What better subject could there be to mark the first anniversary of this column than the new Spider-Man 2 movie? Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times proclaimed it to be “the best superhero movie since the modern genre was launched with Superman (1978).” Critic Richard Schickel of Time (July 5, 2004) went even further, pronouncing it “probably the best special effects extravaganza since Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
In the immediate aftermath of seeing Spider-Man 2, I think it’s too early to judge whether it reaches a status as exalted as that. My enthusiastic responses on seeing the movie are still relatively fresh in my memory. Time must pass in order to judge how it matches up against Richard Donner’s Superman or Tim Burton’s Batman or even the first Spider-Man movie.
But Spider-Man 2 definitely belongs in the first rank of comics-based movies. Ebert perceptively refers to the “classical workmanship” of the film’s director, Sam Raimi, and its writers, screenwriter Alvin Sargent, and the three noted superhero aficionados credited with the story: novelist Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay) and the television writer/producer team of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Smallville). Spider-Man 2 was built to last; I have little doubt that it will indeed be regarded as a classic in decades to come, while various other comics-based movies that misfired will recede into obscurity.
From the very first installment of this column, one of its concerns has been how the mainstream media evaluate comics and comics-based movies and television. To my surprise, the major film critics’ reviews of Spider-Man 2 that I’ve read have been warmly enthusiastic, with only occasional, minor traces of condescension towards the material.
Why is this? In Tom DeFalco’s book Comics Creators on Spider-Man (see Comics in Context #44), he observes that many of the comic’s writers see themselves as writing “The Adventures of Peter Parker,” more than the exploits of Spider-Man. Raimi and his writers followed the same route to success. Spider-Man 2 has brilliantly staged action scenes, but not as many as one might have expected from this kind of action-adventure blockbuster. Raimi and cohorts so successfully seize the audience’s attention with the story of Peter Parker’s life that it becomes the basis, indeed, the heart of their film. It’s what Ang Lee and his collaborators tried and failed to do with their Hulk movie: they neither created sufficient empathy for their lead characters nor successfully created suspenseful, exciting action sequences. Raimi’s new film succeeds on both counts.
What various critics said in their reviews bears this out. In Newsweek (June 28, 2004) Jeff Giles expresses his welcome astonishment that Spider-Man 2 is “a summer action flick that’s actually smart and deeply felt.” He goes on, “For a man directing a Fourth of July movie, Raimi spends an unusual amount of time letting emotions have center stage” and credits Raimi and company “for hunting for the highest common denominator” in their audience. Schickel comments that “the effects, though handsomely managed, don’t overwhelm the story and characters.”
Ebert notes that “the dialogue is more about emotion, love and values,” and asserts that “The movie demonstrates what’s wrong with a lot of other superhero epics. They focus on the super-powers, and short-change the humans behind them. (Has anyone ever been more boring, for instance, than Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne?)” Comics enthusiasts with knowledge of important work done with Superman and Batman will challenge Ebert’s assumption. But it is thanks to the example set by Stan Lee’s groundbreaking work with Spider-Man in the 1960s that later writers would delve into the personalities of the longrunning DC heroes.
Even New York Times critic A.O. Scott warmed to Spider-Man 2. The title of his review (June 29, 2004) sums up the point that the others are also making: “Putting Action after Feelings of a Superhero.” He declares himself “happy to report” that the movie’s “distinguishing features. . , are strong characters and honest feelings.” In contrast to other summer blockbusters, in Spider-Man 2, he says, “the extravagant action sequences are subordinate to the narrative rather than the point of the movie,” which he calls “a touching and disarming love story, full of grief, longing and sweet confusion.”
I wonder if there’s something more behind the positive critical reception that Spider-Man 2 has received. Perhaps it’s that there have been enough superhero movies over the last several years that film critics have grown more accustomed to the genre, and less likely to dismiss it out of hand. There have also been noteworthy recent movies in similar genres, like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter films. They’re learning how to “read” these genres. Rather than being put off by the costumes and fantasy elements, they’re learning to see the emotional and psychological elements underlying them. Scott refers to Spider-Man 2 as a “superhero allegory” with “surprising emotional realism.” “Allegory” is technically not the right word, but he is right to view this superhero story as a metaphor for emotional realities. In other words, they’re learning to appreciate Stan Lee’s achievement in transforming the superhero genre into a means of personal expression.
