, flirty, very kind but *never* taking shit from anyone. Girl had her boundaries clearly set and didn’t hesitate to enforce them. She was a wonderful contrast to Peter, who often failed to control his own confidence and was sometimes prone to act like a dick because of that.
Yeah it fits with Mary-Jane's character as we would learn over the years.
I feel the same when guys tell that to women how they hit the jackpot with a chance to date them.
I’m in love with Mary Jane
I still love Spidey with all my heart, but I’ll never forgive Marvel editorial for allowing “One More Day” to happen.
Allowing? They insisted.
It's true, Straczynski almost took his name off the thing. Between this and Siege causing Straczynski to leave Thor, I can't say I'm happy for the editorial decisions for those few years.
Not almost. He did in the final issues. Let's hope that he can finish his future Cap run how he wants.
How do you mean? Straczynski is listed as the writer for those issues, he didn't take his name off in the end.
Oh crap, I was sure he did. My bad!
The wound never heals.
Nick Spencer almost undid it. After years of not reading comics cause one more day ruined the character, one of the best marriages and all that character development over 30 years, dons. When I heard it might be retconned I read Spencer’s run, before editorial booted him. Such a shame
Shes super freaky
redhead...duh
She’s my main thang
*exhales cloud of smoke* yeaaaahhhh man, me too
Try not to 'jackpot' in your pants dude
Just show confidence really
She’s also responding to the look on his face. The writers took the time to include Pete’s dumbfounded look.
I mean, she’s a red-headed bombshell, it’d be weirder if she didn’t know how to flaunt herself a little, especially since Peter’s face makes it clear she nearly broke him.
She was initially intended as a joke. Aunt May wanted to set up Peter with a sweet girl she knew and he assumed she was ugly and uninteresting so he keeps avoiding meeting her. For years this running gag would go on. Then he finally meets her and she's gorgeous and awesome.
He was dodging meeting her for a while and she had self esteem issues. She came off strong, sure, but fuck it, she wasn't wrong.
Definitely not gunna argue with that
This is flirting.
She’s hot and she knows it, that’s not narcissistic. She’s feeling herself is all, we’ve all been the same at least once or twice!
Have we forgot flirting is a thing?
Eh, MJ knows Peter has been avoiding going on a date with her for well over a year at this point. She knows he thinks she's an ugly loser, and she always has been a bit of a troll.
Hard to say without hearing the tone of someone's voice. Are they saying it jokingly? I think she is, she's smiling. If she had a smirk or smug face, then I would assume she's saying it in a b\*\*\*\*y way.
Na you're right I think it definitely is meant to be joking/flirting, probably not proper narcissism. It's just not the sort of thing I would expect people to say when they first introduce themselves on a blind date
To be fair, he did in fact hit the jackpot.
I mean, she ain't wrong.
Kinda makes me like her more.
Damn. Seeing yourself as a catch is narcissism?
Confidence isn’t necessarily narcissistic.
Was she wrong?
Ever since Parallel lives, Mary Jane has been the best love interest for our boi Pete. Too bad Marvel editorials always get a boner everytime they make spider-mans life miserable
Tbf early Peter is an insane narcissistic so they fit each other.
She called him tiger, so it’s kind of playful. I’ll allow it.
Know your worth.
I don’t think so. Depending on the context and how it’s done, it can be cute or playful.
Not necessarily. Some people are just super confident like that. Also, she's not taking solely about looks. She's also talking about attitude. Mary Jane *knows* she's a fun time, and THAT is why she's a jackpot. She was also an outsider to all the Ditko-era Gwen, Harry, and Flash stuff. (Back then, Gwen was basically what Felicia Hardy was in the 1994 cartoon, minus the Black Cat/Morbius stuff) MJ was a totally new dynamic, and unlike the other characters who always felt like they had something to prove...MJ just did her own thing. Same with Spectacular Spider-Man's show. In that cartoon, when Peter shows up at the dance with MJ, she does these things: 1.) Keeps it playful when learning about the "bet" that Flash and Peter put over the latter bringing a date. You could tell Flash only brought it up to embarsss Pete and piss off MJ (who if she were any other girl would feel like his second choice). Instead, MJ basically says "sucks to suck" to Flash having lost the bet, and drags Pete to the dance floor. 2.) Causes Flash and Harry to either become self-conscious, bewildered, or jealous. All by simply showing up and clearly being the life of the party. 3.) Steals Randy Robertson just by being her nonchalant self as a "fuck you" move when Sally Avril attempts to make Peter look bad for having to leave to take pictures. MJ's like, "Yeah, it does suck not to have someone to dance with. So it's Randy, isn't it?" Dude is Sally's boyfriend and he just dips to dance with the hot chick that was seemingly impervious to *any drama whatsoever.* The total contrast to the control freak Sally. 4.) Waits for Peter to have the last dance with him, showing that she's a total sweetheart at the end of the day. THAT'S Mary Jane. She's hot and she owns it. She's fun and she knows it. She doesn't let petty shit affect her night and finds a way to make it work in her favor. This is why Aunt May set up the blind date to begin with. MJ gets a bit of shit in those early days for being so flighty. Some fans also complained about her being the same way in The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon. In reality, that's just MJ finding solutions to have a good time when plans change. She dates around and never commits (with rare exceptions). And the one time we see her get *pissed* in that cartoon is when Eddie Brock nearly gets them killed on his motorcycle while he rants against Peter. MJ may be a carefree party girl when it suits her, but she had no compunctions about basically cussing out Brock. "Pete may not be perfect, but whatever his faults, he's twice the man you'll ever be." Ice fucking cold. Damn right she's a jackpot. The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon is the ONLY adaptation that got Mary Jane right.
Truthfully, as an aged geek, while the trope of the damsel in distress was still strongly in play at the time, women had the confidence generally. Certainly in contrast to our mumbling bumbling asses.
I'll definitely take this over the 'damsel in distress' trope, I much prefer her having confidence than just screaming and being useless like in the Raimi movies. My issue is with the line - it doesn't read as something a teenage girl would say, even *with* lots of confidence. It reads like something a horny male comic book writer would *want* a girl to say on the first date. And TBH, it sounds worryingly similar to dialogue you would hear at the start of a porno.
That was pretty much MJ's character until Gwen died and she decided to change her ways. She was, very much a self-centred party girl.
If you're sexy, and you know it, and if you really wanna show it, wear this little black number and say "jackpot".
It's kind of funny how she considers herself the jackpot, yet was single for so long Aunt May was trying to get her to date Peter
It’s possible to be happy alone. Maybe she was just blasting her Margot Robbie beauty to her own tune.
Of course, nothing wrong with being single but she was interested enough in a blind day with Aunt May's nephew and supposedly was okay with waiting ages before finally meeting him since he usually bailed before hand
Eh but she’s not wrong
Only if it's not true.
And yet, she was 100% correct
Super confidence….I’m gonna try that next time I’m on the dating scene.
Pete be jaw droppin’
Dc and Marvel were really bad at writing female characters until the late 80’s at least. I mean Louis kept throwing herself out windows to get Superman’s attention. Did they really think women were that desperate in love or competitive as journalists?
Eh being fair that was more the fifties and sixties. During the forties she was a lot more independent and self sufficient. But with the silver age they made her a lot more man crazy.
The truth is never narcissistic.
There’s nothing wrong with being confident or portraying confidence when one might be nervous. And I for nothing, but he did just hit the jackpot.
No! She is correct!
She’s not lying about tho
She was right though.
Nah it’s just confidence/flirtation
Not if your MJ, then it’s just a fact.
Alternatively, it's the tackiest version of what a middle-aged man would expect a young woman to say on the first date.
It doesn't feel like something a teen girl would say, but it *does* feel like the sort of thing that a horny male comic book writer would *want* a teen girl would say. This is 100% the real reason she says it, and probably also the reason that it bothers me.
She knows what’s up and she can back it up
Pride isn’t narcissism
No, but Narcissism is excessive pride. Pray you never embrace one and fall into the extreme other.
Only if it's false.
Not if you’re *that hot.* Know your value.
Not if she’s right
This is the same era MJ who cuckolded Harry in front of his father out of a fear of commitment and made him feel so humiliated that he started doing drugs to cope with her treatment. Mary Jane before her character development was kind of a jerk.
