/re "If Mary Jane face model looked like this in spiderman 2 would people still have complained?" | The problem isn't just her face

Source

#1 & #2

Depends, the original doesn't look as bad from certain angles lol.

But her magic taser crap, dollar tree lois lane-isms, her whiney scream dialogue, awkward scenes, zero presence in her scenes etc. etc.

Another dated, de-feminized, millennial/modern caricature called "MJ". And being MJ, she needs more endowment along with the face upgrade. You can have attractive women without going full Manga industry "piece of meat" treatment but that doesn't address the narrative issue. Her face is just a symbol.

Point being: She could look like Christina Hendricks but the writing is still garbage because the staffs idea of agency is her running around being Bargain Bin Lois Lane with inspector gadgets, which ironically should've been the whackier more fun parts of the game, tbh.

If she looked like that image from jump, the goal post would shift to "mary sue".

Personally, If i had to choose, I'd rather keep the Marlon Jane face in MSm2, and get a better written character, and more importantly: Presence & charisma, which she does not have.

But visually these two pics are upgrades, first one's better but the second one stays truer to the Msm2 model they went with.

Lastly, to get ppl to not "complain-" would be to overhaul the story, instead of the wannabe Kim Possible crap (& yet she's not even 1% the character Kim is in just the first episode) Give her some wit, femme fatale sass & some meme-worthy moments in the cutscenes. More banter moments with Peter so we can build up that chemistry (which they DO NOT have in the game).

• Give her one liners, something! Give something the player can enjoy vs the player just watching an industry approved movie with interactive walking simulators & braindead Arkham sequences.

MJ really is just there despite how hard they tried to make her relevant and morally justified. And that's really the worst part of it, the writer tried too hard. Zero nuance.

Mj isn't a source of strength or synergy, levity, or social cohesion. I say why not have her be the nerve center of the squad? And to be as such requires her actually having a personality vs the very feminist gen-trope of being married to her career pursuits to the point of burnout. Which is where Peter comes in as a masculine warmth & levity, the mild-mannered cushion; so when the Symbiote comes in, there's a vacuum that threatens their bond, that relational serenity & eventually her safety.

But the point I'm making is-- something has to be there in order for something to be threatened in the first place, if they have no chemistry & just act like platonic roommates, at worst Symbiote Peter just had a really bad attitude.

And him/Venom attacking her needed to come with ongoing physical evidence of harm to respect the gravity of that situation that builds towards his decision to let the suit go, or have that situation be the last straw. Have Peter be on top of her, one killshot away from ending her life & then he wakes up, seeing what he's become. Have her try to physically scratch at the symbiote to claw Peter out in sheer desperation, like where's that Watson grit!? The kind that drove her to try to press Morlun of all people, that's peak MJ.

The MSm2 we got didn't have the spine to go there; Kraven loses his head, but MJ can't get too roughed up lol.

• The story wants to insert her everywhere else she shouldn't be to inflate importance, but Peter coming to from his darkness was because of Morales (?) and not Watson's importance in Peter's life?
• But she's his partner, not Miles. Sometimes the feminine approach is the stronger course of action and would make for a better conflict resolution than Miles throwing punches with Parker & hitting him with the Talk-No Deku technique.
• Thus winning a fight he had no business winning and should've been written instead as Miles trying to survive Peter.
• [Alien Cosmic Horror < plagiarized Jessica Drew powers] ZERO stakes, pure Gary Stu.

TL;DR point being---- whether ppl realize it or not, what warrants the complaints is more than just her face & the missions. I think her profile at this point is just the easiest target as a visual mascot for all the issues combined.

Which makes sense, I get it. But her face is more symbolic, it's not "the" problem.

For Mandom James Watsons face, she could look like Jessica Rabbit but if the writing's still slop, it'd just be a typical shonen anime at that point. All style, zero substance.

But like the Peter face change, it's not the change itself, it's what it was changed into that is the downgrade, on both accounts.