Spider-Man 2 is an excellent movie, possibly better than the first, as various critics have contended. But the first Spider-Man movie was quite good, too. Perhaps the real difference is that mainstream reviewers have grown more open to taking movies like these seriously.
THE FILM’S FOUNDATION
Possibly expecting Spider-Man 2 to be a kiddie movie, Times critic A.O. Scott brought his nearly eight-year-old son to a screening. Scott reported in his review that his son said afterwards, “But there was one part. . .that I really didn’t like.” Scott explains, “That was when Peter Parker threw his costume in the trash and declared that he was ‘Spider-Man’ no more. ‘He can’t do that,’ my son complained. ‘It’s not right. We need Spider-Man.'”
The string reaction Scott’s son had to this moment testifies to the ability of Spider-Man’s co-creator Stan Lee at his height as a storyteller to tap the emotions and concerns of his audience. Spider-Man 2 takes as its villain Doctor Octopus, an early creation of Lee and artist Steve Ditko. But the heart of this movie derives from Lee and artist John Romita, Sr.’s classic story “Spider-Man No More!” from The Amazing Spider-Man #50 (July, 1967).
In fact, I was surprised on the Saturday morning after the movie’s opening to see John Romita, Sr. appear on the Today show. The program did a split screen, placing Romita’s drawing of Peter Parker walking down the alleyway, his costume stuffed in a trash can, against a still image of the same scene from the film; Raimi had recreated the image exactly.
Actually, in the first Doctor Octopus story (Amazing Spider-Man #3, July 1963), he initially bested Spider-Man so badly that Peter Parker decided to quit his superhero career. It was listening to a speech given by the Human Torch (who is the same age as Parker but had been in the superhero business a bit longer) that refired Peter’s determination to carry on as a costumed crimefighter.
“Spider-Man No More” was a more thorough, far more dramatic treatment of the same idea of Peter Parker giving into despair, this time due not to defeat in combat but by the emotional and psychological toll that his years of being Spider-Man had taken on his personal life. I expect it is no coincidence that “Spider-Man No More” appeared in the fiftieth issue of the magazine. Stan Lee presumably sought to create a landmark event in the life of Spider-Man suitable for marking the anniversary of this unexpectedly successful series.
It likewise makes sense that Sam Raimi and his collaborators chose “Spider-Man No More” as the basis for their second movie. The first was about how Peter Parker became Spider-Man and a crimefighter; the second is about the point at which he wonders if he made the right choice for his life, whether it is worth the price he has to pay in his personal life, and whether it is still possible to go back.
I have a great deal to say about Spider-Man 2, but before I discuss the surprisingly iconoclastic themes of this movie, I want to devote this column to a different subject: the ways in which the movie versions of Spider-Man and his leading lady, Mary Jane Watson, differ from the traditional versions in the comics. The changes lead to somewhat different interpretations of these characters in the movies, as you shall see. (And, as usual, it will help if you’ve seen the movie first, since I will discuss much of the plot.)
PETER PARKER ZONES OUT
The first Spider-Man movie inspired some controversy by changing the nature of Spider-Man’s webbing. In the comics, Peter Parker devised “web fluid” which he projects from “web-shooters” in Spider-Man’s gloves. In the movies, Peter’s own body generates the web fluid, which shoots from his hands. This had a precedent: in the 1990s writer Peter David had his co-creation, Spider-Man 2099, the web-slinger of an alternate future, generate his webbing the same way. Similarly, the movie Spider-Man has tiny (presumably retractable) claws on his hands (and, I assume, his feet) that enable him to cling to walls. This, too, follows Peter David’s example with Spider-Man 2099. (But can these tiny claws really extend through the soles of his boots?) Back in the 1980s The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe instead stated that Spider-Man somehow (psionically, I’d think) controls the interatomic attraction between himself and the walls he clings to, but Marvel writers have taken no notice of this.
I would guess that Stan Lee wanted Spider-Man’s webbing to be artificial because he might have thought it too grotesque to have the fluid emerge from Spider-Man’s body. People who criticize the movie’s changes in the webbing argue that the fact that the comic book Peter invented the web fluid demonstrates his scientific brilliance. Indeed it does, though it is somewhat hard to believe that, once he was endowed with his spider powers, Peter succeeded in figuring out how to create this amazing webbing virtually overnight.
Longtime Spider-Man readers are familiar with scenes in which Spider-Man runs out of web fluid. I wonder what the equivalent would be for the movie Spider-Man. Does he lose weight by generating lots of web fluid? Could he dangerously dehydrate himself by expending too much of the fluid? If he creates a large web, does he feel hungry or thirsty?
