Mary Jane Watson's poll dance - the results.

MJ and Gwen are so outraged by the results of
our poll, it's all Harry and Captain Stacy can do
to keep them apart.

ITEM. walloping web-snappers! The result of our sensational Mary Jane Watson v Gwen Stacy poll are in -- and, with two votes for the lovely Gwendolyn, two for the ever-swingin' MJ, and one for, "It's a draw," that means our tumultuous poll of power is a tie! Never before have the people of the Blogiverse spoken so loudly!*

(*I'm definitely going to have to give up taking the Stan Lee lessons.)

Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson. Two Women separated by one dance.

Lennon or McCartney? Sheep or cows? Red or blue? It's a choice that at some point in our lives all men must make.

But there's one choice we're not forced to make.

Why?

Because it doesn't matter.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to make it anyway.

That choice is simple. Gwen Stacy or Mary Jane Watson?

Now, it should be said the natural girlfriend for Peter Parker was always Betty Brant. Being duller and less glamorous than the other two, it always made more sense for the loser-figure Parker to date her. It never made sense for him to be dating beautiful glamorous sex-bombs. Still it was comic books, it was Stan Lee, it was John Romita and so we got a defiance of all logic to match the characters' defiance of gravity.

Reading through the Spider-Man Essentials, several years back, it was a genuine shock to see how the characters were when they first appeared. Both of them seemed like they might be mentally ill. Gwen Stacy, as well as looking vaguely evil, seemed totally obsessed with Peter Parker. Everything she said was about him. Everything she thought was about him. Everything she did was about him.

Mary Jane, on the other hand, seemed to be thinking about everything but Peter Parker, seeing him as a football she could either pick up or leave lying around as she saw fit. She was a strange character, the living embodiment of the Swinging 60s but a woman to whom nothing at all seemed to matter.

While Gwen Stacy's head was filled with endlessly plotting thought-balloons and concerns. Mary Jane had no thought-balloons at all. It was as though she was an empty shell or simply had thoughts she had no intention of sharing with anyone, including herself - a woman in denial of even her own inner being. The differences meant a spiritual conflict was inevitable and, in the very early days, Gwen and MJ were involved in a kind of Cold War to prove who could be the hottest chick in New York. For a spell, amazingly, Gwen Stacy came out on top.

But then it all started to go wrong, as MJ continued being the life and soul of the party while Gwen slowly deteriorated into the dull, earnest limpet that prompted a young Gerry Conway to kill her off.

On the other hand, as Mary Jane went along she simply got nastier, metamorphosing into a total bitch who took the fact her boyfriend was in hospital, from a drugs overdose, as her cue to come on to his flatmate at every opportunity. All the more amazing then that she ended up becoming a proper love interest for Peter Parker, and at no point did the transition seem forced.

I have to admit I've always preferred Mary Jane. I've got a feeling the reason why's to be found in the events of Amazing Spider-Man issue #59, in which Mary Jane becomes a dancer at the Kingpin's club, while Gwen's dad is hypnotised into committing a crime by that self-same villain. Both women are dragged into a super-villain's machinations, one by her sense of freedom, the other by her sense of duty. This is the point. Despite Gwen's early status as Hot Dancing Chick TM, Mary Jane's role in this issue is one Gwen could never have played because she was never free. She always existed only in relation to other people, whether it be Peter Parker or her father.

Mary Jane, on the other hand, had from day one demonstrated she had a life independent of anyone, including possibly herself. Gwen Stacy never had a life beyond Peter Parker and her father, never said anything that didn't involve them, never had a thought that didn't involve them. It meant that, for all her emoting and agonising, she could never be as three dimensional as the determinedly two dimensional Mary Jane. Without Peter Parker, without her father, there was nothing left of her. She'd simply have vanished into the ether, a never-even noticed breeze - while, without other people, Mary Jane would probably have spent all eternity dancing away on that front cover, oblivious to everything but herself. It made her more self-obsessed but, to be self-obsessed, you must first have a sense of self, and to have a sense of self is to exist. Mary Jane had it. Gwen Stacy didn't.