Peter Parker is a 5'10", 165lb, brown-haired, (sometimes) brown-eyed boy from Queens. Peter Parker is, by all accounts a regular fellow. But Peter Parker has always had something about him, something that live-action reviewers will sometimes fail to acknowledge: Peter Parker has an almost otherworldly pull on women.
Since everyone’s favorite webhead first showed up way back in 1962, there have been many love interests and romantic entanglements. In all honesty, if it wasn’t for the fact that the Spider-Man comics have a kid-to-teen target audience, Peter would probably have a Tony Stark-level playboy rep. The loves are far too many to list here but we know some of the big names. MJ, Gwen Stacy, Felicia Hardy (Black Cat). There’s so many more fun ones too. He was dating Bobbi Morse for a bit, and I’m not even going to touch on the Cindy Moon-shaped elephant in the love interest conversation. But I want to talk about these three. MJ, Gwen, and Felicia. Specifically, how their relationships with the kid from Queens and each other adds layers of depth to what is one of the most narratively diverse characters in comic book history.
I’ll start with Gwen. For spider fans, she was the first real gut punch in what was going to be a long history of gut punches (spoiler: she dies in #121). And while her run, both in the comics and in Peter’s life, was not as long as you’d want, it was still incredibly impactful. Peter has always been driven partly by grief. It’s what makes a lot of his decisions for him. And the grief of losing Gwen is something that never truly left him. In Spider-Man: Blue, he essentially recalls his life around the time he first met Gwen, to her (go read it. It’s amazing). Because Gwen didn’t know his identity, the stories with and around her, both in the timeline and in flashback form (again, read Blue) touch on the life of the Spider from the point of view of the man. What, or who, he sacrifices in order to be the Spider. Ultimately, Gwen died at the hands of the Green Goblin without knowing why. Because Petey had a secret. Gwen exists as this idealized world and existence for Peter. And it can exist in that way, because she’s not here. He gets to dream about “what might have been”, and that just deepens the hurt and the guilt. Gwen exists for Peter as an eternal reminder of the fatal costs that comes with being Spider-Man.
Next up is MJ. Mary Jane Watson. She is what people call “endgame”. For all intents and purposes, MJ and Peter are the power couple of the Marvel Universe (yes, I put them above Reed and Sue. Fight me). Now, MJ is different from Gwen, for one thing because she’s still alive (lol). But seriously, MJ is Peter’s longest relationship. They were even married, until the events of One More Day. Longevity like that doesn’t come with too many secrets, including ones about men in masks swinging about the city. MJ knew, and she eventually came to love it as part of him (took a while, and more than one non-mystical separation). Point is, she is the balance. She is the “life with the Spider”, from both sides. We see how the Spider affects the man, and how the man affects the Spider. The intertwined nature of their relationship is part of what gives it its strength. Is it perfect? No. Few things in life (even comic life) are. But it never needs to be. Neither of them need to be perfect.
And now, last, but most certainly not least, Felicia Hardy, AKA Black Cat. Cat exists on the other side of the spectrum. She is, to my knowledge, the only one of Peter’s love interests who met him (and fell in love with him) first as Spider-Man. She only knew the Spider, nothing of the man. Black Cat stories are some of my absolute favorite, that era in Amazing history is up there for me with any other. She pulls out the fun side out of our constantly self-flagellating hero. With Cat, he can let loose. The Spider can take over, with no regard to the plights or sorrows of the man behind the embroidery. When he’s with her (and this is partly because of how they met and all that), Peter Parker does not exist. He is all Spider-Man, and that is more than good enough for Cat. In fact, for the longest time, it’s how she preferred it. Now, obviously, the overwhelming goodness of Parker will, and did, prevail. But even to this day, when fighting (or stealing) for good, you can almost sense a little joy seep through the mask at being able to let loose and enjoy being Spider-Man.
To summarize, there are many parts to all people, even fictional people. And some of the many parts of Peter Parker can be found in the Many Women of Peter Parker.
