Amazing Spider-Man #309

    For the first review of the new direction I decided to start off with a very particular issue of Amazing Spider-Man. At first glance it’s a very unassuming and seemingly cliché damsel in distress story and it debuts villains that weren’t used very much after this story.  In spite of this, the story is actually very well written, doesn’t go where you would expect it to, and is the very first comic I remember ever reading.

 Amazing Spider-Man issue no.309 was written by David Michelinie and drawn by Todd McFarlane and released in November 1998. It was part of a story arc where Peter Parker was traveling around the country to promote “Webs”, a book of the picture he had taken of himself as Spider-Man. Along the way, Spidey had to face some familiar foes like The Prowler and The Chameleon. Back in NYC, Mary Jane Watson-Parker is currently working on the soap opera Secret Hospital and putting the finishing touches on the couples’ new condo which is owned by a well off fan of MJ’s named Jonathon Caesar who has a big obsession with the spunky redhead. It’s when Peter is in Chicago promoting “Webs” that Caesar makes his move and kidnaps Mary Jane, holding her in a secret room of the building. Peter has been frantic in his search for the whereabouts of his missing wife and it’s here that the story opens with Spidey getting into a fight in a local boxing gym with a low level mob enforcer with the catchy name of Manslaughter Marsdale. After going a short round, Spidey interrogates and threatens Marsdale for information which he doesn’t have.

   Having gotten nowhere, Spidey leaves to brood about how Mary Jane’s disappearance must be a plot by one of Spider-Man’s many foes to get to him. Contrary to that thought, we find Mary Jane having dinner against her will with her kidnapper Jonathon Caesar who is proving to be very unstable in his obession with her. Between the collage of photos of MJ and his threats to cut her face up if she tries to escape, now that I think about it unstable is being generous. 

   Caesar is informed by his bodyguards that Spider-Man is searching for Mary Jane and based on that information decides to hire some specialists to deal with the web-slinger. The next morning and with nothing else to go on Peter goes to the Daily Bugle and gets the brush off from J. Jonah Jameson who in spite of his gruff demeanor is keeping an ear out for any information about Mary Jane’s whereabouts. He says this in front of his secretary Glory Grant who comments that JJJ must have a heart after all, but he brushes it off by saying there could be a story in this. Long time readers of Spider-Man will know that in spite of Jonah making Peter’s life as Spider-Man a living hell and being near disrespectful of Peter himself, the funny thing is he does actually care about him. This scene could just be chalked up to him saving face.

   After this Peter goes to visit Daily Bugle editor Robbie Robertson who’s lying in traction in the hospital. There was a storyline running concurrently with this one in The Spectacular Spider-Man where Robbie was visited by an old friend who had become an up-and-coming mob boss named Tombstone. Tombstone wanted Robbie to join his organization and when he refused his old friend decided to let it go, but not before breaking Robbie’s back. This scene harkens back to that storyline and Robbie relates to Peter the feeling of helplessness brought on by his current situation, a feeling that with MJ’s kidnapping Peter can relate to.

      Looking in on Mary Jane and her tribulations with Caesar, we’re introduced to his hiredassassins Styx

And I got Cable's old guns for half off too

 and Stone. Stone’s a short but burly guy who has a generic costume with big guns on his shoulders, kind of the model of an over drawn, over muscled 90s anti-hero character if the artist had some restraint in his depiction. Styx is a little more interesting, a tall, skinny, eloquent man who literally has the touch of death as demonstrated when he uses it to kill a houseplant. MJ takes one look at this and understandably worries for Peter’s safety, but as soon as they see Spider-Man swing by the two chase after him in a vehicle called the Turbo-Hopper which looks like a cheap version of the Green Goblin’s glider if they bought it at a yard sale.

   As Spidey tries to get to a better ground away from civilians Stone blasts him with gas,sonics, and then a strobe burst that blinds him. I’m surprised he didn’t break out the gun that fires turtle shells. Back at the apartment Mary Jane finally makes her escape, first she tries using a broken lamp to electrocute Caesar who is standing in a puddle of melted ice, but Caesar is wearing rubber soles so MJ clocks him with the broken lamp. Caesar’s bodyguards come in and since they don’t have rubber soles the trick works this time, the shock knocks them cold and Mary Jane escapes taking one of their guns with her.

     Back at the fight Spidey’s bouncing around avoiding what Stone’s throwing at him, Stone then hits Spider-Man with a heat beam and then coats the ground with an adhesive gel that traps him when he hits the ground. As Stone continues blasting Spidey, Styx moves in for the kill only to be stopped by…..Mary Jane Watson-Parker who comes in guns blazing and runs Styx and Stone off saving her husband’s webbed butt. I know it’s cliché at this point in 2013 but I can’t help but give MJ a “you go girl” for saving Peter aka the damsel in distress.

   Reunited, the pair calls the police and Caesar and his bodyguards are arrested and led away. As they head inside, Peter begins putting himself through a guilt trip about not being there to protect Mary Jane which she immediately grinds to a halt saying that this would have happened no matter who she was married to, and that the whole point of their relationship is that they’re both their for each other no matter who’s in trouble because according to MJ, that’s what love is all about.

Whine to Jack Kirby that you can't write this and see where that gets you

   My memories of this story were at best vague, but in rereading it for this review I found this to actually be a really good story. Mary Jane goes from victim to hero and proves that she’s more than capable of taking care of herself. David Michelinie to me is the best writer in the Spider-Man books to have ever written Mary Jane’s character during the marriage era of the book. He writes MJ not as the female lead sitting on the couch waiting for her super hero husband to come home or the traditional damsel in distress  but as a strong, capable woman with her own life and ambitions outside of her relationship with Peter. I’ve heard about how some writers don’t like writing Mary Jane because they didn’t know what to do with her during this period but Michelinie proves that to be utter crap and just the whining of uninspired writers. J. Michael Straczynski can also be credited as someone who wrote MJ’s character just as well, focusing on her career as an actress of both stage and screen. However, his involvement in the infamous “One More Day” storyline tarnishes that for me and for many others who are fans of Mary Jane and want to see the marriage restored.

     This is a story I would recommend for anyone who wanted to get into reading Spider-Man, it’s a good self-contained story that while it doesn’t show Spidey in all his glory it does show how well the dynamic between him and MJ can really be when you have a writer who actually tries and doesn’t give in to cliché tropes. Once again, David Michelinie, I salute you sir and thank you for writing the very issue that got me into reading Spider-Man.