The Amazing Mary Jane #5 // Review
Principal Photography has almost completely wrapped on the Mysterio bio-pic, but sometimes filming the last scene can be the hardest as the Marvel Universe’s most famous movie star is about to find out in the fifth issue of The Amazing Mary Jane. Writer Leah Williams’ story of the movie shoot from hell continues in an issue drawn by Carlos Gomez with color by Carlos Lopez. The story continues to cling together on momentum alone. Williams finds the center of the momentum and leans into it quite well, but the greater opportunity for exploring Hollywood in the Marvel Universe seems continually distant in an otherwise largely satisfying issue.
The day of the last shoot for the Mysterio bio-pic Mary Jane is sticking around to make certain that the final shooting goes off without a hitch even if it kills her. That’s a hell of a lot of dedication from a screen actor, but she’s been through a lot with this movie so far and she’s not about to abandon it until she absolutely has to. Naturally, her life IS going to have to be put on the line when a group of villains including the Rhino, the Vulture and the Scorpion show-up to try to derail the production at the last second.
Williams casts Watson as a fearless actress who will stop at nothing to make sure that the move gets finished. When the set is approached by a group of super-powered villains, she walks right up to them and threatens them, It’s not terribly standard for a female lead to act as set security, but very little else about the production has been standard, so it’s perfectly understandable. There’s a crazy level of confidence that Williams is writing into Mary Jane that makes a lot of sense even if it doesn’t FEEL like it should. There just doesn’t seem to be nearly enough build-up in the significance of the film on her part to really make a selfless defense of the film like this feel at all plausible. That being said, the comedy is nearly as inspiring as the drama itself and Williams does a respectable job of making the premise believable.
Gomez mutes the complicated details of a location shoot for a major motion picture. It feels a bit strange for Mary Jane to be protecting a major market film shoot with such a very, very small number of crew members, but it makes some form of sense in context. The drama feels rubbery and over the top with just a hint of dramatic subtlety. Lopez’s color transfer4s traditional villain costumes and Mary Jane’s iconic red hair a natural feel. It may seem a little silly, but it’s fun to see it all begin to pull together.
Shooting the Mysterio biopic only took a little less than half of a year on this side of the comic page. In the months to come, Mary Jane will return to New York for a little bit of time with her boyfriend and begin to promote the movie. It’ll be interesting to see Williams’ distinct mutation of the rest of an actress’s work on a big Hollywood motion picture.
