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Leah Williams (Writer) Chi-Town Spidey (Review)
Carlos Gomez (Artist) Brad Douglas (E.I.C)
Carlos Lopez (Colors).
Various Artists (Cover Artist)
Kathleen Wisneski (Asst Editor)
Nick Lowe (Exec. Editor)
C.B. Cebulski (E.I.C)
Recap: “Down in Flames, Up in Smoke” is just has a few more scenes to film and their lead Spider-Man actor, Charlie, quits. MJ dawns to the webs (“Boob Socks” at all), and convinces Mysterio to use his special effects to make MJ more “manly” during filming. Master Matrix and Mary Jane have a nice little chat about being honest with Peter. The Savage Six finally find a way to discover the secret filming spot by ambushing and getting the information out of Charlie. *EDITOR’S NOTE: Everyone! I’m a bit tied up at work right now, and free time is scarce so Kelly is going to tackle the Story and Thoughts for me because she’s awesome! Thanks “Kay Day”!
Story: We start off with Mary Jane in her character’s superhero get up filming her very last shot. She decides to get changed and clean up her trailer before watching the last scene of principal photography get filmed – as she’s heading back she notices the Sinister Six getting out of a VW van. MJ knows what she needs to do, and that is to kick some serious butt.
MJ single-handedly gave the “B-List Savage Six” all she had. Which was pretty effective. We see Turancula get taken out by a set-piece, Rhino gets kicked down a hill, and Stegron get “eaten” by an automatic T-rex head. Cobra had to battle Mysterio’s classic X-Men robots and Scorpion got caught in a vat of SFX quicksand. The only to really catch our fearless redhead by surprise is the Vulture, who picks her up and drops her. Luckily the film crew was able to finish their last shot and the calvary is ready to back MJ up! Thank goodness for Quintin Beck hiring super-powered help, because the fight ended pretty quickly once everyone got involved. Adrian Toombs finally admits to Mysterio that he was just jealous but vows this fight isn’t over — as he flys away. The issue ends with Mary Jane deciding to take the crew out for their wrap party.
Thoughts: This is issue is filled with really cute, fun moments and leaves you with almost no downtime until the end. Full of action, but because of that the issue feels like it wraps things up a little too quickly. I was left wanting more! Which, thankfully the series has at least 5 more issues, if not more – so I’m excited to see what else 
our illustrious Leah William has in store for us. I think my favorite moment was when she looks down to see, I think it’s Charlie (who sold them out in issue 4) dropping the SinSix off, and MJ doesn’t freak, she doesn’t fret. She just sighs and takes off her hoop earrings. Those things are terrible to wear in a fight!
That’s the Mary Jane Watson I grew up reading. She’s never going to back away from a fight she believes in. She believes in protecting this movie and giving Quintin and everyone else on set a chance to do something positive with their gifts, with themselves. The issue isn’t as strong as the last issue because it felt so quick, and some confusing contradictions from past issues with #5 set up but I’m still excited to see what new story we are going to get from Williams now that Mary Jane is headed home!
Not quite A material, but a darn good time if you ask me. Amazing Mary Jane is becoming my favorite series right now and I can’t recommend it enough.
Thank you, Chi-Town for letting me moonlight an article!
– Kelly “KayDay” McDaniel🕷️
Does anyone else think that the facial expression on the Ramos Cover (on your left) for this issue makes Mary Jane look like a crazy Ex-Girlfriend? It’s almost close to a female Joker. Compared to Gomez’s (on your right) facial expression makes MJ look like a BadA$$!
TidBit: Speaking of being a BadA$$ which Mary Jane, clearly is, below is a picture of villains and supervillains that Mary Jane has been able to beat, outsmart, or even overwhelm them at times. I’m just factoring in the 616 universe, the list does continue if you travel towards the Renew Your Vows, Spider-Girl, or beyond even that. Still for just the 616 this list is most impressive. Comment below if you think I missed any. Yes Stegron made that list and I’m sure George is pretty upset about that, but I know that he has a big soft spot for Mary Jane so maybe he’ll let this one pass?
“NO WAY CHI-TOWN! You know Gwen Stacy is Peter’s true love and is quite a much a BadA$$ as MJ.” Well, you are very wrong. Gwen is Peter “First Love”, not to be confused with Mary Jane who is his “TRUE LOVE”. Now I know a lot of you “Emma Stone fans” out there love Gwen and I’m not saying she didn’t do anything to Spidey’s villains, because the FACT is that she DID DO SOMETHING and to Spider-Man’s greatest supervillain no less, but you may not like it or the outcome it brought…I’m just saying
SAD NEWS!
https://www.instagram.com/p/B8x-yPZIl_x/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
The VERY TALENTED artist that was on this series, Carlos Gomez will be ending his run after issue number six. I have always said that Mr. Gomez’s art worked so well with this book and matches Leah Williams writing. They both shared a huge amount of soul and passion to this series and especially to the characterization of Mary Jane. You can definitely tell that in Gomez’s splash pages this issue! We at the Crawlspace are so very thankful for his work on Mary Jane and hope to see him back in the Spidey-Verse very soon. For now, bigger things are happening for him and we at the Crawlspace are very happy for him and wish nothing but the best! Please follow him on Instagram and support what ever work he has coming next, you won’t be disappointed. It’s always a treat to see his artwork! Mr Gomez, we will miss you!
GRADE: B+ (VERY CLOSE to an A-)
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I finally caught up on the initial arc.
I’m sorry to be the bad guy here but everyone lauding this series is really not recognizing the poor writing on the page. There are a metric ton of problems from a continuity stand point and from just the five issues on their own.
This series is not good. I hate saying that but it’s true. This story was waist deep n mischaracterization, stupid logic and just generally bad writing.
Love this review! I just wanted to add Green Goblin in the list of the villains MJ had owned, since she shot him in Marvel Knight and slapped him in Sins Past.
@AC. & @ William: I agree, but MJ is smart enough to know that these supervillains are really all about ego and she did use that against them. Once Vulture slapped her, the fight was over. Their underestimating time ran out and it was about to get real, MJ stalled them just enough for the shoot to be over and the cavalry arrived and she looked like a bad ass doing it.
It went down a letter grad fro me because I wanted there to be some truthful closure between MJ and Peter at the end. I’m sure we’ll get that in #6, but I was looking forward to the type of scene I saw at the end of issue #1.
I really enjoyed the issue, the whole run has been great in general and I love where things have gone. I think her standing toe to toe with the Savage Six *was* a bit much, but it did seem like by the end of it, she had mostly inconvenienced them, she didn’t outright defeat them. I know that even being able to do *that* is probably too much for some, but I think it works better when you take into account how many Supervillains she’s dealt with, and how much the Savage Six were probably underestimating her. I think it’s a bit of a contrivance that she did so well, but it’s definitely not a deal-breaker for me like it seems to be for others.
Great review, i look forward to reading more, even if I don’t quite agree. I love Mary Jane, and absolutely think she’d be good in a fight, (she’d kick my ass, and i’d probably like it,) but she still has only normal human abilities. Holding off a team of super villains for an extended period of time by herself was a bit much for me, and really took my enjoyment of the issue down a few letter grades.
Thanks for helping out, Kay Day!