With Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse bringing
more attention to our favourite MC2-alumni with the introduction of Peter
B Parker and Mary Jane Watson-Parker’s adorable baby daughter Mayday
Parker, I thought now would be the perfect time to discuss Mayday’s Eyes.
One of the most notable talking points in the lead-up to Across
the Spider-Verse was baby Mayday’s
unique eye colour choice; heterochromia. This was seen in the
officially released concept art which coincided with the first trailer’s debut
online. With one iris blue and the other brown the design was
distinctive, but having viewed the film, it did not appear to have been retained
for the character as she appeared on screen. Unless I am mistaken, baby Mayday
on the big screen had two blue eyes. Presumably in both cases the intent
was to show Mayday inherited her eye colour from her parents, with Peter B having brown eyes and this Mary
Jane having blue eyes in her brief appearances.
Now, let’s take look at the eye colour of the MC2’s May
‘Mayday’ Parker. While the comics have often been inconsistent with varying
eye colours between issues, there is one colour that Mayday appears to
have more consistently: blue. This is supported by a rather obscure source
for official character information: Spider-Girl Battlebook: Streets of Fire.
As I mentioned
a very long time ago, with a cover date of November 1998, this was the
first published source to provide officially approved physical characteristics
for May
‘Mayday’ Parker.
However, when the Official Handbook of the Marvel
Universe: Women of Marvel 2005 gave us a full profile for Spider-Girl,
Mayday was instead listed as having brown eyes. This was corrected
to blue once again when the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe
A to Z Hardcover Vol. 11 updated the profile information. It is worth
noting that the Main Marvel Universe and MC2 Mary Jane is firmly established
to have green eyes and similarly, Peter has hazel eyes.
Now, let us look at one other aspect of May ‘Mayday’ Parker’s eyes you may not have considered: poor vision. If we go all the way back to the beginning with What If #105, we do briefly glimpse May rocking glasses, presumably for some kind of vision impairment. Notably, this instance takes place shortly after Mayday’s powers first manifested during a basketball game and she does not continue to wear them in future appearances. As far as I can tell, the only other occasions of May donning eyewear are for the purposes of fashion, disguise, or safety such as Spider-Girl #42, #60, #65 and Amazing Spider-Girl #20.
Until I gain some perspective and take a long-sighted view on
what I focus on, *eye* remain
frogoat
great job on this very interesting observation with mayday parker spider-girl eye color in both mc2 comics and the movie :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for checking it out!
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