In If Her Hair Was Still Red, I take a look at all of Mary Jane Watson's comic book appearances in chronological order (by date of publication). Mary Jane's progression as a character fascinates me.

We are now BASICALLY in the midst of the original Clone Saga now, with Amazing Spider-Man #130 (by Gerry Conway, Ross Andru, Dave Hunt and Frank Giacoia) having the Jackal try to manipulate Spider-Man, Doctor Octopus and Hammerhead into killing each other. Of course, since this is VERY early on in the Clone Saga, Gerry Comway likely did not have the Jackal's motivations fully thought out, so he wants to kill Spider-Man outright while we later see that he would have probably not been happy had Spider-Man died at this point. Anyhow, the Jackal is not really relevant to this conversation. This is also the story where Spider-Man and Human Torch debut the garish Spider-Mobile, which Spider-Man is embarrassed by.

The stuff we're interested in, though, starts when Peter stops by his apartment. The apartment he still shares with his roommate, Harry Osborn, who is clearly suffering through a mental breakdown following the loss of his father, Norman Osborn...

Peter is talking to Aunt May when Mary Jane stops by to invite him to the Christmas Eve party that Betty Brant and Ned Leeds are throwing...

Professor Warren was mad the other issue. The discussion about Peter's intellectual interest are intriguing. We really aren't told much about what Mary Jane is in college for. She is just sort of THERE, ya know? I don't even recall if we got to see when she enrolled in school. She just sort of appeared there out of nowhere one day, right?

Peter actually looks pretty good in that festive sweater. It's interesting to know that he owns an Aretha Franklin album. I guess we really don't get much info on Peter's music tastes, do we?

Later, when Peter arrives at the party, there's an interesting line when he enters the room, about how if he didn't have this party, he'd be alone on Christmas Eve, but Mary Jane points out that he would always have her...

They have such an odd relationship right now. They're plainly not dating, and yet that's a rather major thing to say at a party in front of a room full of people, right?

I would love to know what Mary Jane wants to give to Peter, but Jonah interrupts them and then Peter wants to read the letter that came to him involving Aunt May...

It's fascinating watching Peter really not even thinking much about Mary Jane at this point. Obviously, the letter tells him that Aunt May is getting married to Doctor Octopus, so Peter heads off, leaving Mary Jane at the party.

She gets a chance to talk a little with Ned Leeds, who is a bit of a weirdo here, pontificating on how fast Peter is apparently moving on. Good on Joe Robertson to tell him off a bit...

Peter obviously never comes back, but Mary Jane waits UNTIL FIVE FIFTY IN THE MORNING FOR HIM! How awkward must have that been for Ned and Betty? "Uhm, Mary Jane, you get that it is almost 6 am, right?" But there is the kicker - the big moment where we learn that Mary Jane specifically IS in love with Peter, even though she feels like crap at the moment because he ditched her...

What a great ending.

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Amazing Spider-Man #131 has guest pencils from John Romita. It also re-introduces Liz Allan, as Gerry Conway clearly tries to expand Peter's circle of friends. When Peter runs into a distraught Liz, he instantly thinks to rely on Mary Jane to watch over her...

The next issue, we see Mary Jane and Liz bond a bit...

Meanwhile, in Marvel Team-Up #20 (by Len Wein, Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito), we see Wein's take on Mary Jane is a bit similar to how Stan Lee and John Romita had her back in the day, where she is someone willing to run into danger to find Peter...

Even if it means running into a stampede of dinosaurs!!

The now-established circle of friends gets a little tighter in the next batch of issues. We'll take a look at them next time.

If you have any thoughts about Mary Jane's comic book history or any of the issues that are coming up (we're up to Amazing Spider-Man #134 now), feel free to drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com, I'll be sure to include your thoughts in my next column...well, "be sure" is a stretch. It depends on what your thoughts are!