There are many stigmas that follow being a fanboy. We constantly combat the stereotype of being greasy-haired, acne-ridden men with ages ranging from mid twenties to early thirties, and still living with our parents and taken to running around wearing capes and homemade superhero outfits in public.

While this very colorful description MIGHT describe some of us that love comics, it by no means accounts for the entire comic-loving community. One can find a comic book aficionado in any corner of life. There are rockstars who love the funny books, and there are produce boys. We run the gamut. But perhaps the stereotype most taken for granted is “-boy” part of fanboy.

Girls read comics.

I’ve heard various percentages rattled off on female readership numbers, and I’ve rarely seen any that agree, but I think the highest percentage of female comic readers that I ever came across was around thirty percent. Considering that they comprise about fifty percent of the population, that’s something of a low number. Various efforts have been made to bring in female readership to the modern comic (girls were almost of an equal percentage with boys, back when things like romance comics were published). Oddly enough, it seems that the craze that has brought girls back into reading comics originated not the idea shops of America, but in Japan.

Girls apparently have a fondness for manga.

Be it that many Japanese comics are based around female protagonists, featuring stories about adolescent girls having problems with boys, and many times being written by women for the female readership (the good people at CLAMP are well known for this); the Japanese have succeeded where American comic writers have failed. They realized the ignored potential of the female readership. It is only recently that American companies have begun to think in terms of more than one gender (or toward a younger readership for that matter), and the result is companies like Marvel putting out Mary Jane under their Marvel Age line of books (which includes Sentinel, Runaways, and Spider-Girl among others).

Written by Indie writer Sean (The Waiting Place, Inhumans) McKeever and illustrated by Takeshi (Sidekicks, Runaways) Miyazawa, Mary Jane takes a look at Spider-Man’s significant other when she was only a teenager, before she ever got involved with everyone’s favorite wall-crawler. She’s just a normal high school girl, with normal high school problems, and a normal crush on a superhero dressed as an arachnid.

The difficulty in reviewing this title is mine more than the comic’s. This is Marvel’s attempt to grab attention from the Manga shelf to their titles, and using Mary Jane as a character is a smart enough move. She has exposure, if not well-acted exposure, from the Spider-Man movies, and the use of an artist whose flavor is manga-styled coupled with the small size of the volume make it accessible to that audience of young females perusing the bookstore shelves. These are intelligent moves on Marvel's part.

Also is the decision to base the story solely around Mary Jane. Other than a few scenes where the story covers various bits about her friends, Mary Jane and her perspective is the only lens for the story. We see Spider-Man enter her life, and we see Peter Parker enter her life, but there is no connection made between them. Someone with no knowledge of Spider-Man could easily not know that he is the man behind the web-covered mask, and that makes this Mary Jane’s story, not his.

This is also the problem. I know that Spider-Man and Peter Parker are the same person, just as I know that M.J and Flash Thompson are eventually going to end up dating. I know Liz Sherman and Harry Osborne have a history, and a few hundred other story details that have filtered down through years of being familiar with the character of Spider-Man. There is little in way of plot twist or surprise for anyone with a workable knowledge of the Spider-Man mythos in Mary Jane.

So now, I’m left wrestling with intention versus actuality. The intent is to reach an audience that has little understanding of the Spider-man saga, and the actuality is that many who read this will have been attracted to it by a.) the movies; b.) the comics; or c.) both. Oh dilemma, thy name is M.J.

If one discounts speaking about the plot, which is somewhat generic in its adolescent, trials-of-growing-up themes, McKeever’s feel for the characters is interesting. Liz is painted as an uncouth social climber with little regard for people’s feelings, but is juxtaposed against the very eager to please and unflappably nice Mary Jane. Not exactly an unheard of type of friendship, but McKeever never forces that characters to interact, as they seem to mesh well. His portrait of the consummate jock/sadistic bully is Flash Thompson, but McKeever also adds some depth (about a foot or two) to his character, almost giving him a heroic quality. Harry Osborne is that nice guy everyone thought was cute, but for some irrational reason no one ever dated, with a heart to match his good looks. McKeever shows a group of friends that would appear in any high school; the social higher-ups that cluster together, but maybe don’t really like each other. McKeever is subtle in the way he plays the characters off one another, which keeps the formula of high school drama from completely overshadowing content.

Miyazawa’s artwork has always interested me, and I’m glad once again to see it in color. He has such a soft touch with his manga influences that one really gets the fusion of American and Japanese styles. Unlike most manga, he has good emotive technique, so that the character’s words aren’t the only thing I’m going from when interpreting thought. His panel layout features some light comedic tones, using silent panels that feature similar themes to make a point or get a punch line over on a joke, which I’ll always tip my cap to.

All in all, it comes down to a matter of who is reading this comic. If someone with an immense knowledge of Spider-Man sits down with this, they might be horribly bored and begin nitpicking at the leaps in continuity that McKeever deems necessary to tell his story. If someone with no Spidey sense grabs this, they might be happily entertained by the story of high school love, crushes, and friendship. The price is certainly right with $5.99 getting you four issues of comics, but the page count is rather thin when compared to actual manga.

I can’t really recommend Mary Jane for many of those who read this column, as most of you probably have a bevy of web covered trivia just waiting to be recalled, but perhaps you, good readers, might grab a copy and take it to a young manga reader, encouraging them to read an actual American comic while they innocently suspect they are reading true manga. Whether or not that reader should be female is a toss up: I know women who love nothing more than a good WB-like soap opera, while I also know plenty that prefer watching superheroes beat the living hell out of each other. And the same for young lads. Your decision, fanpeople.

Marvel Age Mary Jane Volume 1: Circle Of Friends Digest (Spider-Man)

Robert Sparling