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.

Man, I totally lost track of when Len Wein's run ended. I thought that there were a couple of issues left after his final storyline with Harry Osborn and Harry's psychiatrist (who stole the identity of the Green Goblin from Harry), but that was it! So I did not properly sum up the state of the Peter/Mary Jane relationship at the end of Wein's run (which I enjoyed a lot, by the way). I actually edited the last installment when I realized it was it for Wein to give a quick summation of his run vis a vis Mary Jane, but I thought it would make sense to go into more depth here.

Okay, so we all know by now that Stan Lee thought of Mary Jane as just "that other character" during his run, someone for Peter and Gwen to double date with and for Gwen to have some catty bits with, but not someone for Peter to actually DATE. It was clear that Lee was all on board the Gwen train. Then Gerry Conway took over, killed off Gwen and slowly built Mary Jane up as THE love interest for Peter, bookended by the two famous clicks, the first one where Peter berates her after Gwen's death but she decides to stay (closing the door "click") to remain with Peter to console him, as a demonstration that she IS getting past her earlier, flightier days. She is actively deciding NOT to run. Then, after Gwen "returns" via the joy of cloning, Peter makes a conscious effort to pass over this second chance with Gwen because he realizes it is Mary Jane that he loves. He goes to his apartment and sees Mary Jane waiting for him and he closes the door to give them some privacy (the second "Click"), which almost certainly was meant to imply Peter and Mary Jane hooking up for the first time.

Len Wein then took over the series, and as we have seen the last few installments, he made things bumpy for Peter and Mary Jane and while they resolved their active arguments (where they were jerks to each other for a while), the resolution sadly ended with Mary Jane and Peter entering into a platonic relationship. They were super close, but all romance had been sucked out of them. In the process, though, Mary Jane had become more and more of a giving personality, as we see that her last appearance in Wein's run is literally being the only caregiver for Aunt May (you know, NOT HER ACTUAL AUNT). Peter appreciated her efforts, but it didn't seem to be particularly romantic in nature.

Enter new writer, Marv Wolfman. Reader Jack E. wrote in to commiserate a bit about the then-upcoming Wolfman issues and he pointed out to a quote from Wolfman in TwoMorrows' Back Issue #23 and it does not bode well for Mary Jane, "I actually never much cared for MJ except as an occasional girlfriend type. She's been altered to be turned into a caring person but that wasn't her initial character. I'm old enough to have read the originals when they came out so I have a different view on her than someone who came after her makeover."

Fascinating stuff, right? It's always interesting to see how writers can differ when it comes to character changes over the years. Some would look at it as the character evolving/maturing, but there are always going to be those who think that that growth doesn't stay true to the character. Wolfman isn't alone in this position (as a general idea, that is, not necessarily in regards to Mary Jane).

In Amazing Spider-Man #182 (by Marv Wolfman, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito), Peter visits Aunt May at the hospital, where Mary Jane continues her sort of vigil and Aunt May pushes him to settle down with Mary Jane...

Now, I honestly am not actively pooh-poohing the idea of saying, "Huh, I guess it's probably time for us to get married," but dude, come on, it shouldn't go down like, "Man, even my Aunt wants me to get married, I guess I'll do it."

At the end of the issue, Peter proposes...

Get ready for the response!

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Here is a hint - she says no!']

Before we hear what Mary Jane has to say, we first see Peter reflect on his possible upcoming nuptials and he is still going about it all wrong. "Yeah, this will be good. She'll stabilize me." She'd be your wife, dude, not a pet!

Anyhow, the end of the issue shows her answer and she shuts Peter down HARD...

Dang, that wraps that up super blithely, right?

At the end of the issue, that's Betty Brant who surprises Peter. That's a whole other thing. Next installment, I will post Bill Mantlo's attempts to deal with Mary Jane's decision with a bit more depth.

We're up to Amazing Spider-Man #184 and Spectacular Spider-Man #22 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!