I was not expecting to be impressed by Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. It's a mini-series targeted at teenage girls (targeted like, they're the demographic, not targeted like, from a cannon,) about the day to day life of soon-to-be tiger-jackpot, Mary Jane. A beautiful, popular redhead with amazing grades and a close circle of friends who also has guys tripping over themselves to ask if she'll let them buy her next five dinners. You can see how this would have less appeal to some audiences than 'Lonely outcast nerd gets bitten by spider, gains spectacular superpowers, kicks a ton of ass.'
But what makes the series work is that Mary Jane is still very sympathetic, mostly due to this being one of the first works of media I've encountered that successfully manages to convey the message that being really pretty and talented and popular legitimately does bring a variety of problems to the table. Mary Jane's boyfriend is the cute, rich Harry Osborn! Which makes her feel self-conscious because he's always paying for everything, so she gets a string of horrible low-paying jobs. Mary Jane auditions for the lead role in a play, and gets it! This leads to the other candidate for lead role trying to sabotage her, despite MJ being under the impression that they are friends. All the boys have a crush on Mary Jane! And by 'all the boys', I really do mean 'all'. Including her best friend's boyfriend.
It's a decent deconstruction of how a God-Mode Sue would exist in real life; namely that they'd feel guilty about everything and end up as something of a Stepford Smiler. Another thing that's linked to in the story is that Mary Jane is quite clearly a little bit depressed, and while the series doesn't go into too much detail about it, there are little touches here and there that add some much-needed depth to the character.
The supporting cast are pretty great. Liz Allan is the bitchy blond best friend/drama queen, and her boyfriend, Flash Thompson, is more of a lovable jerk than outright bully. Harry Osborn's character is a little inconsistent, but considering where he gets his genes from, that sort of makes sense. And then there's Spider-Man himself, who Mary Jane has a teenage crush on, and Peter Parker, who takes a back seat to the action but still shows up enough for this to be considered a Spider-Man book. There's plenty of amazing in-jokes too for fans of the franchise, whether it's Harry musing that his Dad is a total jerk, or Liz Allan growing frustrated at the new girl and saying 'I'd like to throw Gwen Stacy off a bridge!'
I'd hesitate to outright say that it's a feminist series, but it is a series about a strong but sympathetic female lead dealing with day-to-day problems, who at no point is she obligated to put on a bikini and start bending over a lot, so by comic book standards, it's still probably in the top 2%.
All in all, good characters, good story, good protagonist, good series.
A Surprisingly Great Female Protagonist
I was not expecting to be impressed by Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. It's a mini-series targeted at teenage girls (targeted like, they're the demographic, not targeted like, from a cannon,) about the day to day life of soon-to-be tiger-jackpot, Mary Jane. A beautiful, popular redhead with amazing grades and a close circle of friends who also has guys tripping over themselves to ask if she'll let them buy her next five dinners. You can see how this would have less appeal to some audiences than 'Lonely outcast nerd gets bitten by spider, gains spectacular superpowers, kicks a ton of ass.'
But what makes the series work is that Mary Jane is still very sympathetic, mostly due to this being one of the first works of media I've encountered that successfully manages to convey the message that being really pretty and talented and popular legitimately does bring a variety of problems to the table. Mary Jane's boyfriend is the cute, rich Harry Osborn! Which makes her feel self-conscious because he's always paying for everything, so she gets a string of horrible low-paying jobs. Mary Jane auditions for the lead role in a play, and gets it! This leads to the other candidate for lead role trying to sabotage her, despite MJ being under the impression that they are friends. All the boys have a crush on Mary Jane! And by 'all the boys', I really do mean 'all'. Including her best friend's boyfriend.
It's a decent deconstruction of how a God-Mode Sue would exist in real life; namely that they'd feel guilty about everything and end up as something of a Stepford Smiler. Another thing that's linked to in the story is that Mary Jane is quite clearly a little bit depressed, and while the series doesn't go into too much detail about it, there are little touches here and there that add some much-needed depth to the character.
The supporting cast are pretty great. Liz Allan is the bitchy blond best friend/drama queen, and her boyfriend, Flash Thompson, is more of a lovable jerk than outright bully. Harry Osborn's character is a little inconsistent, but considering where he gets his genes from, that sort of makes sense. And then there's Spider-Man himself, who Mary Jane has a teenage crush on, and Peter Parker, who takes a back seat to the action but still shows up enough for this to be considered a Spider-Man book. There's plenty of amazing in-jokes too for fans of the franchise, whether it's Harry musing that his Dad is a total jerk, or Liz Allan growing frustrated at the new girl and saying 'I'd like to throw Gwen Stacy off a bridge!'
I'd hesitate to outright say that it's a feminist series, but it is a series about a strong but sympathetic female lead dealing with day-to-day problems, who at no point is she obligated to put on a bikini and start bending over a lot, so by comic book standards, it's still probably in the top 2%.
All in all, good characters, good story, good protagonist, good series.