Mary Jane Watson

• 1. Face It, Tiger

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  Mary Jane Watson, the Marvel Comics character, makes her most famous entrance on the last page of The Amazing Spider-Man #42, published in November 1966. Peter Parker finally meets her there, and he is stunned by her beauty. She greets him with a line that fans still repeat: "Face it, Tiger… you just hit the jackpot!" What makes the moment remarkable is how long readers had waited for it. Until that page, she had been a rumor, a joke and a partly hidden figure. This documentary asks how a running gag grew into the center of Spider-Man's love life. It asks what her loud, sparkling personality was covering. And it asks why writers and editors keep rewriting her story decades later.

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• 2. A Running Joke

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  In The Amazing Spider-Man #15, dated August 1964, Mary Jane Watson is mentioned but never seen. Peter Parker's Aunt May keeps trying to set her unwilling nephew up with a friend's "nice girl" niece. Peter keeps wriggling out of the date. He assumes that anyone his aunt likes cannot possibly be his type. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created the character, and the gag ran for a long while before she appeared.

  In issue #25, from June 1965, Mary Jane finally stands in a panel, but a plant blocks her face. Liz Allan and Betty Brant both see her, and both are shocked by how attractive she is. Readers get only their reactions.

  John Romita Sr. designed the version of her that readers eventually saw. She is a green-eyed redhead of Scottish descent. Romita said he used the actress Ann-Margret in the movie Bye Bye Birdie as a guide. He borrowed her coloring, the shape of her face, her red hair and her form-fitting short skirts.

  The writer Peter David praised the result in 2010. He said Romita "made the definitive statement of his arrival by pulling Mary Jane out from behind the oversized potted plant that blocked the readers' view of her face in issue #25 and placing her on panel in what would instantly become an iconic moment". The word "Tiger" stuck as well. It has remained her best-known nickname for Peter across comics and media adaptations.

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• 3. The Reader's Choice

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  Stan Lee later admitted that Mary Jane was never supposed to win. He and Romita had planned for Gwen Stacy to be Peter's one true love. Mary Jane was introduced "just for fun".

  Gwen was written as a sweet Daddy's girl who resembled Peter in temperament and intellect. Mary Jane was her opposite, a vampy and liberated figure of the 1960s counterculture. She was extroverted and fun-loving. Lee said that "somehow, Mary Jane seemed to have all the personality, and much as we tried to make Gwen more attractive, we couldn't!" He added that the creators felt it was "as though the characters had taken over!"

  Readers felt the same way. Fans found Mary Jane more exciting than Gwen and demanded that she replace her as Peter's main love interest. Their enthusiasm changed the plan for both characters.

  Lee was also asked about an unrelated coincidence. The names "Mary Jane" and "MJ" are common slang for marijuana. He insisted the overlap was accidental, saying that he knew nothing about drugs and had never tried marijuana.

  Gerry Conway took over writing The Amazing Spider-Man from Lee in 1972. He pushed Mary Jane to the front of the cast and made her a serious love interest. Like Lee, he preferred her to Gwen. In his view, "Gwen didn't have an edge. She was just a nice person." Mary Jane was capable of complicating Peter's life, "which makes her a much more interesting character".

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• 4. Behind the Mask

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  Mary Jane's cheerful, party-loving manner was a mask over a troubled home life. Her early romances show how much damage that mask could hide. She dated Harry Osborn, Peter's friend, for about a year. When the relationship ended, Harry suffered a drug overdose. The crisis pushed his father Norman Osborn to the brink of insanity and briefly restored his memories as the Green Goblin.

  In The Amazing Spider-Man #121, the Green Goblin murders Gwen Stacy. Mary Jane tries to comfort a devastated Peter. He lashes out at her seemingly flighty, carefree attitude and tells her, "You wouldn't be sorry if your own mother died." He did not know that her mother had in fact died. Hurt, she walks toward the door, hesitates, and stays.

  That choice became a turning point. Over the next couple of years she and Peter grew very close as friends. The writers reshaped her into a more caring and empathetic person, and she became one of the few people to consistently know Peter's secret.

  Love still did not come easily. When Peter proposed, she took a short time to think and then turned him down, because she hated feeling tied down. After a run of traumatic experiences, including danger to Aunt May from Peter's costumed life, she left New York for several months. Peter dated other women, most notably Felicia Hardy.

  When Mary Jane returned, she had dropped her false front. After Puma attacked Peter, she broke down and admitted that she knew his identity, in The Amazing Spider-Man #257. She told him it changed nothing about her feelings. Her own family history came out in #259, and Peter found a new respect for her.

  Later stories explained how she had learned his secret. In the one-shot Amazing Spider-Man: Parallel Lives and in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #16, she saw Spider-Man climbing out of Peter's bedroom window after his uncle's murder. Earlier comics had said only that she figured it out.

