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.

First off, before I get into the next batch of stories, my buddy Joshua Lapin-Berone, who is a fine writer about comic books, differed a bit with me over my last column.

I wrote the following:

In the next issue, which features Ross Andru's debut as the new penciler on the series (inked by Johns Romita and Mortellaro), Flash talks about life with Mary Jane and she explains how she just wants to help while also trying her best to keep a smile on her face, but Peter and Harry make it so difficult...

The implication is that Gwen just died within the week, so doesn't Flash come off as the biggest jerk? "God, it's been a WEEK, Parker, if you're still upset about your dead girlfriend after a week, that's just self-pity. Same with you, Harry, dads die all the time! Get over it!" (granted, later, we would learn that Flash's dad was an abusive drunk, so it probably retroactively informed his opinion regarding Harry). However, Harry's jerky behavior led Mary Jane to finally say, "Forget these guys. I'm not going to make myself feel bad just to help them feel better."

And then I wrote:

Later, Mary Jane tries to deal with Harry again, but he's ALL the way around the other bend....

Joshua's bone of contention is that we saw Mary Jane back together with Harry Osborn before Gwen died due to them taking the old story by Stan Lee and John Romita that had appeared in Spectacular Spider-Man #1 (the magazine that came out over 50 issues ago at this point) and was adapted into a story arc in Amazing Spider-Man to give the title one last Lee/Romita story arc after Lee left the book, so he believes that they are still dating right up until the point where Harry ignores her in Amazing Spider-Man #126 and she walks away from his apartment. Therefore, if you believe that they have been dating for the past 10 issues or so, then Mary Jane's behavior towards Harry is a bit sketchy.

My take on that is that while I get that technically they were still dating because that Spectacular Spider-Man story WAS adapted into an "in continuity" story arc, I don't believe Conway was treating them as a couple during his issues. Joshua notes that she calls Harry "lover" and Peter calls her "Harry's girl," but I think Mary Jane calls everyone stuff like "lover" and Peter was still calling her "Harry's girl" even when they were explicitly broken up around Amazing #100 because Peter is a bit of a patriarchal weirdo sometimes. I don't believe Conway was writing her as Harry's girlfriend in his issues specifically because she was so distant from Harry during all of Conway's issues. I think that the main reason you would think that she was Harry's girlfriend is because of a re-used story from 50 issues earlier (which, to be fair, they did update in other areas to make it more current, but kept the Harry/Peter/Mary Jane/Gwen stuff the same) that I doubt Conway was looking at much more than essentially an extended reprint.

But hey, either way, it was an interesting point by Joshua so I figured I'd bring it up here.

Now on to the Mary Jane saga, which is about to cross over with the Clone Saga!

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Peter Teaches Mary Jane About Civic Responsibility After She Watches Someone Be Murdered...Because Of COURSE He Did']

Showing her increased importance in the title, Mary Jane appears on the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #127. Not just on the cover, but even gets a little spotlight bit on the cover...

Okay, so Mary Jane witnesses a murder and she is obviously freaked the heck out...

Now here, Gerry Conway, I believe, really nails a key part of Peter Parker's characterization that I think Dan Slott was always good with, as well. Peter's initial responses to things are often TERRIBLE. This is a dude who was like, "Oh man, it sucks that I don't have enough money to buy Gwen a nice present. I guess I'll just steal her some jewelry." This is a dude who was like, "Oh man, Flash Thompson was captured by Doctor Doom because he was dressed as me! He's totally going to die! Awesome!" The issue is that most of the time, Peter has enough time to fix his initial dumb instincts. Other times, he just does the first dumb thing he thinks of, like shout at a close friend who just saw a murder and tell her she is a coward if she doesn't go to the cops...

The next day, Mary Jane tries to pretend the whole thing is some really avant garde joke, but Peter isn't buying it. Flash Thompson comes by to offer them a ride to go buy some more cocaine when the Vulture attacks!

He says he couldn't help Flash here, but I dunno, doesn't really seem like he even tried, right? Maybe he's flashing back to that time Doctor Doom kidnapped Flash ("I might be done with him if I just let him crash here!")...

He rescues Mary Jane's life as he keeps her from hitting the ground without snapping her neck (a huge progression for Peter), but we see how messed up he is still that he calls her Gwendy...

The next issue, Mary Jane is doing better (probably the cocaine from Flash)...

He comes to get Mary Jane to take her to the cop. While he's obviously trying to help her out, he's still weird about it....

Vulture turns out to not be the real Vulture (long story - doesn't matter).

The next issue, the Jackal debuts, which kicks off the Clone Saga. The Punisher shows up, as well. However, the only thing we need to know is that Mary Jane is dealing with some issues where she is trying to reconsider whether she wants to go for someone who is as dark as Peter is. This is an interesting insight into Conway's take on Mary Jane. It's almost as if she's trying to convince HERSELF that she's just a flighty party girl, right?

Okay, next issue is a really big Christmas party in the life of Peter and Mary Jane. I figure I'll make that more or less its own post.

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 #130 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! Joshua's thoughts were worth discussing, maybe yours will, too!