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Title: Mary Jane
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents have little to worry about with this series, as there is no violence, no language, and no sexual situations to worry about. Fans of "Spider-Man" may not like this much, as the lack of a good story makes "Mary Jane" a pretty boring spin-off to read. Women won't find much to like in "Mary Jane," as there are tons of shoujo manga out there that have ten times more stuff to offer than "Mary Jane" does. |
Marvel is jealous of manga right now. More specifically, Marvel is jealous of shoujo. Shoujo manga has a personal monopoly of female readers, and women won't touch Marvel's stuff with a ten-foot pole. Comic book store owners are going crazy because manga is the stuff that sells the most books these days (mainly because manga tends to sell ten times better at bookstores than it does in comic book shops). Marvel has decided that it wants to change this and bring women back to American comics (right, where have I heard THAT before?). One of its plans to bring women back to American comics is to (get ready, folks) give female characters of superhero comic books their own spin-off series. They can't just find some female writers and artists and create something new from scratch, now can they? Nooooo, they have to spin-off secondary characters from comic books that women don't even have any interest in. I swear, this plan is SOOO brilliant, that the guys who came up with it should be hired to help reduce the national debt!
When it came to giving Spider-Man's girl, Mary Jane, a spin-off series, Marvel went the extra mile to make sure they succeeded in making their comic a success. They introduced the Mary Jane spin-off through a “Mary Jane” novel that was written by the talented Judith O'Brien. The book was, in short, excellent. It created a whole new childhood life for MJ, the characters had true human emotions, there was very little focus on Spider-Man himself (and that is good since Spider-Man isn't supposed to be the focus of the “Mary Jane” series), and the whole book was excellent. I figured that if the comic would be even half as good as the book was, then I would say Marvel had a hit on its hands, one that could potentially even catch women's attention through word-of-mouth. When I saw the cover for the first issue, I was getting excited. The artwork used for the cover was awesome, and it looked like a very American style of shoujo, and I found myself starting to get really excited about the series. Well folks, I've read the entire "Mary Jane" series, and quite frankly, it ain't much to write home about. In fact, there's almost nothing to write about at all. When Sean McKeever was writing this series, you can tell he was trying to mimic shoujo. There isn't much action, there's lots of dialog, and there's a bigger focus on characters than on story.
Where everything falls apart is the lack of conflict and a proper story. In fact, there isn't even a story at all, really. All that happens in "Mary Jane" is a bunch of random events and situations. One situation has Mary Jane working a bunch of crappy jobs for minimal pay, yet there's no "payoff" to this (forgive the bad pun). Mary Jane has a fantasy about going to the prom with Spider-Man, but nothing is done with this and the plot point is soon forgotten. Mary Jane also has this problem where she can't decide whether she wants to continue dating Harry Osborn or not, but the resolution comes way too quickly, before there can be any tension or reflection about the situation that has crept up on them... and even then we're not given many reasons why Mary Jane would want to break up with Harry in the first place.
Before the series really picks up any steam, it ends. Oh yeah, I know that there are technically three more issues of "Mary Jane: Homecoming" that Marvel has yet to release before the series officially ends, but I honestly don't think the remaining issues will make that much of a difference with this series in the long run. There is a clear lack of focus that is hard to describe, but when you read "Mary Jane," you can definitely feel the lack of focus. Things may happen, but all they do is happen. Things happen that don't contribute to a meaningful story, the characters’ personalities are all lazy and meaningless, Spider-Man makes an appearance in almost every issue (most of the time with nothing to do), and there is no payoff for anything that happens in this series.
You know what MJ? I was just wondering that same thing myself.
For what McKeever is trying to do, he fails horribly. It doesn't appear that the story and character interaction was seriously thought out, and it appears more effort was put into the marketing of "Mary Jane" than into the actual book. Marvel rarely cancels any of their titles, so the fact that "Mary Jane" got the ax so early in the game speaks volumes about people's reaction to the series.
One thing you can say about "Mary Jane" is that the artwork is beautiful. The colors, the character designs, and the settings are all beautiful to look at, and I definitely got caught up in the visuals (more than I did the story). The artist is clearly very talented and gave the artwork in "Mary Jane" a unique style and vision, and I suspect that he could be one of the next big names in the American comic book industry. If only the story could have held up just as well. "Mary Jane" is an okay attempt to capture female readers, and I don't think it worked out that well. There are plenty of shoujo manga out there that tell similar stories, except that they are more interesting and complicated than "Mary Jane" ever is. If Marvel wants to attempt to revive the "Mary Jane" series, they may want to see to it that Judith O'Brien is part of the writing team. O'Brien knew how to take these existing characters and create something new with them. McKeever on the other hand just didn't seem to have a grasp of the situation. Oh well, better luck next time.
- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -