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.

As you might recall, when last we left our star-crossed not-yet-lovers, Mary Jane had admitted at a Christmas Eve party that she loved Peter Parker. Peter, though, does not know this yet.

However, we slowly see others pick up on this, like in the one-shot, Giant-Size Super Heroes #1 (by the regular writer of Amazing Spider-Man, Gerry Conway and the art team of Gil Kane and Mike Esposito), where Man-Wolf and Morbius fight each other. Before Spider-Man has to deal with that, he runs into Flash Thompson and Mary Jane Watson, and Flash quizzes Mary Jane about her being so obviously into Peter...

When we pick up with the regular series, though, in Amazing Spider-Man #134 (by Gerry Conway, Ross Andru, Frank Giacoia and Dave Hunt), Peter and Mary Jane are still keeping things casual. They're out for a boat ride along with Flash Thompson and Liz Allan, as Liz has now officially been worked into Peter's group of friends (a clever move by Conway to add more cast members to Peter's circle)...

A fight breaks out and we get to see the Mary Jane we haven't seen in Amazing in quite some time (but who just popped up recently at the time in Marvel Team-Up #20), as the firebrand who runs right into danger for a quick thrill...

Peter disappears to turn into Spider-Man and then Spidey shows up and Mary Jane is thrilled to see him...

It turns out that the boat HAS been hijacked by a new supervillain, the Tarantula, a character that Gerry Conway really liked a lot during this time, as despite him having no superpowers, he handles Spider-Man easily. Spider-Man is seemingly saved by Punisher, who then shocks Spidey by revealing that he thinks that Spidey is working WITH the Tarantula.

Things work themselves out, and Tarantula and his men head off and Punisher swims after them, leaving Spider-Man an angry boatload of people...

Mary Jane then JUST remembers Peter is missing!

Okay, so they start dating for real in the next issue!

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Peter and Mary Jane get together and it is explosive!']

What I like to see in popular fiction is the acknowledgement that young people actually have sex. Far too often in TV shows, they will go out of their way the other way, having their characters all choose to wait to have sex. It's just unrealistic. That's what I always liked about Happy Days. They made it pretty clear that Richie Cunningham was no virgin.

Conway has that approach to Peter and Mary Jane and it is quite refreshing. They are out on a date in Amazing Spider-Man #136 and suddenly they sure seem pretty serious, right? They make a lot of sexual innuendo. It's a cute series of conversations...

Ross Andru, Frank Giacoia and Dave Hunt sure went suggestive with Mary Jane's enjoyment of her ice cream cone, huh? The problem is that when Peter and Mary Jane go back to his place for some alone time, well...

Dang, Harry!

Luckily, Mary Jane isn't too wounded...

There is a good bit when Peter goes to the hospital to see Mary Jane and he begins to be haunted by Gwen's death...

The issue ends with Peter getting turned down for a leave of absence to deal with Mary Jane's injury and so he just quits, in an odd way...

In the next issue, it is interesting that Peter still mostly thinks of Mary Jane as just someone who is helping him through his grief...

In a nice touch of support for Mary Jane, most of Peter's supporting cast shows up at the hospital...

The Green Goblin is Harry, of course, and Harry kidnaps Aunt May, Mary Jane and Flash Thompson. Peter has to save the one who is "most dear" to him...

It's fascinating that despite Harry's jealousy, Peter assumes correctly that Harry is thinking Aunt May. How, though, was Flash even an OPTION here?!

Harry tries to out Peter as Spider-Man, but no one believes him.

Reader Jordan C. wrote in to share his awesome Mary Jane tattoo!

That's some dedication!

If you have any thoughts about Mary Jane's comic book history (or stuff like Jordan's tattoo) or any of the issues that are coming up (we're up to Amazing Spider-Man #138 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!