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.

Okay, people, this is not a drill! We have reached the two issues that will change everything in the life of Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson and Peter "Spider-Man" Parker! Well, of course it changes Gwen's life because it, well, you know, ENDS IT! Duh duh duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

Gerry Conway was now firmly on board as the writer of Amazing Spider-Man, with Stan Lee now quite entrenched as Marvel's publisher and thus no longer had time to write any books. John Romita was still working on the book as an inker and cover artist and, more importantly, as sort of a creative overseer. Romita was in his early 40s while Conway was barely even 20 years old, so Romita had a big impact on those early issues. Conway and Romita decided to shake the book up by killing off a cast member and eventually they decided that they would kill off Gwen Stacy. Romita later noted that it was a common tactic in comic strips (Romita was a huge fan of Milton Caniff and Caniff would often kill of a notable character every few years to keep things interesting).

I think that the whole shock of the death was the real motivator, but I also believe that Conway felt that the Peter/Gwen relationship had grown too complacent. While we saw in the previous edition of this column, Conway really didn't use Mary Jane much in his stories, he still apparently was more interested in her as a character than Gwen. Years later, Conway reflected on Gwen to Sean Howe for Howe's brilliant book, Marvel: The Untold Story:

She was a nonentity, a pretty face. She brought nothing to the mix. It made no sense to me that Peter Parker would end up with a babe like that who had no problems. Only a damaged person would end up with a damaged guy like Peter Parker. And Gwen Stacy was perfect! It was basically Stan fulfilling Stan’s own fantasy. Stan married a woman who was pretty much a babe. Joan Lee was a very attractive blond who was obviously Stan’s ideal female. And I think Gwen was simply Stan replicating his wife, just like Sue Storm was a replication of his wife. And that’s where his blind spot was. The amazing thing was that he created a character like Mary Jane Watson, who was probably the most interesting female character in comics, and he never used her to the extent that he could have. Instead of Peter Parker’s girlfriend, he made her Peter Parker’s best friend’s girlfriend. Which is so wrong, and so stupid, and such a waste. So killing Gwen was a totally logical if not inevitable choice.

Anyhow, Amazing Spider-Man #121 (by Conway, Gil Kane, John Romita and Tony Montellaro) did at least give Mary Jane as an option of someone close to Spider-Man dying on the John Romita cover (imagine if the person who died was Randy Robertson. How effed up would that have been?)...

But, sure enough, the actual death was Gwen Stacy...

Conway himself added the "snap" sound effect, thus making it clear that Spider-Man snapped her neck before she hit the water, so, in a twisted roundabout way, you could argue that Spider-Man killed her. Do note that no one picked up on that aspect in the actual comic book stories for DECADES before suddenly every writer was working that into their stories about Gwen Stacy's death (it was mentioned in the letter columns early on, but never in the actual stories).

Okay, so that was one sound effect that changed Spider-Man's life for good. What is the other one?

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So Green Goblin initially gets away, but Spider-Man relentlessly hunts him down and there is another conflict, with Spider-Man ultimately keeping himself from killing the Goblin, but then the Goblin ends up dead anyways...

Okay, now here is the big moment that changes Mary Jane forever. She's waiting for Peter when he gets home and he just RIPS into her. He essentially repeats all of the things that we have seen Stan Lee basically show that he felt about Mary Jane as a character, only Peter tells it to her face....only she is too strong for this BS. She knows that it is just the grief talking and for once, she is not going to run away. She will face this problem with Peter, even if he is being a jerk to her and so she decides to close the door and stay with Peter, hence the "click."

I believe that John Romita actually re-drew the final three panels on this page. I can't seem to find any evidence of that, so maybe I am wrong there.

Anyhow, we are now into the post-Gwen Stacy era and Mary Jane is now the #1 love interest in the series. Some fascinating comic books still to come!

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 the end of Amazing Spider-Man #121 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!

Reader Chi-Town Spidey shared with me an interview he did with current Amazing Spider-Man writer, Nick Spencer, that included some Mary Jane discussion.