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Lots of people around the world relate to Spider-Man and Peter Parker, but I've come to realize that I share more of a kinship with the people around Spider-Man than the web-slinger himself. The guy frustrates me. He can be a lousy boyfriend, friend, journalist, you name it, and I hate feeling let down by his shortcomings. And this is precisely why, when I heard that it was Mary Jane Watson beneath the Venom symbiote goop, I felt an unbridled sense of joy. Oh my god, MJ can finally be free, I thought. And free she has been. 

Let's be real, none of us will ever catch Mary Jane Watson slipping. Her hair is always perfect, she can rush around the city in heels without getting a single rolled ankle or blister, and she's got a rock-solid moral constitution. But that isn't all she can be. And it's this element that writer Al Ewing has been exploring with the All-New Venom and its subsequent Venom ongoing series with MJ as the symbiote's unexpected host. As Venom, Mary Jane has redefined the significance of Marvel's most popular characters while also injecting a much-needed sense of joy and whimsy where there was once only trauma and sorrow. With MJ at the symbiote reins, her character has gotten the chance to directly address the damage that the symbiote wrought on her life when Eddie Brock and Peter Parker were its hosts, while also publicly being a weird, goopy freak protecting her fellow New Yorkers. Talk about a power fantasy! 

Mary Jane Watson's Venom is unlike any other lethal protector we've seen before. 

Part of what makes Mary Jane as Venom work is the way that artists like Carlos Gómez and Paco Medina draw her on the page. Her appearance as Venom doesn't look any different, beyond the gold chest emblem, from the symbiote's male hosts. In other words, her Venom isn't engineered to look stereotypically sexy to the male gaze, because why the heck would an amorphous, alien symbiote need to look buxom anyway? Instead, MJ, perhaps for the first time in her publication history, can act without being constrained by her role as the beautiful girl-next-door type trying to make it as an actress. She can go goblin mode! 

And as we see in All-New Venom and in later issues of the Venom series, Mary Jane and the symbiote work remarkably well together. In All-New Venom #8 by Al Ewing, Carlos Gómez, and Frank D'Armata, they move through the waters of the East River undetected in the shape of a submarine. The symbiote says, "Nice thinking, MJ," to which she responds, "I do have my moments. But honestly, you're a shape-shifting alien. I don't know why you didn't do this kind of stuff much before I came along." That's when Venom reveals that it needed Mary Jane "to have the idea" of transforming into a submarine: "Everything I know, I learn from my hosts – including learning itself." While Eddie Brock and Peter Parker were, psychologically and emotionally, in the CGI wasteland from the music video for Linkin Park's In the End, when they were the symbiote's host, MJ's clear-eyed bond with the symbiote enables the two to find creative solutions to whatever crosses their path. 

Later on, in Venom #251 by Al Ewing, Paco Medina, and Frank D'Armata, the pair disguise themselves in Iron Man armor and zip across New York City on roller skates - because MJ knows how to roller skate, of course. "You're not having fun?" Venom asks her [and by extension, the more humorless of us] when she says, "This is ridiculous." "Symbiotes don't know how to roller-skate, remember? I couldn't do this without you." Indeed, the very best symbiote shenanigans have been only possible in these books because of the woman beneath the goop.  

Mary Jane Watson has been through it. From growing up with an abusive father, to having the people closest to her become supervillains and superheroes, to watching Venom transform her partner into a violent man she was afraid of, to listening to Peter Parker whinge on countless occasions, New York City is lucky that this woman hasn't been consumed by her own demons. With everything her character has gone through, why wouldn't she become a host to Venom at one point or another? As Venom, Mary Jane challenges our understanding of the symbiote-host bond, taking it from a relationship built on toxicity with nu-metal blasting in the background to a place of nuance, reflection, courage, and creativity. 

Venom is many things: an alien symbiote, a lethal protector, an antihero, a destroyer of carpets, and above all, a creature who craves companionship. As monstrous and intimidating as Venom can be, the character is driven by the fundamentally human truth that we're social creatures. For all the talk of the supposed "male loneliness epidemic" today within toxic online spheres, the Venom symbiote can and will die if it can't bond with someone. At the end of the day, even the biggest, burliest, and goopiest of us need someone whom they can confide in, even if things aren't always smooth sailing. 

And frankly, with all the waffling over the state of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson's relationship (or lack thereof) at Marvel's Spider-Man office, perhaps the best thing would be for Mary Jane to cut ties with Peter entirely and fully embrace being Venom for the foreseeable future. If anything, it's a refreshing story about a woman's trauma that isn't traumatic to read. And as Venom, Mary Jane has the unexpected chance to develop into her own standalone character, no Peter Parker needed. 

Marvel's most reliable superhero has proven he can do a whole lot more than just 'whatever a spider can.' Swing into Spidey's history with Popverse's...

• Best Spider-Man comic books 
• The best Spider-Mans (or is it Spider-Men?)
• Spider-Man movie watch order
• Spider-Man's actors, ranked
• The best Spider-Man suits
• and the Spider-verse explained!

Just watch out for that radioactive blood.