Recently, the Superior Spider-Man was finally brought to an end. Doctor Octopus is gone and Peter Parker is back. Understandably, he’s got a LOT of cleaning up and apologizing to do, thanks to Otto’s arrogance. Near the top of his to-do list, he had to explain things to his ex-girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson, who stops him mid-sentence, as she’s heard it all before:
Yes, that pose IS the one you’re thinking of. It’s a deliberate callback.
True believers, this is the panel of a woman who is, for all intents and purposes, DONE. Done with the insanity, done with the danger. Mary Jane Watson is done with being in the web of Spider-Man.
In the beginning, she was all for stuff like this. She liked the excitement, the fun that such a life brought, as well as the opportunities to do good alongside Peter.
That was years ago. Now, MJ is grown, and she is tired of it all.
She is tired of the emotional roller coaster Peter unwillingly puts her through. She is sick of not knowing what to expect or what disaster will rear its ugly head(s). She has had it with suffering the fallout of the Parker Luck just by being in his circle.
She’s reached the point where she wants – no, NEEDS – a normal life (possibly in a different town) with a normal guy. And guess what? She’s not going to get any of that around Spidey, and she damn well knows it. You know what else? He knows it, too.
It’s high time Mary Jane moved on, once and for all, for her own sake. It sucks, but really, it was only a matter of time. With Peter being dead in the Ultimate Universe (not to mention, not even interested in her that way in its cartoon) and the focus on Gwen in the movies, it’s not surprising that one of Marvel’s most outstanding couples is, more or less, KIA.
On Peter’s side, without MJ to worry about (though you can bet that’s gonna bug him [pun depressingly intended] for a while), he can focus on Anna Maria, whose own lover is gone, too. He’s going to have to get to know her better without her knowing it and decide if he’s going to give her a shot for Otto’s sake or figure out a way to let her down gently. He’s got enough on his plate, and there’s even more trouble on the way. MJ knows that, too, which is another reason why she’s getting the hell out of dodge.
No, it’s not being selfish, it’s being realistic, and part of being an adult. At some point, something’s gotta give. It still sucks, but you know somethin’? LIFE SUCKS. (If yours doesn’t. give it time. Something will happen.) All we can do is make it suck less one day at a time. In its own weird way, Spider-Man reflects that, which is part of its appeal, if I’m not mistaken.
