The Amazing Spider-Man: Parallel Lives

The Amazing Spider-Man: Parallel Lives

Originally released in 1989

Written by Gerry Conway

Art by Alex Saviuk

This story focuses on the parallels between the lives of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson leading up to their marriage. The Peter-focused material largely retells or expands on issues from the 60s - Peter's origin story, battling Doc Ock to get a cure to save Aunt May's life (featuring the first time where Spider-Man is trapped under a large pile of rubble and manages to lift it off of himself, which has been homaged or imitated many times over), meeting Mary Jane for the first time, getting J. Jonah Jameson those oft-demanded photos of Spider-Man, and so on.

Mary Jane's story, on the other hand, completely re-contextualizes her relationship with Peter.  Early on, it reveals that even before the fateful accident, she found him rather cute on the occasions that she visited her Aunt Anna. It's a small touch, but I'm glad that it was included - it makes it clear that she had feelings for him even before he became Spider-Man, rather than only being interested in him after he became a superhero.

However, with an alcoholic father and a mother who let people walk all over her, Mary Jane's home life was far from ideal.  This story takes Mary Jane's flighty personality from her first appearances and establishes that it was a mask, keeping her from falling into depression.  The problem with me reading these stories piece by piece (and, on many occasions, out of order) is that I'm sometimes unsure of what information is newly revealed and what information was already established in older issues.  However, something happens here that I'm pretty sure has never been revealed before:

On the night that Uncle Ben is shot, Mary Jane is visiting her Aunt Anna's, where she'd been living with her mother and sister after they left her father.  Not knowing how to comfort Peter's Aunt May, Mary Jane heads to the window, hoping to stay out of it.  She had just seen Peter go into the Parker house, and not long after, she sees Spider-Man come out the window.  Having seen Spider-Man through TV appearances when he was an entertainer, it doesn't take much for her to put two and two together and realize that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

I know that it was revealed before Peter and Mary Jane were married that MJ knew Peter's identity, but this establishes that she knew it from almost the beginning, before he even started fighting crime.  I feel like something like this goes a long way towards explaining why Mary Jane is Peter's best known and most popular love interest, and why people want their marriage to be restored after it was written out over fifteen years ago.  Mary Jane is someone who loves both sides of Peter, whereas many of his love interests love one part of him but hate the other. (Gwen loved Peter but hated Spider-Man, Black Cat loved Spider-Man but didn't care for Peter, etc.)

She gave him a confidant - someone who he could talk to about any problem regardless of what part of his life it impacts.  They're two people who hide their true feelings behind masks - some more literal than others, but they can be completely open and honest with each other, and after spending a lot of his time trying to hide his identity from Aunt May, his friends, his love interests, and just about everyone else, it's refreshing for Peter to have someone like that in his life.

It also helps that Mary Jane is a fun, well-written character - a breath of fresh air, especially back in the Silver Age. (It didn't take long after her introduction for her to become popular, to the point where Gwen Stacy was blatantly changed to make her more like MJ)  She has her own concerns, doubts, and fears which loom over her, delaying her first meeting with Peter and causing her to question if marriage was right for her, along with not wanting to be forcefully tied down by her family's problems.  Her mom and sister are both divorced, causing her to fear that she'll be hurt just like they were.

Of course, this is still a superhero comic, so there's going to be a villain to fight.  In this case, it's Doctor Octopus, who's described as a lonely person much like Peter and MJ were, but contrasted by his inability to let go of the past.  While Peter and MJ are trying to grow beyond the tragedies that they've suffered, Otto Octavius clings to it like his namesake.  After the accident that turned him into Doc Ock, the closest thing that he found to happiness was meeting Aunt May, only for that to be snatched away from him when Peter told Aunt May that the nice gentleman Otto Octavius who just wants to rent a room is actually the supervillain Doctor Octopus.

Otto has held a grudge against Peter for years as a result, hating him almost as much as he hates Spider-Man because Peter took away what he feels like was his one chance at being happy.  Rather than trying to redeem himself or change his ways, Otto waits until after Peter's wedding day to attack the Parker household, sending a message for Peter to bring him Spider-Man or else Otto will kill Peter's family.

Otto's obsession with the past includes using radioactive material from where he was first turned into Doctor Octopus to build a nuclear bomb, and using his underwater base from his days as the Master Planner (where the aforementioned rubble-lifting scene happened) as his base of operations for this plan.

It might be obvious based on how much I've talked about this comic already, but I REALLY enjoyed this story.  It takes one of Spider-Man's oldest villains and contrasts him with Peter in a way that I hadn't considered before.  It helped me to clearly see why Mary Jane is such a great character, and gave a new take on classic Spider-Man stories from the Lee-Ditko era without contradicting anything from back then. If anything, it makes some scenes from back then more effective - at one point in the Lee-Ditko era, Peter needs an excuse to leave a party in order to stop a supervillain attack when MJ expresses an interest in seeing it live, giving Peter the excuse that he needs.  It wasn't written as though MJ knew Peter's secret back then, but it fits in perfectly with this reveal.

I don't get the idea that Peter and MJ being married "ages" them or "makes them tougher to relate to" or whatever justification Marvel's editorial has for keeping them broken up - if anything, marriage feels like a natural progression for both characters, and makes them stronger and more effective than they were when they were apart.  This story was well-written, and I found it extremely easy to relate to both Peter and MJ's thoughts and root for them even without taking pre-existing Spider-Man material into account.  It seems perfect for newcomers and longtime fans alike.