User blog:ARTaylor/December 2018 Poll Results

Yet another month has come to an end meaning another poll has come to an end. Last month we asked which love interest of Peter Parker, besides the love of his life Mary Jane Watson, was the best fit. Plenty of people voted but the end result came down to a tie.


 * 1) The winner was a tie with 42.9% each: Felicia Hardy and Gwen Stacy. In the comics, Gwen was considered the great love of Peter's life, even moreso than Mary Jane, up until her death at the hands of Green Goblin. The famous, sometimes infamous, story has caused much guilt in his life but was the first time that Mary Jane stepped up to become a more dynamic character. Gwen Stacy was the fiance of an alternate Spider-Man on Spider-Man but portrayed as the primary love interest on The Spectacular Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man films. Felicia has often flip-flopped between being an ally and enemy. She was portrayed as interested in Spider-Man up until he revealed his identity to her, and she thought Peter was too geeky to date. Since then she has occasionally flirted, literally and figuratively, with him in between bouts of fighting. She is pretty much the greatest love interest of Spider-Man without Peter. In the 1994 series, Felicia took the place of the generally absent Gwen Stacy as primary rival to Mary Jane. The Black Cat of The Spectacular Spider-Man would often flirt but never came close to being a real romantic interest.
 * 2) The next tie came with 7.4% for Jessica Jones and Silver Sablinova. Jessica, who has yet to appear in animation, was retconned into Peter's life as a fellow student who had a crush on him and almost made a move when he was bitten by a certain radioactive spider. Though the two never got romantically involved, she did confess her feelings years later when married to Luke Cage. Silver, better known as Silver Sable, has been attracted to Spider-Man much like Black Cat. Their heroic team-ups have sometimes involved romantic feelings for each other but never have they been an actual couple.
 * 3) Audiences showed no interest in Liz Allan, Betty Brant, Carlie Cooper, Cindy Moon, Kitty Pryde, or Debra Whitman. Liz is an old classmate who didn't show interest in him until he dated Betty, and eventually married Harry Osborn. The two dated throughout The Spectacular Spider-Man even though Peter was clearly more interested in Gwen and Mary Jane, and she was the main interest in the film Spider-Man: Homecoming. Betty was shown as the main love interest on the 1967 and 1981 animated series and was his first serious girlfriend, but has since been just a friend. Carlie was the love interest introduced following the dissolving of his marriage to Mary Jane, though most fans objected to her as they missed his marriage. Cindy Moon, better known as the superhero Silk, was retconned to have been bitten by the same spider that changed Peter. Their romance was largely physical and they have since moved onto other partners. Kitty was the girlfriend of the Ultimate Peter Parker and they only dated during her brief time away from the X-Men. Debra was an early girlfriend of Peter in the comics, but they broke up because his superheroics kept getting in the way. She appeared as a good friend in the 1994 series but was stated to be more like a "little sister" than love interest.

Be sure to check out this month's poll to vote for the most valuable character and/or actor from the critically acclaimed film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: Mahershala Ali as Aaron Davis, Nicolas Cage as Peter Parker, Kimiko Glenn as Peni Parker, Kathryn Hahn as Olivia Octavius, Brian Tyree Henry as Jefferson Davis (Sony Universe), Oscar Isaac as Miguel O'Hara, Jake Johnson as Peter Parker, Shameik Moore as Miles Morales, John Mulaney as Peter Porker, Chris Pine as Peter Parker, Liev Schreiber as Wilson Fisk, Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy, or Lily Tomlin as May Parker.