As of December, Mary Jane Watson-Parker (yeah I still call her that) will be joining Iron Man as a new supporting character, written by Brian Bendis – who I honestly didn’t even know was writing Iron Man.
Via Newsarama:
Starting in December’s Invincible Iron Man #4, Peter Parker’s ex-wife Mary Jane Watson will become a regular part of Tony Stark’s supporting cast. This is a marked change from the past, where Watson has been part of the Amazing Spider-Man and associated Spidey titles as a character.
Despite the change, writer Brian Michael Bendis confirms that the pair do already know each other.
“They know each other. She used to live in Avengers Tower. But that’s all I’m going to say for now because what kind of relationship they end up having is a big part of what I would like people to buy the book for.”
While Bendis was hesitant to disclose the exact nature of their relationship, he did say it was ‘new.’
“What I can tell you is that it is new territory for both Tony and Mary Jane. And that is pretty exciting to write.”
“I [have] spent most of my time at Marvel writing the teenage version of Mary Jane [in Ultimate Spider-Man],” he continued. “This is a grown-up woman who has been through a lot. She seems like one of those characters that went down certain paths that may not have panned out the way she hoped; and she’s ready for a kick ass second act.”
The article errs in that Mary Jane is not Peter’s ex-wife; remember that in the dystopian “QuesadaMephistoDevilBrickSlottverse” Peter and Mary Jane were never married. But then I still consider that fanfiction of the worst kind.
This is definitely designed to make you think Tony Stark and Mary Jane will be… you know, doin’ it… by Christmas “because reasons,” but it also might be a giant swerve manufactured to make you angry. You know how Marvel psy-ops work, troops. Spider-Fans are seasoned vets with this stuff.
On the plus side? She presumably remains out of Dan Slott’s hands. The downside is she may still be handled wrong, just by a different writer this time. We’ll hold out hope that MJ doesn’t become the lastest victim of what has to be the Marvel Universe equivalent of the Derek Jeter Herpes Tree.
Marvel does love their little “reality slaps,” don’t they? Sigh. Anyway, thanks to Crawlspacer Jay Maddox for the heads-up via Facebook, and to our own Mike McNulty, who I think mentioned this as a rumor on the podcast awhile back and I had just forgotten about it (and who also just wrote about it, now that I check. Heh!)
EDIT: How out of the loop am I this week? Our message board Crawlspacers have already been talking about this since yesterday. *sigh* Sorry folks! Been a rough week!
–George “Aww Jeez, Not This Crap Again” Berryman!
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@#54: A BS half-assed theory was that the Other powers burned themselves out or else that they were removed so that Kaine could get them. Really I would’ve just said Peter transfers the ‘extra life force’ he got from the Other to Aunt May and that’s how he saved her. Those magic chest compressions were literally magic chest compression and he was transferring his life force to her at the cost of his extra powers.
@#57: Except it isn’t ignorant. He knows what she’s canonically referred to in the context of the current narrative but he calls her MJ Parker as a point of rejection of that narrative because he (rightfully) dislikes it and because she SHOULD still be called that were she both written in character and had not been taken so egregiously off track along with the rest of Spider-Man.
Since Renew Your Vows is over…. and MJ is going to become a part of Iron Man’s supporting cast, the only comics where MJ and Peter are still married is the Spider-Man newspaper strip. You gotta give Stan some credit for that.
Just spitballing here, no evidence to back me up…
…but you know how RYV #5 had three very interesting words on the last page, in the second to last text box? (not sure when something is no longer considered a spoiler).
And DC is on a big PR push with its new Lois and Clark title, in which Lois and Clark, survivors of a world that no longer exists after Convergence, are hiding out on the DC main world (I don’t really read DC, although I did read the Lois and Clark Convergence story, so apologies for not knowing all the terms) with their nine year old son.
And since DC and Marvel seem to come up with the same ideas at the same time…
and since Marvel is saying there is more to come that we don’t know about yet…Bendis just repeated that today on his Tumblr….
What if there are plans for a Peter, MJ and Annie title? Either set somewhere in the multiverse (we know Spider-Gwen goes back to her universe and the Web Warriors will be dimension hopping, so the multiverse is not completely dead after Secret Wars) or perhaps, like Miles, they find themselves in a world that isn’t theirs?
And putting MJ in Iron Man is one way to compare and contrast the two sets of characters? After all, “our” Superman is dating Wonder Woman, not Lois.
That way, “our” Peter stays single and free from the relationship Dan Slott says is fated to go nowhere. Mary Jane doesn’t stay on the Slott bus, but gets exposure to Iron Man fans. And then they can still use the critically well received RYV family…
…Or not.
It’s just a wild, random thought. But throwing it out there.
@53
That’s really the way I always saw it. The primary change in OMD was everyone’s memory. Course then we have to deal with things like no organic webshooters….
But then, I don’t feel particularly inclined to clean up ALL of Marvel’s nonsense. You’re quite right. Marvel’s POV is meaningless, if for no other reason than that it’s woefully inconsistent and has no recorded point of reference.
@#49: Buzz can be a doubleedged sword. The need to live up to buzz and popularity led to the Punisher and Wolverine being spun-off but also caused Venom to be broken from what he should be back in the 1990s.
I’m hoping MJ and Tony more or less have a friendship ala Ult Gwen and Ult Peter which was platonic before Peter began dating her Carnage poop clone…
@#50: If you look at Days of Future Past, Age of Apocalypse and House of M as well as Spider-Girl: The End, there is strong evidence to support the idea that in changing time the altered timeline can become an entity unto itself.
For this reason let us say Pre-OMD Peter and MJ are still ‘out there’ somewhere in the Multiverse and Sacasa’s last story with them (narrated by God Himself) became canon for them.
Also they are still married in the newspapers so…
In my headcanon I say Mephisto merely erased their memories. The marriage still happened in our timeline but no one remembers it and the events of OMIT are false memories implanted into the minds of the characters.
@#50: Marvel’s POV is meaningless to the debates of canonicity. There is no Word of God involved. The stories themselves are the canon.
@#52: If they do date I’m going to be using Van Lente logic to say deep down they aren’t serious about it no matter what they say or do.
the tony and MJ potential romance is the thorn on the side here, and it was never confirmed nor denied.
even if its confirmed i highly doubt its going to be worse than the situation mentioned above.
as i said before
all we know about their relationship is that is new terrain for both and that when she enters the comic in December tony’s world will never be the same again.
this can mean many things.
personally i think that it there will be a lot of ship tease without nothing actually happening for most of next year at least, just to keep selling, if they tease for too long and nothing happens fans will lose interest, and they will have to shake things up, then they will either have then get together for shock value, but causing a lot of bad fells, this is what we can consider the easy route, or the hostage route.
or something else we are not expecting may happen…
if Bendis decides not to go the romance route, he will have to tell a tale that can keep the reader interested without depending on the shock value, with is the hard route but, potentially, will lead to a more complex and tasteful story.
Oh, you know Marvel doesn’t care about anything that even looks a little bit like logic. They wanted the marriage gone. poof! It’s gone. Then they wanted Mephisto subtracted from the equation. Poof! “Mephisto accidentally erased himself from his own deal, by a time-paradox. Isn’t that amazing! Now let’s all accept what we say you should be enthusiastic about…” Nonsense. An erasing time-paradox would reset time. It would mean the deal never happened in the first place. Do you think they even care? No, because they don’t do a good job on their stories as a rule, and this story in particular stank. Brevoort’s rationalization of the whole thing was a tower of stupid, and made as little sense as the psychic blind-spot. Marvel’s POV now is, “C’mon, just pretend along with us, you irritating nerds.”