Spider-Man 2 persuades me there is at least one advantage to the movies’ version of the webbing. In this second movie Spider-Man does indeed come up empty on a few occasions when he tries to shoot webbing. Roger Ebert said in his review that “It’s kind of neat that Spider-Man never does find out why his web-throwing [sic] ability sometimes fails him.” In fact, a doctor explains the reason onscreen. Peter’s doubts about whether he should continue his career as Spider-Man are subconsciously blocking his ability to produce the webbing.
Now, consider what the web fluid looks like before it solidifies into webbing. (In his review in The New Yorker, critic Anthony Lane jokes that he’s glad the movie wasn’t titled Spider-Man 2: Still Not Quite Sure What to Do with All His Sticky Stuff.)
There may be a conscious or subconscious sexual metaphor behind this sticky near-white liquid Spidey shoots. (Consider too the scene in the first movie, in which Peter tries to keep Aunt May from seeing the “experiments” he’s conducting in his room, which we see filled with those sticky strands of webbing.) So, Spider-Man’s self-doubts are rendering him symbolically impotent. It’s likewise significant that it is when Doctor Octopus kidnaps Mary Jane that Peter’s powers finally return full force, as if in a surge of sexual feeling for her.
Spider-Man’s self-doubts even prevent him from clinging to walls, So the tiny claws must indeed be retractable and have failed to emerge. Actually, in this case the Marvel Universe Handbook’s implication that Spider-Man’s clinging abilities are psionic would have worked even better in this context.
What surprised me is that once Peter gives up being Spider-Man, he has to wear glasses again. In the comics, Peter still wore glasses after gaining his spider-powers, but, after breaking his glasses in one issue, discovered that he no longer needed them. There was no explanation, and it’s likely that Lee and Ditko simply thought he’d look better without them. In contrast, the first movie made it clear that the metamorphosis Peter underwent after being bitten by the genetically altered spider cleared up his faulty vision.
To prove to the movie audience that Peter has not just returned to wearing glasses on a personal whim, when his powers fully return, Raimi gives us a shot from Peter’s point of view, demonstrating that now his vision is blurry with the glasses, and clear without them.
This all reminds me of a theory that John Byrne had about Superman: that his powers were actually psionic. Byrne never explicitly stated this in any of his Superman stories (DC surely would not have let him), but he implied it in a story line in which Superman becomes an amnesiac on Apokolips and is unable to utilize his powers.
So it would seem that when Peter gives up his Spider-Man career, he actually loses his superhuman powers. This takes Stan Lee’s original “Spider-Man No More” story even further on a literal level. Does this mean that all the physical changes that Peter Parker underwent have gone into a sort of remission? Is it possible those tiny retractable claws have entirely ceased to exist?
It also takes “Spider-Man No More” further thematically. It suggests that Peter has chosen to revert to the person he was before he became Spider-Man, the kid in the glasses. In becoming Spider-Man, Peter not only gained superhuman abilities but also, eventually, his sense of duty and responsibility. In forsaking his life as Spider-Man, Peter is rejecting that sense of duty. The super-powers can be read as metaphors for the ability of an adult to effect change; certainly Spider-Man’s sense of duty stands for an adult’s moral responsibilities. In abandoning his Spider-Man career, Peter may be consciously seeking a normal life, but symbolically he is attempting to return to childhood. And this can’t be done.
Certainly Raimi and the writers make clear that giving up being Spider-Man doesn’t solve Peter’s personal problems: they immediately show him experiencing yet more examples of his characteristic bad luck. One could argue that giving up being Spider-Man is a necessary step in his maturation: that he must reconnect to people in his personal life and pay attention to responsibilities at work and school and to his friends and family..
But in showing Peter visually reverting to his pre-Spidey self, the kid in the glasses, Raimi & Company are making clear that he has really taken a step backwards, retreating from personal growth.
They also strongly dramatize the power that guilt has on Peter Parker’s psyche. Take the scene in which Peter witnesses a mugging and forces himself to walk away without intervening. If this happened to non-super-powered people like you or me, we probably couldn’t do anything to help save looking for a policeman. But this scene reminded me of something I see every week: people who pass by beggars on the street without even acknowledging them. Peter Parker cannot so easily ignore other people in distress.