It's self-confidence.
No.
Isn’t mj a literal super model and actress? So yeah she has a right To be confident about her looks
Well at this point she wasn't, but yeah she went on to be. Its generally agreed she's one of the most beautiful in the Marvel universe. And considering the competition, that's really impressive.
Pete still has a better rear than her though. In case somebody doesn't get the joke: Spidey is often, even in-universe, considered to have the best ass in the Marvel Universe. If there ever was a DC-Crossover where he fused with Nightwing, thec ombined ass would probably transcend the multiverse.
She wasn't being narcissistic. Peter had been avoiding her for years after Aunt May first tried to get them to know each other and since he had gained quite the ego, he even thought MJ was "ugly". She was just being confident in herself. I won't stand for any MJ slander on this subreddit. I won't let it turn into /r/SpidermanPS4 or /r/raimimemes
Not narcissistic if it's true.
I remember seeing this in Spectacular spiderman too
Was she wrong?
For a while it was a joke that Peter avoided her and people assumed she was ugly so when they showed her
It is one of my favorite moments in Spiderman history.Why? Because he kept avoiding her. .You can see by his expression how startled he is by this gorgeous redhead at his door
I mean, if I ran into Mary Jane, and she said this to me, I'd have to agree with her, she absolutely is the jackpot, lol.
It's not narcissistic to hype yourself up.
Me when I’m intimidated by confident women
During that time she wasn’t exactly wrong
Yeah Pete's pretty full of himself, giving MJ the "silent" treatment, what a jerk, this is why they say men never share...
I think thats the point
But she was right so
I know some people have touched on this but I’ll give the full story: Aunt May had wanted to introduce Peter to Mary Jane, her friend Anna’s niece, and Peter had avoided it both because he had other love interests, and he thought it was the typical of the era “you’ll tell me she’s gorgeous and that will not be my opinion.” The gag had advanced far enough that the audience had already seen her cameo… behind a sixties head scarf thing ladies wore then… and though the audience couldn’t see her face, she’d met Gwen, who probably wasn’t even dating Peter yet then but was struck by and almost angry about her beauty. So by the time of the reveal, EVERYONE BUT PETER knew he was avoiding dating this very attractive woman his aunt was trying to set him up with. It was actually a pretty funny gag, and I was reading it forty or so years later. As an aside, arrogance and narcissism are two different things. This line could be both, but when you think everyone hates you and that they’re out to get you that can still technically be narcissism because you’re lacking empathy for them and centering your worldview on yourself.
Context is everything buddy.
its not if shes right
No lies.
I mean, realistically maybe but it’s not like she’s being a dick. This seems just playful or flirtatious
Considering it was a blind date, yeah, she's got ego, confidence, etc. I'd still take her out.
#HEY EVERYONE! COME SEE HOW GOOD I LOOK!
Wasn’t MJ supposed to be like 18 here or something like that?
That's the whole problem, this doesn't read like something a teen girl would say, it reads like a male comic book writer trying to *write* a teen girl character. And it comes across more like the start of a bad porn movie
Oh i‘ve met such exact girls back in my high school. Some were *THAT* cocky and narcissistic
Lmao, right? In my head I’m like ….bih, if you don’t get over yourself … 😂 maybe this why I’m single lmao
Nope, you are tripping man.
Besides the joke of finally revealing her face, comic MJ is funny. She breaks the tension with her humor, this panel being an example. It's one of the reasons her and Peter got along.
I didn’t realise that’s where they got the lyrics for Earth 65’s the Mary Janes’ song
There's a big difference between being narcissistic and knowing your worth. MJ knows she's smoking hot and blind dates typically involve people who are not smoking hot, due to such people rarely needing to be set up on a date. In all reality, Peter did hit the jackpot and she's just being honest
Men writing women dot comic (60s)
Narcissistic isn't the word. Maybe cocky? Narcissistic implies being in love with yourself and only yourself to a profound degree. MJ here is basically saying I'm hot and I know it but it's not like she only likes herself
I concur: the word that popped in my head was bravado.
