Friday, September 10, 2010

Some Final Thoughts on One Moment in Time

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I'm a Mary-Jane Watson fan-boy. Where there are plenty of people who think that Gwen Stacy is supposed to be Peter's true love, I'm Team MJ and as far as I'm concerned, she has put in more than enough time to be considered his designated other. While I can't deny that for the most part One More Day was not a very good story, the true victory for it lay in the fact that even though OMD was an editorially mandated move to split up MJ and Peter, it ended in a way that reminded readers of her strength and worthiness to be Mary Jane Watson-Parker, she was the hero in that story.

Now OMIT has been released to fill in the blanks after two years and erase the continuity gaps and for the most part I had no qualms with it, at least until this final issue. Peter convinces Tony Stark, Reed Richards and Stephen Strange to help him conceal his secret identity, only to again be portrayed as an emotional wreck who drags Mary Jane along for the ride, forcing her to keep her memory intact as well.

Where the story fails is that Quesada's reason for them splitting isn't because of real legitimate reason or something that has grown out of the story, but because he just simply wrote it out. The truth of the matter is that Mary Jane has continually been a rock for Peter, patient, loving, understanding and while more than occasionally frustrated, still devoted. After all the garbage of the 90s, Aunt May getting shot should have been a walk in the park, instead the story stomps all over OMD by having Mary Jane confess that she isn't strong enough or brave enough to be with Peter, when history shows us that it is clearly the other way around.

1 comment:

  1. Though they were cheesecake shots. Can there be any prettier woman in comics than the McFarlane Mary Jane.

    Sincerely,
    The Cap
    aka Charlie Major
    & the amazing STARBUCK_NOLA

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