Later, Peter comes across the scene of a building on fire with people trapped inside. This should remind the viewer of a similar situation in the first movie, in which Spider-Man went to the rescue. Raimi dramatizes Peter’s crisis of conscience in this second fire scene. Peter begins to pull open his shirt, as if by automatic reflex, and is surprised to remember he isn’t wearing his costume, or, metaphorically, he has given up that side of his identity. But he nevertheless goes into the burning building as himself and rescues a child. Peter learns afterwards that someone else died inside; perhaps had Peter come as Spider-Man with his full powers, he would have found and saved this victim, too. So arguably once again someone has died through Peter’s failure to act as fully as he could have. It is as if signifying that until Peter reassumes his Spider-Man persona, his efforts to fulfill his moral duty will be inadequate.
Over the Fourth of July weekend I looked in on some episodes in the Sci-Fi Channel’s The Twilight Zone marathon, and came across Rod Serling’s episode “Walking Distance,” in which an adult in what today would be termed a midlife crisis literally travels back in time to the days of his childhood and discovers he cannot remain there. Serling’s closing narration acknowledges the longing to undo “growing up” and rejects it as impossible.
In making Spider-Man’s powers dependent on the state of Peter Parker’s psyche, Raimi and his writers are saying that Spider-Man is more than a set of physical powers. Being Spider-Man is a state of mind. In this movie Peter Parker tries to repress the Spider-Man side of his personality, and it works for a while. But in the end he has to accept that Spider-Man is now who he is; he cannot go back to the time before.
In Amazing Spider-Man #50 Stan Lee gave Peter’s decision to be “Spider-Man No More” a twist that the movie does not deal with at all. The comics’ Peter convinces himself that being Spider-Man was actually a sign of immaturity, and that by giving up his costumed career, he is putting childish things aside and facing adult responsibility at last. Perhaps this is a metaphor for the adult who faces such difficulties in achieving the idealistic goals he had as a youth that he is tempted to abandon their pursuit and settle for a more practical way of life. Perhaps “Spider-Man No More” reflected Stan Lee’s own, well-known doubts in 1961, the turning point of his life, as to whether he should continue writing comics. One could even read this story as a metaphor for the superhero comics reader’s own dilemma as he grows older: am I getting too old to be reading this stuff?
But the comics Peter Parker had gotten it backwards. Even if the superhero genre began as a means of entertaining children, the Marvel Revolution redefined the superhero as a sign of accepting and implementing the responsibilities of adults to their community. The moral ideals we are taught as children retain validity in adult life. Stan Lee in the comics and Sam Raimi in the movies may treat Peter Parker’s “Spider-Man No More” identity crisis in different ways, but they, and Peter, end up with the same solution.
LAUGH, SPIDEY, LAUGH
New Yorker critic Anthony Lane comments that “What with the mournful [Alfred] Molina,” who plays Doctor Octopus, “the hazed-over [Kirsten] Dunst,” who plays Mary Jane, “and the puffy uncertainties of [Tobey] Maguire, “who plays Peter Parker, “we in the audience are the only ones who still believe, without qualification, in thrill and spill.”
Lane is onto something here. Something important is missing from the portrayals of all three major characters.
Certainly the two Spider-Man movies convey great, visceral joy in the scenes of Spider-Man swinging through the city on his webs, conveying the kind of speed and acrobatic movement that the static comics page can only begin to suggest. In the first film Peter Parker had moments of infectious glee as he tested out his newfound ability to leap from building to building.
But apart from that, the movies’ Peter Parker seems to take no pleasure in being Spider-Man. The joyfulness of the spectacular web-swinging sequences is the director’s, the CGI crew’s, and the audience’s, but Spider-Man himself does not indicate he’s enjoying himself.
Similarly, Spider-Man 2 is full of humor. Whereas in the first movie J. Jonah Jameson seemed a peripheral character, here he comes into his own as the colorful comedic figure we know from the comics. (Indeed, Raimi and his writers seem to make a point of giving all the recurring characters more to do, ranging from Aunt May’s greatly enlarged role to Betty Brant’s getting more scenes in which to do walk-ons. The movies’ Norman and Harry Osborn may not have the kind of hairstyle that Steve Ditko gave them – in real life, does anyone? – but it’s amusing to see a live action Betty Brant sporting her distinctive Ditkoesque hairdo.)
