Spider-Memories #106

17 Comments

1. @16: That was part of an angry outburst on Peter’s behalf and he said MJ wouldn’t even cry if her own mother died. So he didn’t want to “spoil her fun” as he knew how much she “hated sickbeds”. I don’t think it was meant to be a real commentary on MJ and Gwen’s friendship.

   Another instance which eludes to Gwen and MJ being close was when MJ and Aunt Anna had just returned from Florida and were visiting the Parkers, and somehow Gwen had already intercepted and told MJ to have Peter call her once MJ reached Aunt May’s. MJ was also consoling Gwen when Peter didn’t turn up for her birthday party at the Stacy residence.

2. @12 I want to say that was ASM 49, not 51, but your right, they did “Hang out” here, but this may have been one of the only times they did so, at least refrenced in the comics. Pete even eludes to the fact that they wern’t friends in the scene at the very end of the Death of gwen stacey story…

3. Gwen was too busy incessantly crying to pay much attention to her friendship with MJ, or for that matter any person not named Peter Parker, for her relationship with MJ to qualify as “frenemies”.

4. I think they competed with and needled each other a bit, but I think it was Stan’s idea of women being “catty” without too much intensity — they weren’t even frenemies, they just got after each other.

5. @#11 Yeah using her friendship with Gwen during the Goblin tattoo saga was a bit much. Sure it was a something to think about but not the main criticism of that incident

6. @3: Gwen and MJ would hang out together by themselves. I remember one instance (ASM #51?) where they were visiting Aunt May’s to check up on Peter, who was apparently ill. They had been out shopping and they left together soon after, Gwen promising MJ that she would buy her music records.

7. @9,

   No.

   There was one story that revealed that they KNEW eachother as kids. When Carlie got the Goblin tattoo (or almost did) people were like “ZOMG BUT SHE WAS GWENS BEST FRIEND”

8. I sooooooooooo missed Spider-Memories.

9. When Carlie’s backstory with Gwen was introduced, did they ever show flashbacks to events in the Gwen Era in ASM and add her in the background, to show that she was always there? Like they did with the Niki and Paulo characters that were added in the 3rd season of Lost? “Hey, these new characters, they were ALWAYS there!”

10. Gwen and Carlie hung out sometimes because their parents worked together….but “best friends” is an exaggeration. Take Carlie’s absence from Gwen’s funeral as an example.

    BTW people think Gwen and MJ were like this all throughout the Silver Age until Gwen’s death. Another myth.

11. @5 – “say” not “saw”

12. @5 dark lol!

13. @4 – Given retcon-logic you could saw her best friend was Norman.

14. You forgot, Gwen best friend was Carlie Cooper, remember that lol.

15. I know that events can happen “between the panels” but i don’t have any memories of MJ and Gwen hanging out together, just the two of them, acting like friends. Yet since Gwen died many writers want to tell us “they were best friends!”

    It’s been awhile since I read the Gwen era so if I could be wrong. But I think scenes of the two of them being best-friendy are as rare as MJ thought balloons in the first 100 issues.

16. Maybe when they say MJ and Gwen were best friends they meant it like, because they only hung out in a group of 4-5 people they were best friends by default. Like Gwen was Mary Jane’s best female friend but only because she didn’t actually have any other female friends

17. Modern day comic-book writers are right – MJ and Gwen were the best of friends.