The Amazing Spider-Man #259

This cover's a take off of an old Iron Man cover... but we're not here to talk about covers (for once).  This issue has a very interesting, if not wholly successful, flashback into MJ's past life.  Up to this point in Spider-man lore, MJ has been the happy go lucky party girl with not a lot of backstory.  We know she lives with Anna Watson and she likes Petey, partying and talking in late 60s lingo.  Here deFalco attempts to flesh out the character.  It's quite interesting but it soon descends into a catalogue of misery that one usually associates with weepy novels.  True, deFalco had to give some explanation why MJ, like Peter Parker, lived with her aunt, but here he really lets rip, showing a succession of weak willed men in her lives and women who didn't know what to do.  That said, it's still quite interesting and I admire deFalco for attempting it.  But it doesn't quite work, doesn't quite gel with the confident character that we know (that deFalco insists is a front to hide the character's misery).  But a pretty good read, all the same.