The movie gets plenty of comedic mileage out of the everyday mishaps that beset Peter Parker in both his identities. One high point is the scene in the elevator after Spider-Man, temporarily unable to emit his webbing, has to use it to get down from a high building. Unwilling to consider the possibility that this is the real Spider-Man, his fellow passenger assumes Spidey is a masquerader and asks about his costume. A weary Spider-Man, perhaps grateful for someone to talk to, confesses to certain uncomfortable aspects of his outfit.But notice that even here, Spider-Man is not making jokes. He’s simply stating the truth, which turns out to be funny. In his first battle with Doctor Octopus at the bank, Spider-Man gets off a few lame bits of repartee. Otherwise, this Spider-Man is no comedian at all.
In my review of Tom DeFalco’s new Comics Creators on Spider-Man, I noted how writers Marv Wolfman, Roger Stern, and Paul Jenkins all emphasize the importance of Spider-Man’s sense of humor. Stern speaks of the side of Spider-Man’s personality that he compares to Bugs Bunny. Like Bugs, Spider-Man outwits and mocks self-important, violent, often bigger opponents. This should remind us that Spider-Man is what Kurt Busiek has called an “urban trickster.” He’s a positive, benevolent version of the trickster archetype. (The Joker is a negative version.) Hence, humor is an essential part of his character. Jenkins even argues that it is Peter Parker’s ability to laugh at his misfortunes that enables him to act as Spider-Man.
The first two movies portray their villains, Norman Osborn/Green Goblin and Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus as modern Jekyll/Hydes. This, indeed, is true to their origins in the comic books. But Spider-Man/Peter Parker also has a dual personality. The difference between Spider-Man and these two villains is that in the villains’ cases, the evil personality entirely supplants the good one. In contrast, Spider-Man’s persona and Peter Parker’s are integrated with each other. But the movies treat Spider-Man as exhibiting the same personality whether he is in costume or not. He may act in a more spectacular manner as Spider-Man, but he still seems as introverted, even glum, as Peter Parker does.
In contrast, in the comics, Spider-Man and Peter Parker are traditionally portrayed as different aspects of the same personality. (Marv Wolfman points out in DeFalco’s book that the two sides of Peter/Spidey even have different styles of humor.) Spider-Man is more extroverted, more uninhibited, and, wearing his mask, can get away with saying things that the more subdued Peter wouldn’t. Like a comedian who uses jokes to cope with his unhappy past, Peter Parker finds a means of escape from life’s everyday miseries through becoming Spider-Man. This certainly does not mean that Spider-Man never has problems or suffers tragedy. But as Spider-Man, Peter Parker can swing acrobatically around the city, and physically defeat his adversaries in combat. The comics have long made the point that Parker enjoys the freedom that being Spider-Man affords. And certainly Parker exults in Spider-Man’s humor. Being Spider-Man is a release for the usually downtrodden Peter Parker.
Spider-Man is not only in the tradition of Bugs Bunny, but of live action silent movie comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd: “little guys” who contend with bigger, more powerful opponents and end up performing spectacular physical feats. Spidey is also fits into the tradition of the fast-talking comedian in talking pictures like Bob Hope or Woody Allen, who makes fun of his adversaries. Whereas Hope and Allen portrayed comedic cowards, Spider-Man is like a fusion between the smart aleck comedian and the traditional action hero. He can outdo his nemesis both verbally and physically.
Spider-Man’s sense of comedy is also yet another factor that set him apart from the stolid DC superheroes of the time like Superman. It’s true that Batman and Robin from the 1940s to the end of the 1960s would engage in humorous banter while fighting bad guys. But Stan Lee’s Spider-Man had an individual style all his own, or, rather, Stan Lee’s own, which subsequent generations of Spider-writers learned to imitate. That style has been watered down over the decades, until today there’s nothing vivid or surprising about Spider-Man’s repartee in the comics. Maybe that’s why Spider-Man isn’t witty at all in the movies.
Lee and Ditko’s 1960s Spider-Man was an ironic take on the standard conventions of the superhero genre. Irony can be grim: Peter Parker was inadvertently responsible for the murder of his uncle. But irony can also be humorous, as in Spider-Man’s jibes at his enemies or at the absurd aspects of the idea of a guy dressing up as a spider to fight crime. Irony is part of Stan Lee’s and Spider-Man’s world views. Spider-Man’s humor expresses an important side of his outlook on life. Spider-Man’s comedian side is such an essential part of his character that it’s baffling that the movie almost entirely ignores it.
Perhaps it has to do with Raimi’s focus on the “great responsibility” theme. His Spider-Man is so focused on his moral duty, and so driven by guilt, that being Spider-Man is no emotional release for Peter Parker at all. The Spider-Man costume is merely his uniform for doing his job. In or out of costume, he is still the same gloomy soul.
