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 have now hit a weird part in the life of Mary Jane Watson. There are now three Spider-Man ongoing series, but the weird thing is that Mary Jane is now not really appearing in the MAIN Spider-Man series, Amazing Spider-Man! You see, it appears as though Len Wein has taken the chance to use him resolving the relationship strife between Peter and Mary Jane (as explained in a recent If Her Hair Was Still Red) as a way to basically not worry about her anymore. He hasn't written her out of the book, per se, but because he doesn't have a lingering sub-plot involving her and Peter's relationship hanging over his head, he just doesn't use her that much. However, since Spidey had two other series, Mary Jane still appeared in a lot of comics, including the first time that ANOTHER John Romita drew her in a comic (plus the first time that John Byrne drew her in a comic)!

As noted in another recent If Her Hair Was Still Red, the creative reason for the introduction of Spectacular Spider-Man (the real reason was they figured that they could make more money with another Spider-Man comic book series) was that since page counts had shrunk so much that they felt that Spider-Man's supporting cast was not getting enough attention, so Spectacular Spider-Man was meant for them so that Len Wein could concentrate on action-based stories. It did not really work out that way in general, but an exception was in Spectacular Spider-Man #7 (by Archie Goodwin, Sal Buscema and Jim Mooney) where we see Mary Jane visit Aunt May and MJ's Aunt Anna and we get to see some commentary by the older women about the ever-evolving nature of Mary Jane...

In Marvel Team-Up #58 (by Chris Claremont, Sal Buscema and Pablo Marcos), Peter and Mary Jane are on a rather generic date...

Claremont was back in Spectacular Spider-Man #11 with Jim Mooney and Mike Esposito for another generic Peter and MJ date...

And we're right back to a generic date in Marvel Team-Up #68 by Claremont, John Byrne and Bob Wiacek...

Bill Mantlo tries to pick up on some plots in the regular Amazing Spider-Man series in the 1977 Amazing Spider-Man Annual (#11), working from a plot by Archie Goodwin (and drawn by Don Perlin and Jim Mooney), as he has Peter find out that Aunt May has been arrested during her protests for elder rights...

He needs to bail her out, but where is he going to get money?

Spider-Man takes a deal working with the movie production, but in the end, Spider-Man takes down some bad guys involved in the project...

It is nice that he got his money back!

That's the main story in the issue. The back-up is historic!

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='The younger Romita debuts!']

The back-up story in the series is written by Scott Edelman with Al Milgrom doing inks. The pencils? The Marvel Comics debut of John Romita Jr.!

In a throwback to the early days of his father, Peter and MJ go back to the old coffee house days...

It turns out that the whole attack was staged so that the singer, Paul Cassidey, could stop the bad guy and get attention and a big music career. However, they turn deadly when Spider-Man figures out their gig.

By the time they get back, Mary Jane is piiiiiiiiiissed....

Great debut by JRjr!

Finally, after missing a few issues, Mary Jane shows up in Amazing Spider-Man #173 (by Len Wein, Ross Andru, Mike Esposito and Tony DeZuniga) to give aid to Liz Allan, who was arrested after stealing chemicals to help her step-brother, the Molten Man!

At the end of the issue, Liz possibly breaks up with Harry as she feels terrible about her life after the Molten Man seemingly dies.

That's it for Mary Jane for the next few issues.

We're up to Amazing Spider-Man #176 if you have any thoughts you'd like to share that I might share with the others in the next column! Again, you can write me at brianc@cbr.com! Hopefully we get back on track with some Mary Jane stories that MEAN something!