This week I am full of the high-intensity and roller-coaster drama of youth. I am deeply invested in two different works whose target audience is definitely younger and more female than me. Despite my advancing years and greying, luxurious beard, I am not immune to the call of Teen Feelings.
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Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane: The Sean McKeever Years
It is slightly ridiculous how much I adore my six digests collecting the out-of-continuity adventures of teenage Mary Jane Watson. In the two Mary Jane mini-series and the follow-up series Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, writer Sean McKeever and (for the first five volumes) artist Takeshi Miyazawa have created comics that I revisit every few years, and every time I re-read them I get sucked right back in. It’s not because the books feature Spider-Man, since — and I am prepared to be docked Nerd Points for this — I’m not really a huge fan of the character. In these books there are very few bombastic fight scenes or monologuing villains; the main draw is the characters without the tights and masks.
The stories in Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane (I’m going to refer to the three different volumes by the name of the longest-running series) are anchored by Mary Jane, a character whose position in the Spider-Man mythos has been upended in the years since these stories were first published. In these stories, though, she’s a smart, talented, popular high school girl, definitely above-average but far from stuck up about it. Her best friend, pint-sized cheerleader Liz Allan, is a firecracker with a hot temper and fiercely loyal heart who is dating the loveable but slightly slow-witted football player Flash Thompson. Their friend Harry Osborn, the richest guy in school, is also friends with Peter Parker, a shy nerd who is often bullied by Flash and is generally a peripheral presence in the early stories. It’s a familiar cast to Marvel fans, and a set of characters that is on the verge of cliché, but simplicity works here, as it allows the reader to take certain mental shortcuts while navigating the character interactions and fluid dynamics.
One of the main reasons I like the book is that McKeever and Miyazawa have created characters that I immediately get behind. McKeever nails the voice of each character, especially Liz Allan, whose bullheadedness and quick temper are fertile ground for both jokes and dramatic tension. Mary Jane, Liz, Harry, and Flash have clear motivations, likes, and dislikes, and as strong characters, when they come into conflict their relationships change. Reading some these stories for the fifth time, I felt as though the characters were so fully realized that one could put them in any situation and the story would just start telling itself.
The reader gleans a great deal about each character from what they say and how they say it, but Miyazawa’s art seals the deal. His manga-style characters are emotive in both face and body language, and when Spider-Man becomes a bigger part of the story, the superheroics feel athletic but still anatomically possible. The book melds the visual and verbal aspects of comics storytelling perfectly, each creator matching the other in a seamless partnership.
I may have a soft spot in my heart for Liz, but Mary Jane’s the star of the show. Whether auditioning for the school play, fretting with Liz about her love life, or trying to get Spider-Man to notice her so she can ask him to homecoming — yes, that’s a real storyline and it’s adorable — I find it impossible not to root for her. Even when she’s “Dark Mary Jane” and being a Class-A bitch to everyone, I felt awful for her, knowing that her plastic persona was hiding a real hurt. As her relationships with the other characters develop, fall apart, and slowly and clumsily get pieced back together, Mary Jane grows as a person but stays true to who she is at her core: a kind person. I may be a bitter old cynic, but I am a sucker for someone with a kind heart, and that’s Mary Jane’s defining characteristic. I want to see her succeed and I want to see her recover from failure, and that’s what Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane is all about.
Superhero comics work well when there’s at least a little soap opera to them — unrequited affections, jealous lovers, evil twins sometimes. Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane is a soap opera with a little superhero in it, which is a flavour I didn’t even know I wanted until I read it. I feel it’s a good book for a Spider-Man fan who can put aside any tendency to nitpick at continuity, but even better for someone who knows little to nothing about Spider-Man, and can just enjoy the story as it unfolds.
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As I re-read that high-school drama comic book, I was listening to one album in particular that paired well with the story. What album, might one ask? Read on, but be warned: it’s a bit of a curveball.
Music: Past Devin would be shocked, I say shocked to hear Present Devin make this admission, but here it goes: I am digging Taylor Swift’s 1989. My feelings towards Ms. Swift’s past musical outings have been indifferent at best, and until this new album I thought that my favourite Taylor Swift song would be Bad Lip Reading’s “(Rockin’) All Nite Long.” But 1989 is an interesting creation — it’s synth-pop and raw emotions and catchy and it tickles the dancing area in my brain and makes me want to shake. There are feel-good empowerment anthems like “Shake It Off,” but I’m more drawn to downbeat tracks like “Bad Blood,” a song that takes what initially struck me as a cheesy opening chorus and adds layers of sound to create a moody gem of a tune. I am not saying anything new about how popular this album is, I realize, and it may not be an album that holds up terribly well after 10 years. Right now, though, I am surprised at how many times I’ve already listened to it, and encourage previously indifferent readers to give it a try.
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That’s it for me this week. Until next time, exorcise your inner demons with a dose of Teen Feelings. I’ll see you in seven days.