Maybe this will change. The Spider-Man of the first movie decides that his duty precludes the possibility of love with Mary Jane. By the end of the second movie, Parker has decided he can have both. I wonder if in the third movie he will have achieved enough balance in his life that he can allow himself to make jokes, to cast off inhibitions, and, when he is not beset by disaster, to have a good laugh.
YOSEMITE OCK
In Newsweek‘s June 28, 2004 cover story on Spider-Man 2, Alfred Molina says, “I felt very strongly about keeping the rather dry, sardonic humor he has in the comic books.” To which my reaction was: what the hell is he talking about? Stan Lee’s Doctor Octopus is not known for having any sense of humor, and subsequent writers have followed his lead. He instead indulges in Lee’s standard kind of dialogue for his more intelligent villains: a combination of chest-thumping boasts, egocentric self-praise, grandiose visions of his goals, dire threats, contemptuous insults, and boilerplate bluster. Maybe this is the sort of thing Molina finds funny, but it doesn’t fit the description of “dry, sardonic humor.”
However, Molina is on target with his other observation about Octopus in Newsweek: “He’s a bit like Richard III, who tells you exactly what he’s going to do, how he’s going to do it, and how he feels about it. Like all great villains, he’s completely transparent.” In DeFalco’s book, Stan Lee talks about how Shakespeare’s language influenced his own writing. While Lee’s Doc Ock doesn’t reach the grandiose heights of Doctor Doom, Molina is quite correct in intuiting that Lee was attempting to endow Ock with an elevated, theatrical speaking style comparable to that of Shakespearean villains. (The comics’ Spider-Man is Shakespearean in his own way, with his characteristic self-searching soliloquies.)
As I mentioned in one of my 1602 columns, this kind of stylized language seems to be out of favor nowadays, and all too often Lee and other Marvel writers made it seem corny. But Doc Ock’s tirades are important to the comedic side of Spider-Man. Ock is Spider-Man’s straight man, as are many of Spidey’s other foes. Doc Ock represents the dark side of the ubermensch concept: the superhuman who sees himself as superior to ordinary people. Spider-Man, though, is the superhuman as everyman, who remains down to earth, grounded, one of us, and who fights on our behalf. So it is right and appropriate that Spider-Man forsakes dramatic, elevated language for colloquial humor, and cuts Doctor Octopus’s self-important boasting to ribbons with his sharp shafts of ridicule. It’s like Yosemite Sam yelling that he’s the roughest, toughest, sharp-shootingest hombre west of the Rio Grande, only to be informed by Bugs Bunny, “What a maroon.”
In an interview she gave before the first Spider-Man movie opened, Kirsten Dunst said that she originally thought she would be playing Spider-Man’s first real girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. Now there is testimony to the strength of the Spider-Man legend in American popular culture. Baby Boomers may not like to think about it, but Gwen Stacy died before Kirsten Dunst was born. And yet Dunst knew about Gwen.
Yet perhaps Dunst was intuiting something about the Mary Jane of the movies. The movie MJ has the same name and hair color as the original comics’ Mary Jane. As in the comics, the movies’ Mary Jane lived next door to the Parkers, had an unhappy family life, and went into acting and modeling. She eventually learns that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, and by the end of Spider-Man 2 Dunst’s MJ even calls him “tiger,” the comic book Mary Jane’s trademark pet name for Peter. (“Oh, Peter,” Gerry Conway once had the comics’ Mary Jane affectionately say, “I call you tiger because you’re not.”)
But other than that, the movie Mary Jane is very different from Stan Lee’s co-creation. The original comics version of MJ did not go to high school with Peter, though the Ultimate Spider-Man continuity makes her his classmate.
More importantly, the movie Mary Jane does not have the sassy, sensual, good-humored personality with which Stan Lee endowed her, and which won over readers’ affections.
In the original comics Peter Parker did not meet Gwen Stacy or Mary Jane Watson until he started college. While Steve Ditko was still drawing and plotting the series, Gwen began as a variation on Peter’s high school classmate Liz Allan: a snooty girl contemptuous of this new arrival. Subsequently, under the team of Stan Lee and artist John Romita, Sr., Gwen evolved into Peter Parker’s first true love. Lee and Romita turned her into their image of the perfect woman: beautiful, sweet, without faults. Lee says in the DeFalco book that Gwen was the woman Peter should have married.
