Random Back Issues #22 - Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #12

MJ, you're supposed to try being less plastic. Go green! Not gamma green. Eco-friendly green. Gamma doesn't end well. I guess female characters have better track records as Hulks than guys, depending on the writer, plus your criteria.

After various disastrous relationship fallout, Mary Jane has decided to forgo all that, and just play things light and superficial. Which results in her being named the biggest flirt in school, girls division. The winner among the guys is none other than Harry Osborn, which school paper reporter Joy Mercado wanting to interview both of them about it.

Man, I don't remember our school paper running anything like that. But the main thing I remember from the paper was repeated editorials over the years complaining that our grading scale was screwing over the kids taking AP classes. As someone who a) took some AP classes, and b) was OK with the best grade I could get with the least effort (my dad's description of me, and he was my teacher for two classes, so he'd know), anything that would raise my grades without any work on my part, I was on board with it.

Anyway, MJ tries to give very safe answers to Joy's questions, while Harry plays it off as it just being too easy for someone as cool as him to flirt. Joy presses, they both break off the interviews. Joy threatens to just run what she has so far, which will make them look bad. Really? Again, I question how many of the students are reading this paper. I guess it only takes one with a big mouth, to spread it around.

Harry confronts MJ at a party, mostly because he's trying to figure out why she's acting like this. No one seems to know, including Liz. Instead, Harry finds out MY agreed to finish the interview, and told Joy whatever she wanted to hear. Unable to get satisfactory answers from Mary Jane, Harry decides to confront Joy. He offers to answer all her questions, if he gets edit of MJ's half of the article. Joy is apparently a bad enough reporter, or maybe just dishonest enough, to go along with it. Harry flirts with her, fooling her entirely. Which pisses her off/embarrasses her enough she scraps the entire article?

Granting that I didn't have the most active social life in high school, I'm not sorry I missed out on stuff like this. What a headache and a half. Peter Parker's only in three panels, mostly trying to rehearse what to say when he tells MJ he's worried about her.

{Longbox #10, 144th comic. Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #12, by Sean McKeever (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Christina Strain (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)}