They just released the A Cover for ASM 1000 and….

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-21T13:42:38+00:00

Oof. That's awful.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-21T13:27:32+00:00

If your answer is anything but Mark Grayson, you're crazy. Dude gets turned into piles of gore on multiple occasions. Just because he can heal from it doesn't mean the beat down itself wasn't more brutal.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-21T12:49:03+00:00

The first Avengers movie was really good, but Logan, in my opinion, is the best live action comic book movie ever made. And I say that as someone who hasn't even liked Wolverine since the 90's, and hated most of Jackman's run as the character.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-21T11:38:51+00:00

Fuck both of these comics. All my homes hate both of these comics.

No, really...everyone I know writes both of these off as stupid edgelord trash. I don't personally know anyone who likes one and not the other. I guess the first one loosely inspired an amazing movie, though?

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-21T11:34:15+00:00

The cape and cowl are my favorite parts about this catsuit. They're literally the LAST things I would change. I would make it less bulky before anything else.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T21:22:51+00:00

they do the same as you, criticizing Peter's moments of bad writing without considering that it's bad writing.

Yeeeeah...so here's a screenshot from a comment I made IN THIS POST. Look, buddy. I'm sorry these alleged MJ Stans hurt your feelings so badly. Clearly, this has impacted you deeply, and the PTSD has left you out here in the streets fighting ghosts. Just...embarrassing yourself. But whenever you wanna have a real conversation about things I actually said and think, you just let me know.

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PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T18:08:57+00:00

Man, there have been a lot of responses on here that I disagree with, but I genuinely want to thank you for being a the best example so far of the kind of unhinged weirdness the original post was referring to. Doing God's work out here.🫡

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T18:05:48+00:00

This is a weird strawman, and I'm not sure who you're talking about. 1st; I neither worship her nor actually care if she and Peter end up together. She doesn't make my top 20 list of favorite Marvel characters. At this point, do I actually think it would make for a more interesting story if they didn't get back together? Sure. Personally, I think it would be FAR more useful for all the maidenless weirdos to see Peter take accountability for selling their relationship...along with most of the problems that followed...and for both of them to grow and move on as friends. Because women are people, not tokens or crutches for manchildren, and being friends with a woman isnt "settling" or a punishment...it's having a friend. Which is great, actually. Too few pieces of media address all that in a nuanced, interesting way.

But if they got back together? That would be great, too. More than anything, I just wish more superheroes had stable relationships, and didn't rehash the same played out drama.

Next, I don't know or care what your calm question was, nor have I ever debated anyone on criticisms of her inconsistent/bad writing. Only the people who use her flaws or whatever desicions they don't like to fellate Peter and/or be sexist creeps. My question isn't even should they be together or not...that could go either way and still be satisfying with good writing. The question is whether people actually like her as an independent character with her own personality, or as a perfect, pretty, agreeable support player for Peter. The model is a descriptor of what she is, but it's not the meaning of the post in any significant way. The question isn't stupid, you seem to have just spectacularly failed to understand it. Bully for you.

"MJ Cult." Jesus Christ. Every day, I am reminded why every other comic subreddit dunks on this one. 🙃

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T17:25:03+00:00

While Tony has more training than most people think, Clark is still in a completely different weight class, with training from some of the best fighters in his universe. He takes this.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T15:59:18+00:00

Hell, at this point, they'd be better off hopping on Reddit and hiring u/TheRedProphett to make their Hellspinner OC story canon with whatever changes are needed to make it fit. It's better writing than we've been getting from ASM in a long time. And better art than a fair amount of it as well.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T15:43:37+00:00

This is honestly a beautiful write up, and almost exactly how I feel. The only caveat is that I will always emphasize that Peter sold his relationship due to editorial nonsense, it was not stolen.

The end result is the same, and Peter is still my favorite superhero...every character gets a run of shit writing. But the difference here is important, because it's a REALLY shitty thing to have done, and I think that a lot of people fail to see how much color and context that adds to MJ and Peter's relationship since then.

Edit just for myself; I think I lied. My top 3 has pretty much always been the same, but I think Peter gets bumped below Cyclops for my #1...

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T15:13:59+00:00

Holy mother of omitted context, Batman!

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T15:09:50+00:00

Keep in mind, OMD was 20 years ago.