In contrast, Mary Jane appears to have been the “Bad Girl,” or, rather, the “Not-as-Good Girl” to serve as counterpoint to Gwen’s “Good Girl.” Mary Jane was a “party girl,” though she wasn’t really bad. In 1960s comics under the Comics Code, she could hardly be “bad,” anyway: she couldn’t have been shown sleeping around, although her dalliance with Harry Osborn did not reflect well on her. Gwen and Mary Jane were like Spider-Man’s answer to Betty and Veronica in Archie, or maybe like the 1950s-1970s versions of Lois Lane and Lana Lang. Each duo was competing over the hero, but readers were meant to see Betty and Lois as the worthier of each pair.
What made Mary Jane less perfect than Gwen by the standards of that time was her apparent lack of moral seriousness: the early MJ just seemed to be out for a good time. The 1960s Mary Jane was also more sexually aggressive than Gwen. There was no hint that any of these characters were sleeping together, but it was very clear that Mary Jane exulted in the sexual side of her being. Despite her equally short outfits, and a particularly sexy dance sequence early on (Amazing Spider-Man #47), Gwen was more decorous about such matters.
So Gwen was the Ideal Girlfriend, but, not surprisingly, Mary Jane was more vivid and interesting as a character; her scenes were more fun to read than Gwen’s. As Lee acknowledges in the DeFalco book, the readers responded to Mary Jane more than he had intended.
As a genuine traditionalist, Roger Stern, as he states once more in the DeFalco book, has long opposed Mary Jane’s marriage to Peter in the comics. Stern still realizes that Mary Jane was the (rather tame) “Bad Girl” to Gwen’s “Good Girl,” and insists that Mary Jane should only act as a “spoiler” who resurfaces from time to time to complicate Peter’s life.
In the early 1970s John Romita and writer Gerry Conway decided to shake up the Spider-Man series by having the Green Goblin kill Gwen. This took place in the celebrated sequence at a New York City bridge (in Amazing Spider-Man #121-122 in 1973) that was restaged, with Mary Jane and a happier denouement, in the first Spider-Man movie. (Writer Gerry Conway, who killed Gwen and – temporarily, as it turned out – Norman Osborn, and turned Harry Osborn into the second Green Goblin, is the great unacknowledged source for the two Spider-Man movies.)
This storyline assured the immortality of Gwen Stacy as a character. Stan Lee had put Gwen up on a pedestal, and it worked in a decade before feminism took hold in American popular culture. But perfect Gwen was too two-dimensional to work as a character in later decades. Killing her off was the best thing for her character. It seems more appropriate for Gwen to seem perfect as the saintly deceased girlfriend, an icon rather than a living human being.
With Gwen gone, Mary Jane was the obvious candidate to become the series’ new leading lady. Conway even did a sequence that seems to anticipate the future, in which Peter, grieving over Gwen’s death, enters an apartment and a somber Mary Jane closes the door after them. Even despite a long period in which Mary Jane was absent from the series, no other credible candidate for leading lady emerged. (Anyone else remember Cissy Ironwood? You see my point.) One could even argue that the Black Cat took over MJ’s role as the Bad Girl, and the Cat really was bad: she was a criminal and she slept around!
By introducing the idea that Mary Jane had figured out that Peter Parker was Spider-Man, Tom DeFalco set the character on her new path in the comics. He also established her unhappy childhood and the nasty father who turns up in the first movie. DeFalco turned Mary Jane into Peter’s confidante, who shared his secret and could empathize with his unhappiness thanks to her own. Mary Jane now had a new depth and seriousness that made it easier to regard her as a potential leading lady for the series. Unlike Gwen, Mary Jane had proved capable of growth and evolution as a character. Although DeFalco had not intended it, he had set her on the road that led to her marriage to Peter in the comics later in the 1980s.
In his subsequent graphic novel, Spider-Man: Parallel Lives, Gerry Conway took DeFalco’s concept further, establishing that MJ had learned that Peter was Spider-Man on the night of Uncle Ben’s death. Conway made it clear that Mary Jane’s carefree “party girl” persona was a construct like Peter Parker’s Spider-Man identity. It was her own “mask” through which she could escape for a time from the unhappiness that scarred her childhood. Of course, MJ’s public persona involved a constant, irreverent wit. It was a variation of Stan Lee’s sense of humor, just as Spider-Man’s was.
