Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #4

Background

With Liz helping out Peter to come up with a way to get Lindsay to finally back off of Mary Jane and to stop using Harry to do it, it's time for Peter to step up and actually do something for MJ to brighten her mood as well. Peter does the only thing that only he can do for her, he climbs to her bedroom window dressed as Spider-Man, and asks MJ out on a date.

Story 'The Fantasy Thing'

Back at school on Monday, Mary Jane has a brand new look on life. No more moping around the halls, she's now all smiles and is turning heads of every boy and girl she passes. All this does is infuriate Lindsay and Flash all the more. Mary Jane tells Peter that the whole reason why she's happy is because Spider-Man has asked her out on a date for this up going Friday. Peter remarks that this is exactly what she has wanted for awhile now and that its great to see her so happy again. There is a moment where it seems like MJ is a little sad that her happiness is with Spider-Man and not with Parker but is avoids this issue the same way she has been doing.

Later at the Coffee Bean Mary Jane tells Liz about her date with you know who and Liz can barely believe it. She also gives a little insight and advice to Mary Jane asking her what happens when her fantasy becomes a reality. Will it be as good as MJ thought it would be? MJ says that there's always a chance at disappointment in whatever you do but before she can get too into it Peter shows up and asks Mary Jane about her canceling their studying together that night. Mary Jane makes up some excuse involving the play and Peter starts to say that he would like to talk to her privately some time when, from the window, Peter sees the Rocket Racer go shooting by carrying handfuls of purses. Not waiting a single second, Peter leaves the two girls to their coffee. Liz pulls another un-Liz move and tells her that Peter, even though he's a nerd and all that, is a pretty stand-up guy and that he really cares about MJ, which causes her to make that sad, distant look she made earlier with Peter.

Even with Mary Jane pretty much on cloud nine 95 percent of the time, Lindsay Leighton is still trying to bring her down. During one of their rehearsals for the play Lindsay brings up the fact that Mary Jane doesn't know her stage left from stage right, hoping to knock her down a peg or two in front of everyone but to no avail. MJ is back to her carefree, chipper self and laughs it off. It'll take a lot more than Lindsay's two-faced rude/playful nature to ruin her current mood.

Mary Jane and Peter are walking to some meteorite exhibit when Peter comments on how they haven't been spending any time together anymore, but he blows it off before they can really talk about it. Instead Peter asks her to go to some other exhibit Friday night. MJ tells him he can't and that he knows why not. But Peter tries to get her to go with him anyway, pointing out that she doesn't even know what Spider-Man even looks like. Mary Jane starts to let him down when the Rocket Racer goes shooting by again. Peter makes some excuse and high-tails it out of there to go after him, leaving Mary Jane believing that Peter really wanted to get away from her at an awkward social moment between them.

The next day at the mall, Mary Jane tells Liz all about it. Liz brings up the fact that she still believes that Mary Jane is really interested in Peter and, in classic Mary Jane fashion, she quickly changes the subject to show Liz some Spider-Man earrings she could wear on her date. Liz laughs at her and tells her no way. The Spider-Man earrings just scream crazy stalker and that's really the last thing MJ wants to represent on her date with the wall-crawler.

Outside the mall Mary Jane and Liz get their bags taken by none other than the Rocket Racer (man this guy is everywhere) but he doesn't get too far. Spider-Man snags him with a web-line to the back of his head and ties him to a lamp post. Giving the bags back to the girls, Spider-Man asks MJ if they're still on for tomorrow. Liz does her best to make sure that she's watching him and if he does anything to hurt her friend, Spider-Man will have Liz to deal with.

It's now Friday and Mary Jane rushes to her front door after getting ready only to find Peter Parker standing there with a yellow carnation. Peter comes right out and says, "Don't go out with him. Go out with me." Mary Jane, in her half a dozen-th time this issue manages to not deal with the issue at hand and laughs at Peter saying he's such a kidder. She leaves him hurt as she walks away from him asking him to wish her luck on her date.

General Comments

Mary Jane is really excited about her upcoming date with Spider-Man and no one, not even Lindsay can bring her down from out of the clouds. Even though Mary Jane really is looking forward to dating the web-head, throughout the issue she seems to have these moments where it looks like she is starting to have strong feelings for Peter, but since Peter is her friend, she doesn't know what she can do. Instead of dealing with her feelings she's focusing on her fantasy date with Spider-Man. Even Liz thinks there might be something there between MJ and Peter and when she brings it up with MJ, MJ completely changes the subject as fast as she can.

It also appears that Peter is doing everything he can to avoid talking about his feelings for MJ. Every time it looks like he's about to, the Rocket Racer shows up and he must leave to go change into his costume to stop the RR from getting away. Each time this happens, MJ just believes he's trying to get away from her before something he either doesn't want to hear or something he doesn't want to say that is really on his mind.

The ending was nice where Peter finally got enough courage to actually come right out and tell MJ that he wants her to date him instead of Spider-Man. It's a touching moment but instead of MJ dealing with it, she plays it off as Peter being a clown and making a joke even though she knows better. She runs away from him to go on her date with Spider-Man.

Overall Rating

Another great issue from McKeever and Miyazawa (even though Takeshi's art was a little below par from his normal stuff. Maybe he was rushed or had something else going on this month). I thought it was classic Spider-Man luck with the girls whenever he wanted to talk about something serious some bad guy, in this case the Rocket Racer, would show up and he would have to get out of the situation as fast as he can to go change into his costume to deal with the villain-of-the-month. While he's rushing out to go be a superhero all that Mary Jane can think is that Peter is really just avoiding her.

It was nice to see the interaction with Lindsay take a backseat. That story isn't completely wrapped up just yet but it has been brought to a somewhat conclusion for the time being so that new story ideas can take shape. Lindsay still hasn't changed but for now, her backstabbing isn't doing any damage to anyone.

I was sort of disappointed with the issue seeing as how I thought that Mary Jane and Spider-Man's date would at least begin in this issue, but it was great to see how Peter is now trying to get Mary Jane to want to be with him as himself and not him as Spider-Man. We see how he tries to get her to like him as Peter, it'll be interesting to see how he manages to do that as Spider-Man.