  A second proposal came after Peter returned from Berlin, bitter and directionless. She refused again and went home to settle old debts with her father. She helped her sister have their crooked father arrested, then had an epiphany about marriage. This time she agreed to become Peter's wife.

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• 5. The Wedding Years

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  In 1987, The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 married Peter and Mary Jane. The decision was editorially mandated. Stan Lee had chosen to marry the characters in his daily newspaper strip, even though the two were not dating in the regular comic at that point. The main Marvel universe followed suit.

  Both bride and groom worried that they were marrying too early. Peter feared for her safety, and she did not want to give up her party-girl lifestyle. She added his surname to hers and became Mary Jane Watson-Parker.

  The writer J. M. DeMatteis made the marriage central to the acclaimed story "Kraven's Last Hunt", published the same year. He said the story was mostly about Peter's journey into the light and the power of simple human love. In his words, "The reason Peter makes it out is because he has Mary Jane in his life, and that is his salvation".

  Married life brought danger. A stalking Venom frightened her so badly that she convinced Peter to give up his black costume. Her wealthy landlord, Jonathan Caesar, grew obsessed with her, kidnapped her and later used his business connections to have her blacklisted as a model.

  She then took a role on the soap opera Secret Hospital, where she disliked her character's air-headed and mean personality. A man posing as a policeman named Goldman shot Caesar dead. He turned out to be a fan who had staged accidents to hurt people he believed were harming her. Later, a deranged fan tried to kill her because of what her soap character did, and she quit.

  The marriage strained under pressure. The actor Jason Jerome tempted her toward a secret affair. She rejected him, realizing that her craving for romance could be satisfied by her husband.

  She also began smoking again, a habit she had quit in high school. Peter tricked her into visiting Nick Katzenberg, who was suffering heavily from lung cancer, and she stopped. When Peter's supposed parents were exposed as fakes, he disappeared for a time. Mary Jane used the break to visit her sister Gayle and her father for the first time in years, and she reconciled with them. Next came a storyline that began with a clone.

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• 6. Loss and Disappearance

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  During the 1994-96 "Clone Saga", Peter's clone Ben Reilly appeared, and Mary Jane discovered she was pregnant. Reilly's scientist friend Seward Trainer helped her through complications. Trainer also told Peter and Ben that Ben was the real Peter Parker, and tests that Trainer had rigged seemed to confirm it.

  Peter, disbelieving, struck Mary Jane while arguing with Ben. He decided to quit as Spider-Man because his double life was endangering his wife and unborn child. Under hypnotic suggestion from the Jackal, he then tried to kill her. Ben, as the Scarlet Spider, along with the New Warriors and Kaine, stopped him.

  The couple moved to Portland, Oregon, and lived peacefully for several months. They missed New York and returned. During the Onslaught crisis, a Sentinel robot scanned Mary Jane and detected genetic abnormalities in her fetus. When the baby was already past due, Alison Mongrain, an agent of the Green Goblin, poisoned her. The baby was stillborn.

  Ben died in a battle with the reborn Norman Osborn. Peter learned that the tests naming him the clone had been rigged as part of Osborn's plan to break his spirit. He went back to being Spider-Man.

  Mary Jane returned to college to major in psychology. Then, in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #13, dated January 2000, her plane exploded in midair. Peter fell into deep denial and insisted she was still alive. He was right. A telepathic mutant stalker, unnamed, had connected himself to Peter and kidnapped her. He held her for months, then killed himself after glimpsing the terrible things he had done. Peter and Mary Jane were reunited in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #29, from June 2001.

  Her captivity drove her away. She moved to Los Angeles and threw herself into acting, starring as the doomed love interest in the film Lobster-Man. After a chase of missed meetings across two coasts, they finally met in an airport in Denver, Colorado, and reconciled after a brief encounter with Doctor Doom and Latverian terrorists.

  The 2006-2007 "Civil War" storyline then took everything she had. Charlie Weiderman burned down the Parker apartment and Aunt May's house, and Mary Jane moved into Stark Tower with Peter and May. Peter later secretly moved her to a cheap motel, afraid she had become a hostage in a luxurious house. A Kingpin assassin took aim at Peter and hit May instead, turning the family into fugitives.

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• 7. The Devil's Bargain

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  In the 2007 storyline "One More Day", the devil Mephisto offered Peter a deal. He would save the dying Aunt May, and in exchange the knowledge and memory of Peter and Mary Jane's married life would be wiped from reality. Only a single subconscious fragment of their souls would remember, and Mephisto would feast on that pain for eternity.

  Mary Jane accepted, despite loving Peter. She attached conditions. Spider-Man's secret identity had to be restored, and she asked for a chance at happiness. In the revised timeline, which begins at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man #545, the two were never married but "dated seriously for years".

  Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada presided over the story, and he drew it. He explained that he felt the marriage aged the characters, made them less appealing to young readers and reduced their "soap opera" possibilities. He added that divorce, widowhood or annulment would have been worse. He also said he was an avid fan of the Peter and MJ relationship and pointed to the alternate MC2 universe, where they are happily married, as a natural progression.

  The newspaper strip first adopted the erasure. Readers reacted so negatively that Lee later revealed it to be a bad dream. In the strip, Mary Jane remains Spider-Man's wife.

  In the comics, she came back in the "Brand New Day" storyline as the girlfriend of the actor Bobby Carr. Hiding in a panic room during a fight between Spider-Man and Paperdoll, she spoke to him over an intercom. She said the two of them made a great team "in another life", and she touched a monitor showing his face.

  The 2010 storyline "One Moment in Time" revealed more about the deal. Mary Jane had whispered to Mephisto that Peter would refuse unless she told him to accept. Mephisto agreed to leave Peter alone forever once it was done. She had done it to protect him.

  The same story filled in the lost wedding. Peter missed what was meant to be their wedding day because of Spider-Man business, and she demanded that he retire. When he refused, she concluded they should stay unmarried, since any children they had would be endangered. Doctor Strange later cast a spell to make people forget Peter was Spider-Man. Peter leapt out of his protective shell and pulled Mary Jane inside, so she would not forget either.

  She told him she still loved him but was not strong enough to stand at his side. He began dating Carlie Cooper. Mary Jane respected the new relationship and encouraged Peter to tell Carlie the truth.

  During "Spider-Island", a virus gave New Yorkers spider-like abilities. Mary Jane first manifested no powers and was caught up in citywide riots. Her long contact with Peter gave her a degree of immunity to the transformation's side-effects. She later gained spider-powers of her own and helped defenseless citizens. In the 2012 storyline "Ends of the Earth", she bought a nightclub.

  She and Peter drifted back toward dating, but Otto Octavius had swapped minds with Peter. The Octavius version drank heavily, treated loved ones rudely and kept making advances she turned down. His Spider-Bots once saved her from the Vulture gang, and by then he had developed genuine feelings for her. He ended the relationship, vowing to keep protecting her. Once Peter's mind returned, she said she could not let his dual life affect her anymore. She wanted to build a life of her own through her nightclub and her new relationship with Ollie.

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• 8. Many Masks

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  Mary Jane has worn many identities in Marvel's stories. In Marvel Team-Up #79, from 1979, she was revealed to be the modern-day descendant, or reincarnation, of Red Sonja. Holding her former self's sword lets her become the warrior. She later returned to that role in the limited series Spider-Man/Red Sonja, by Michael Avon Oeming and Mel Rubi.

  Iron Man brought her a different path. In the All-New, All-Different Marvel era, she opened a nightclub called Jackpot in Chicago, Illinois, after her earlier club, MJ's, was destroyed in a superhero battle. Madame Masque's fight there damaged it beyond repair. Iron Man found her mourning in Grant Park and offered her a job.

  She first declined, because she was uncomfortable around F.R.I.D.A.Y., Tony Stark's artificial intelligence. When Tony left on a mission, F.R.I.D.A.Y. asked her to help keep the company out of the board's hands. She told the board she was the new executive administrator. She later accepted a place at Stark's side.

  On the battlefield, she once put on Peter's Iron Spider armor to help fight the powerful Regent. Peter warned Tony not to take her for granted, as he had not realized he lost her until she moved on.

  She also became the third Jackpot in Armed and Dangerous. Felicia Hardy gave her a costume and a tech watch, and Mary Jane said she finally understood Peter's mantra about great power and great responsibility. In All-New Venom, by Al Ewing and Carlos Gómez, she became the new host of Venom.

  Alternate universes pushed the idea further. She is the superheroine Spider-Woman in Exiles, where she is a lesbian, and in Marvel Mangaverse, where she is straight. She is Spinneret in Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, and Carnage in Spider-Gwen.

  On screen, Kirsten Dunst played Mary Jane in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. Shailene Woodley had an uncredited silent cameo as her in the 2014 film The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Zoë Kravitz voiced her in the 2018 animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Nicole Delaney and Melissa Sturm voiced other versions in its 2023 sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

  A later chapter ties her to the devil who once took her marriage. In the "Sinister War" storyline, Doctor Strange gambled with Mephisto in Las Vegas for the soul of the true Harry Osborn. Strange asked why Mephisto had pursued Peter, and Mephisto answered that he foresaw a future where Peter would end his reign over the Earth. Then the vision changed. The one who ultimately stops the devil is a red-headed Spider-Woman.

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