Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane

Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane
Cover of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #1. Artwork by Takeshi Miyazawa.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Schedule	Monthly
Format	ongoing
Publication date(s)	December 2005 – July 2007
No. of issues	20
Main character(s)	Mary Jane
Creative team
Written by	Sean McKeever
Artist(s)	Takeshi Miyazawa, David Hahn
Colorist(s)	Christina Strain

Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane is an American comic book series focusing on a teenage Mary Jane, the love interest of superhero Spider-Man. The series, published by Marvel Comics, is a teen drama set outside the regular Marvel continuity, and aimed at teenage girls, as opposed to the traditional male comic book audience.

It was originally written by Sean McKeever with art by penciller Takeshi Miyazawa (who left after issue #15 and was replaced by David Hahn, but continued providing covers) and colorist Christina Strain. The series began publication in December 2005 and was preceded by two miniseries from the series' original creative team, Mary Jane in 2004 and Mary Jane: Homecoming in 2005.

The original series ended in July 2007 with issue #20, and was followed by a five-issue miniseries, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane Season 2, in August 2008 by writer Terry Moore and artist Craig Rousseau.

The initial four-issue miniseries, Mary Jane, originally intended as an ongoing series, began publication in June 2004 under the Marvel Age imprint, a line of comic books by Marvel Comics aimed at younger readers. Marvel had decided to launch a comic book series with a female lead to attract young female readers after seeing a growing number of girls becoming comic readers through manga, and had chosen Mary Jane because of her popularity stemming from the Spider-Man film series (Spider-Man 2 was released two weeks after Mary Jane #1). Mary Jane was also the subject of a popular young adult novel by Judith o'Brien the year before. However, due to low sales the series was discontinued after its fourth issue, with Marvel waiting to see how the digest-sized trade paperback collecting the four issues would sell, before deciding whether the series should be canceled for good or not. Simultaneously, a collected edition of the series was also released in magazine size with a cardstock cover, exclusively available at Target Stores.