Reviewer: Iain Burnside
Story Title: The Real Thing
Written by: Sean McKeever
Penciled by: Takeshi Miyazawa
Inked by: Norman Lee
Colored by: Christina Strain
Lettered by: Randy Gentile
Editor: Mackenzie Cadenhead
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Mary Jane wants to go to the Homecoming dance but nobody has asked her to it yet. The guy she really wants to go with has no idea she exists. The guy her best friend, the incredibly vapid Liz Allen, wants to set her up with is far too close to “brother territory†to even consider dating. Oh, and she is upset because her parents like to yell quite a bit. Not that she ever lets anyone else see how miserable she is because, after all, they wouldn’t understand her pain.
Face facts, if you are reading the comics subsection of a website primarily known for its wrestling content then you are not the target audience for this book. Lord knows I’m not. I get enough of this namby-pamby, wishy-washy, hormonally-imbalanced bullshit from watching Smallville and listening to Lana pouting for her country, thank you very much. I certainly don’t need to read more of it in my comics. So… Why exactly do I like this book so much? I am not a teenage girl and yet this was just so charming that it is impossible to knock it for all of its teenage concerns.
It is no big secret that I am a fan of Sean McKeever’s work. His characters have a wonderful tendency to leap off the page with some cracking dialogue. Even if he is just writing a simplistic, down-to-earth tale of a young girl trying to unlock her happiness, he still makes it sound far more human and contemporary than many other writers could manage. I mean, have you read New X-Men lately? Ugh… However, the real star of the show is actually Takeshi Miyazawa. For once Marvel have the right to solicit one of their titles as a manga book due to his exceptional penciling. Well, they still have to figure out that they shouldn’t bother with the single issues and focus all their energies on the digest format instead, but I digress… Despite having only a few issues of Spider-Man Unlimited and X-Men Unlimited under his belt, Marvel would do well to keep an eye on this guy and make sure DC don’t come along waving another one of those shiny exclusive contracts. Some notable highlights include Mary Jane’s wide-eyed innocent terror as she fears the wrong guy is going to ask her out and her stubborn defence of a bit of harmless Spider-Man daydreaming/fantasizing. And when Spider-Man does turn up towards the end of the issue… Well, hold onto your hats!
All in all, Marvel seems to be onto a winner with this title. However, I did say the same after reading the debut of Emma Frost and that has quickly descended into intolerable pap. Luckily, with this creative team working on a far more loveable character with a greater scope for intertwining superhero fodder and teenage melodrama, it seems like MJ has a far better shot at success. In fact, it seems a bit odd that this book has taken so long to come into existence. With the undoubted popularity of Kirsten Dunst in the movies, the Ultimate version of MJ that Brian Michael Bendis brought into being, and the strong sales of Judith O’Brien’s Mary Jane prose novel, there is obviously a market for Peter Parker’s favourite gal to fill. Whether or not that oh-so-elusive young female market can be persuaded to stick around the comic store to pick this up every month, or whether they would be best served by a straight-to-digest release schedule remains to be seen. Nonetheless, it does bode well for upcoming titles such as Jubilee. Ugh, did I just offer a back-handed compliment to Jubilee? I feel unclean…
