![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Joe Quesada versus Mary Jane
Jan. 11th, 2007 03:08 amThere is a theory, amongst many working comics professionals, that super-heroes should not be married. In particular, this comes up about Superman and Spider-Man, because those characters are both married in their comics, and have been for some years. I'm going to talk about Spider-Man.
(I swear to god, the gamer stuff is coming. Not that anyone is waiting with bated breath. This is more by way of a reminder to myself.)
The stated rationale for "single Spidey" is that coupled-up Spidey hampers reader identification. No reader can relate to Spider-Man. goes the claim, if he goes home to a supermodel every night. So, in order that his readers may feel at one with Spidey, he must remain forever without a wife and family.
This would be great, except that Peter Parker has been portrayed as a romantic boy ever since his strip began over forty years ago. We've always heard about the ups and downs of his love life. It makes no sense to claim that Peter doesn't want a wife and a family and the trappings of conventional adult existence, because he always has. And, frankly, to have him go through twenty years of Spider-Man comics and not ever see him be able to pull off a relationship... well, it makes him look like kind of a schmuck. (So does having him spend his life pining after his tragically-dead high school girlfriend.)
If Spider-Man is going to age, and if the strip is going to maintain its flavor of a super-hero coping with "everyday" life problems, Peter must eventually confront the everyday life problems of adults. And if my social circle is any indication, keeping relationships alive and healthy is a big problem for your grown-up types. It's not insurmountable. But it takes some effort and comes up fairly often.
There is one part of the claim I agree with: Mary Jane should not be a supermodel. More specifically, Mary Jane is not some reward Peter has earned for his years of selfless heroism. She is not Spider-Man's trophy wife, she's the best thing that ever happened to Peter Parker.
I can accept that Mary Jane will occasionally need rescuing from super-villains and explosions and such. That's on the super-hero side. What belongs on the "realistic" side, the ordinary problems side of the super-hero coping with ordinary problems, is a tough, sexy, savvy woman who occasionally fights with her husband the way real couples do, who occasionally needs support but just as often provides it, not in an "angel in the house" way but in the way adult people who are trying to cope do.
I have no problem with Mary Jane being the hottest woman on the block. I do have a problem with setting her up as some kind of fembot sex-machine and then objecting that Spider-Man, the working-class hero, shouldn't have that. He shouldn't, but the solution is not eternal immaturity. The solution is writing about adults.
(Whew. That became a book, huh?)
(I swear to god, the gamer stuff is coming. Not that anyone is waiting with bated breath. This is more by way of a reminder to myself.)
The stated rationale for "single Spidey" is that coupled-up Spidey hampers reader identification. No reader can relate to Spider-Man. goes the claim, if he goes home to a supermodel every night. So, in order that his readers may feel at one with Spidey, he must remain forever without a wife and family.
This would be great, except that Peter Parker has been portrayed as a romantic boy ever since his strip began over forty years ago. We've always heard about the ups and downs of his love life. It makes no sense to claim that Peter doesn't want a wife and a family and the trappings of conventional adult existence, because he always has. And, frankly, to have him go through twenty years of Spider-Man comics and not ever see him be able to pull off a relationship... well, it makes him look like kind of a schmuck. (So does having him spend his life pining after his tragically-dead high school girlfriend.)
If Spider-Man is going to age, and if the strip is going to maintain its flavor of a super-hero coping with "everyday" life problems, Peter must eventually confront the everyday life problems of adults. And if my social circle is any indication, keeping relationships alive and healthy is a big problem for your grown-up types. It's not insurmountable. But it takes some effort and comes up fairly often.
There is one part of the claim I agree with: Mary Jane should not be a supermodel. More specifically, Mary Jane is not some reward Peter has earned for his years of selfless heroism. She is not Spider-Man's trophy wife, she's the best thing that ever happened to Peter Parker.
I can accept that Mary Jane will occasionally need rescuing from super-villains and explosions and such. That's on the super-hero side. What belongs on the "realistic" side, the ordinary problems side of the super-hero coping with ordinary problems, is a tough, sexy, savvy woman who occasionally fights with her husband the way real couples do, who occasionally needs support but just as often provides it, not in an "angel in the house" way but in the way adult people who are trying to cope do.
I have no problem with Mary Jane being the hottest woman on the block. I do have a problem with setting her up as some kind of fembot sex-machine and then objecting that Spider-Man, the working-class hero, shouldn't have that. He shouldn't, but the solution is not eternal immaturity. The solution is writing about adults.
(Whew. That became a book, huh?)