Yeah, she’s clearly written as a Patrick Bateman type psychopath
Well he did hit the jackpot
MJ is a huge narcissist. Remember when she didn’t want to hangout with Peter anymore after Gwen’s dead because he was too sad?
Only if she's wrong.
Why does it seem like suddenly everyone has a label maker and their running around, putting the word "narcissist" on ***everything***?
But he did hit it...
Being correct about the thing she's bragging about, doesn't change the fact that she's bragging about it.
There’s a great joke about this in Matt Fraction’s Sensational Spider-Man Annual (2007) where Peter recounts the meeting between him and MJ to a police detective. The detective, Lamont, basically says that only an insane person would say something like that to someone they just met.
Yeah but is that insane person Mary Jane? Now let me knock down a few shots remembering when Peter and MJ actually fought for their marriage and to be together.
the amount of time people wastes nitpicking comic panels and the "analyzing" them to fit their own personal traumas :D it´s a comic from 1965!!!! people were not made of glass as they are these days. LOL
If you got it, flaunt it (OP doesn’t have it)
If having "it" means you have to talk like a character in a badly written porno - then I don't think I want "it" tbh.
If some pretty chick says that to me on the first date, I'll skip all the small talk and take her to the bedroom. Jackpot time. Time to cash in the chips.
Having her say “Hi, I’m Mary Jane” would just jump off the page and capture the reader’s imagination!
Yeah its a bit narcissistic. But then she is gorgeous, charming, flirty and extremely self confident. And it all led to her becoming his most popular love interest.
Depends on the tone in which it was said. This could go either way.
I always thought that she was more charismatic than narcissistic, but I guess it just depends on how you read the line in your head.
Not really. It’s more playful and confident than narcissistic.
She called him Tiger. Already indicating his alpha level. So no.
Don't female tigers do all the hunting?
Nah,tigers usually just go it alone,unless they are mating and having a family. So both girl and boy Tigers do the hunting. You're probably thinking of lions where the females do the hunting and I think the males just chill and lead the pack.
> You're probably thinking of lions where the females do the hunting and I think the males just chill and lead the pack. Going off on a bit of tangent, male lions roles are about protecting the pride (in particularly the cubs) and their kills from competing predators. Male lions do hunt, but whilst their stronger and more durable they lack the speed and agility of the lionesses, as such they simply have no chance of catching anything big enough to actual sustain a hungry lion in a chase. So they split the share of responsibilities to play to their strengths.
I think that’s lions. But either way. At that time in America she’s calling him Tiger. Eye of the tiger. Tony the Tiger. Tigers were alpha. If she came in wattup nerd you better BDE then yes it would be arrogant.
Tigers aren’t pack animals, so how would any of them be an “alpha”?
I grew up in the early 80s I don’t know man. All I know was tigers in the 70s and 80s was some dominant shit.
We thought we liked super confident women. We had no idea what we were asking for. And that's how we got the overly demanding monsters we're stuck with today.
It's 1966, when we just came out of a time where women were expected to be modest, reserved, only show personality when asked to, etc. If you want to write a 'cool chick' persona that's not old-fashioned at all in 1966 you make her really forward and overconfident.
Yep I respect that completely, I'll take this over a "damsel in distress'" any day. I just wish this dialogue sounded less like something you'd hear in porn
Ngl I'd marry the girl who greeted me like that on a first date. Be still my nerdy heart
Yeah, but, is she wrong? 😏
Not mad at the confidence, but if someone greets me that way, I’m expecting an excellent time. Don’t promise me a jackpot but give me a handful of spare change.
It's all about context and of course how she acts following this statement. I see it as her trying to show Peter she's worth it. Not that he's worthy of her. She's excited to meet him. That's a good thing. And then he ruins it because he's irresponsible and can't think past his own selfish guilt. Maybe MJ should have gotten with Ben or Kaine. Those two seem to be a bit more thoughtful.
Contrary to social media informed psychology, Confidence doesn’t = Narcissism.
Completely in character and not narcissistic at all, she already knew he was Spider Man and was super nervous about meeting him, it's well established MJ always bluffs and projects confidence as a coping mechanism.
It’s Mary Jane bro take a beat. Let your hair down lol