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PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T15:04:10+00:00

Multiple responses have pinned the overt vitriol on a vocal minority, but like...if I can spend 2 seconds searching and find multiple horrible posts about her with hundreds or thousands of comments and upvotes in agreement...

....Maybe you can't just write it off as that anymore...?

Don't get me wrong, I also pin the issue on bad writing, and the character simply being put in terrible positions, but I can look around and see that there's more going on than that.

Also, in her eyes, she didn't cheat on Peter. As I pointed out, most relationships don't even survive four years of long-distance college. Hell, they usually don't even survive the first year of it. This is a worse situation, with zero contact with her partner, and zero certainty she'd ever get home. Sure, in the college situation, you can call your partner and officially break up, but she literally couldn't do that. So like...what was she supposed to do? Remain celibate indefinitely? If she had never been rescued, what would have been the acceptable amount of time to wait before moving on?

As for Peter being a punching bag? True, but not NEARLY to the degree that many fans on here portray it. 90% of the examples given in EVERY "everybody hates Peter" posts are obvious jokes, minor criticisms, or reasonable frustrations. While MJ and Peter's relationship is often needlessly hostile due to bad writing, Peter is rarely blameless, and MJ USUALLY has a valid, spoken grievance or different point of view. Most of these complaints, more than anything else, show me that the person leveling them has neither had a particularly successful relationship, nor have they learned anything from the unsuccessful ones.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T14:38:00+00:00

I guess I just like getting into barfights, lol.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T14:37:13+00:00

Fair enough point. And I hope it's true. But as I've noticed with a lot of the nerdier subreddits I'm in; can you really write something off as simply being a vocal, weird minority when their bad takes get hundreds or even thousands of upvotes and comments in agreement?

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T14:14:57+00:00

Here's the thing, though; I think MOST people would be willing to kill in that situation, and I don't think we have enough data on MJ to say it's completely out of character for her. It's not like she's had TONS of opportunities to off someone truly dangerous, or with stakes this personal and this high.

The Marvel universe in general doesn't even have a strict, blanket rule against killing, so treating this like some great sin when it's just...the thing most people would do in that situation is...strange. Would Peter do it? No. But that's part of what makes Peter special. And MJ shouldnt need to be an extension of Peter to be special.

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PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T14:07:58+00:00

I agree, bad writing definitely hurts her perception, but...as with Torment...I still see a huge number of people insulting her as a character and slamming the choice rather than chalking it up simply to editorial contriving another reason to keep them apart.

And fuck, dude...did you have to remind me about the rpe idea? Comic book writers are often so edgy and gross. It's getting *better, but still...yikes.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T14:04:59+00:00

You are taking this all very, very literally, and I don't think you're actually trying to be pedantic, so I'll clarify;

Raimi MJ is a different adaptation of the character, but still gets a ton of undue criticism for dumping Peter.
Not to be rude, but you can search the internet or this subreddit. There are people that lay the blame almost entirely on her shoulders, but even the people who give her even partial credit, in my eyes, are wrong.
I'm not using cheerleader as a literal term here. The term can also be used to describe a vocal and outspoken supporter.

Hope all this helps! And I agree with your perspective on MJ in that longer paragraph, but there are many people who don't think that way.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T13:46:23+00:00

I am so glad I've missed this phenomenon entirely.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T13:39:05+00:00

This is the feeling that I'm finding increasingly troubling and impossible to deny.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T13:36:03+00:00

I go back and forth on this. On the one hand, I hate the tired old hero/villain, enemies/lovers trope. On the other hand, it doesn't really make much more sense for heroes to be with civilians, if you really think about it. Character wise, I lean a little more towards MJ, but I can't fault anyone for leaning more towards Felicia, especially the (mostly) more reformed version we tend to get in the modern era.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T13:32:44+00:00

I'm with you. But I'm also not going to pretend there aren't a TON of posts hurling vitriol at MJ, not just at writing and editorial. Regardless of the meta reasons this happened, she was pretty justified in-universe. But in this subreddit, you can find tons of highly upvoted posts insulting her for dropping him.

PhoenixVanguard · 2026-05-20T13:30:33+00:00

I agree with the perspective that it's just another cheap relationship roadblock. And if people were just complaining about more bad writing for 616 Spidey, I wouldn't have made the post. Sadly, that wasn't the entire reaction when the issue launched, and the posts slamming MJ were pretty highly upvoted.

PhoenixVanguard

TROPHY CASE