From: Spider-Man
Genre: Comics
Who said it?: Mary Jane Watson
The story behind the quote: Wow, when it comes to comics, I seem to either go to Batman or Spider-Man… but this is a bit different since it isn’t the hero that gives the quote. Rather, it’s the love interest of Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson.
We have to get into a lot of backstory regarding this quote to really get the full impact of the wisdom from it. Prior to her first (official) appearance in the comics, she was just this faceless girl that Aunt May kept on trying to set Peter Parker up for a date (initially mentioned in Amazing Spider-Man #15). Peter kept blowing it off since he assumed that, since his aunt liked her so much, he wouldn’t really like her. This actually kept on for a really long time and it became somewhat of running joke of the series.
Finally, in Amazing Spider-Man #42 (around two years after she was initially mentioned), Peter does meet Mary Jane, who turns out to be a bombshell of a red-head who jokingly mentions how lucky he is.
Geek wisdom: You shouldn’t be afraid to try new things once in a while. Sure there’s going to be a chance that the experience is awful. However, unless you try it, you’ll never know if its something that’s plain god-awful or something given from God. Imagine if Peter Parker never met Mary Jane. He wouldn’t have had met the love of his life. Remember, you may hit the jackpot, too, if you try something new.
In 1982 Roger Stern wrote for Amazing Spider Man one of the most beautiful story arcs I’ve ever read. It is rather short (it starts in issue 226 and ends in the following one), but every single panel of it is pure awesomeness.
Spider Man and Black Cat were the leading characters of that arc.
In that period Spidey had started to become more and more similar to Batman: the series passed from a sunny setting to a dark one, Peter started to cooperate with a female version of Commissioner Gordon (Jean De Wolff), and, most of all, he developed a detective approach he never had before. His relationship with Black Cat was a part of this project: Black Cat is Marvel’s Catwoman, so the affair between her and Peter deliberately reminded of the one between Batman and Catwoman.
This magic period ended with the death of Jean De Wolff. She is one of the Spider Man characters who should have been employed more and in a far better way, along with Eddie Brock, Cletus Kasady, Betty Brant and so on.