So, Conway’s point was that Peter and Mary Jane had each developed dual identities, and that they were actually soulmates, made for each other.
But just as the title character of Spider-Man 2 lacks his comics’ counterpart’s rapid-fire repartee, the movies’ Mary Jane shows few signs of the irreverence and extroverted sexuality that made the comics character so appealing and distinctive. In fact, the filmmakers could easily have tied the movie MJ’s insistence on marrying John Jameson to the comic book MJ’s carefree, fun-seeking public persona. In denial about her continuing feelings for Peter, the movie Mary Jane could have assumed her happy-go-lucky facade in trying to convince herself and others that she’d just go on to the next good marital prospect.
No wonder that the first movie’s Green Goblin ended up dangling MJ from a bridge. It seems appropriate that Kirsten Dunst goes from Mary Jane’s deep red hair in the first film to a blonder color in the new movie. Is Dunst’s character really closer to being Gwen Stacy than the original Lee-Romita version of Mary Jane Watson?Yet the movies don’t turn Mary Jane into the idealized figure that Gwen became. Though in the second movie her face seems to be on posters all around the city, the films’ Mary Jane remains grounded and down to Earth. Peter Parker never told Gwen Stacy he was Spider-Man; perhaps, in keeping with attitudes in the 1960s, he thought she couldn’t handle the truth about him. (Women were considered fragile back then: Peter feared if his Aunt May found out he was spider-Man, she would drop dead!) In the comics, Mary Jane discovered his dual identity on her own, eventually grew to accept the fact, became Peter’s confidant and their friendship evolved into love. She could share his troubles, whereas we never found out whether Gwen could.
The movie Mary Jane proves equally capable of accepting Peter as Spider-Man, and in fact, insists that she can share his potential dangers of his life. In this she is indeed like the Mary Jane of the comics as the character evolved in the 1980s.
And has anyone noticed how the end of Spider-Man 2 duplicates the end of Tim Burton’s first Batman? In each case, the masked hero does not want to reveal his secret identity to the leading lady, but she finds out anyway. Each film ends with the leading lady committed to a relationship with the costumed hero, and waiting as he goes off on another mission. But as Alfred drives her away, Vicki Vale seems accepting but not entirely happy about the situation; she will not return in the next Batman film. On the other hand, Mary Jane enthusiastically approves as Spider-Man, in response to a police siren, swings out to help. This is a partnership that could last.
ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF
On the very day that Spider-Man 2 opened, I filled out and handed in the necessary paperwork for teaching my course in “Comics as Literature” at New York University this fall. NYU is the model for Empire State University, where Peter Parker attended college in the comics. In the movies, however, Peter attends my own alma mater, Columbia University. (Though the movie doesn’t say so, he must be on full scholarship. How else could he afford it?) Nowadays I live not too far from Forest Hills, the site of Peter’s high school, Midtown High (before the current Marvel administration transplanted it to Manhattan, perhaps hoping no one would notice). All this and I share Spider-Man’s first name. Talk about parallel lives.
If you’re interested in the course, it’s listed at NYU’s website.
–Copyright 2004 Peter Sanderson
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One Response to “Comics in Context #45: A Spider-Man State of Mind”Leave a Reply |
October 15th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
In addition to Amazing Spider-Man #50, I think there is another Lee-Ditko tale that fits well, in terms of both theme and plot, with Spider-Man 2, and that is Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1. Not only is this the first appearance of the Sinister Six, but Spidey begins the story stressed by the problems his alter ego is causing him, and still wracked by grief over Uncle Ben. Soon afterwards his powers quit working, and Peter winds up feeling relieved that he’ll be able to live a normal life. Fortunately for the readers though, shortly after that, Betty Brant and Aunt May are kidnapped by Electro and Sandman, along with a demand that you-know-who must show up at a specified location if he wants them. Peter then bravely sets off after them, as Spider-Man but still without powers. In the course of the ensuing battle, his powers miraculously return. Afterwards he realizes that he never really lost them at all. We are told it was “psychosomatic”. Once again, when Peter accepts rather than rejects his responsbility, he is able to move forward. So, interesting to note Lee dealt very specifically with this theme in young Pete’s life more than once.
For a non-superhero look at accepting responsibility as a part of adulthood, my favorite comics work is Seth’s It’s a Good Life if You Don’t Weaken, a beautiful, bittersweet and richly atmospheric story hung around the frame of investigating the life of an obscure cartoonist.
As always, thanks for a thoughtful, and thought-provoking, column –
Rick B.