I said he’d be back, and here he is, Tom Beland! As the thing in the corner suggests, this is part of a thing called “I Love Marvel,” wherein the company sort-of-kind-of dipped its toe back into the realm of romance comics. A popular staple of 50s, 60s, and to a lesser degree, 70s comics (Popularized by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, like so many things), romance comics were not too common by this point, especially from the so-called Big Two. But the OG romance comics were about regular people, and this initiative is about superheroes, so it’s not really the same thing. What it is, tho, is a project tailor made for Beland, who made his bones writing & drawing an autobiographical romance comic called True Story, Swear To God. He had a foot in the door with Marvel and he knew romance, who better to do this? They made one-shots for various characters, but I don’t remember who, I just got this one. And, as I recall, it’s great, and after the Other, I deserve a great comic. Beland is joined by penciler Cory Walker, inker Cliff Rathburn and ASM colorist Matt Milla, here credited as “Avalon’s Matt Milla.” Has he been absorbed by one of the machines, or was he one of the rare people working at one who got a real credit til now? I don’t know. The cover is by a Gez Fry. I don’t know who that is, but I always liked the Spidey on it. Cory Walker is one of the few artists who’s worked with Robert Kirkman and not wound up in a bitter dispute with him, the co-creator of Invincible. Seriously, only so many people can say you screwed them over before it’s a pattern. Enough preamble, let’s see a familiar face you probably wouldn’t have expected to ever see again:
Yes, not all that long since the Breakout mini, Mandrill. Put to much more entertaining use here, tho, this sequence stuck with me all these years. Spider-Man swinging home, fretting that he never gets MJ a cool gift, and she always knows what to buy for any occasion, and he wants this Valentine’s Day to be different. I note Walker is drawing a weird take on the original Ditko spider on his chest. Arriving at the Tower, he finds May & Jarvis in the kitchen, and asks where MJ is. She’s watching the Knicks with Steve, Tony & Luke.
It has also stuck with me all these years that Walker drew MJ with no eyebrows and the worst possible take on her bangs. I mean, jeez. But I enjoy Beland’s take on MJ as much as I do not enjoy Walker’s. The bit about all her friends having been male is demonstrably untrue, but we can let that ride. MJ at ease with the superfellas is a great angle. I wish we saw it elsewhere. Peter takes a shower, thinking about how he thinks MJ believes Gwen “meant more to him” than she does, but that isn’t true. He talks about how Gwen wasn’t “Streetwise,” how he was always worried about here, whereas MJ is tough and had already survived plenty before they got together, let alone since. He thinks she’s strong and capable and he doesn’t have to worry about her.
Peter is relating the story of how he pranked Johnny with a giant bat made of webbing in the 2nd feature of ASM #8. Good pull, Tom! Then it’s the next day, and Spider-Man, Cage and Cap are fighting Dragon Man, while Spidey is also asking them what he should do about Valentine’s Day. But Dragon Man’s really making with the fire, and when Cap finds out from SHIELD that he’s vulnerable to sonics, Cage borrows his shield, then slaps it with his super strength, unleashing quite the sonic attack. I’m not sure that would work. Vibranium is called that because it absorbs vibrations, I don’t know that you could make his shield “CLANG.” But, it did.
So, then, Peter finds Tony Stark at home, and says he thinks he knows what to get MJ, but he needs Tony’s help. And then we jump to the big day, with our couple in fancy dress, and Peter asks her if she’s ready to receive her gift.
Cut to Johnny Storm walking to his car, when a giant bat attacks him, and he ends up covered in webbing, just like in ASM 8.
And that’s the show. People talk about how Peter & MJ’s marriage was terrible, but so much of it was written so badly. MJ constantly being kidnapped by Jonathan Caesar in the early days, MJ’s dumb smoking subplot, MJ becoming a nagging shut-in who only existed to resent Spider-Man, the two of them mad at each other, whatever the hell Howard Mackie thought he was doing in the reboot. More comics like this one and I think people would have seen things differently. Especially if more comics had MJ with no eyebrows and insane hair. Tom Beland knew how to write a modern Marvel title, I don’t know why he did so little with them. He would next write a Fantastic Four miniseries, and I think that’s it. A shame, sez I. Ah, well. It was very nice to read a comic that didn’t make me hate reading comics, and guess what, next post is TWO more of them!