It's a little odd, and will absolutely be retconned away in a few years, but Mary Jane's first official outing as a costumed superhero isn't bad at all, and the art is quite good. Read Full Review

I'm still excited for Jackpot's future, but this issue didn't push the character forward in the way that I'd hoped. Read Full Review

Jackpot is a very basic superhero yarn. There's fighting and, primarily, a reminder Jackpot exists. The lack of character work or any real ramifications of the events in this story mattering makes this a relatively easy book to skip while we wait for Jackpot to have any relevance at all. Read Full Review

Jackpot #1 takes a bad concept and somehow makes it worse!What little potential the book had is lost in an issue that lacks setup, pacing, character work and unfortanelty, a reason to exist.The art is ok, but it's hard to get past the clunky writing that dominates every panel.Plus, it has Paul in it! Read Full Review

Art: 3/5
Story: 3/5
Total: 6/10

Being a complete normie to Marvel, I didn't know what to expect. Why is MJ a superhero? Who the hell is Paul?? There's a gang war going on in New York and they need Mary Jane Watson to help Spider-Man fight the thugs??

Why? I thought NYC was filled to the gills with superheroes, so what's so important about this story? I will admit the art is solid and MJ looks good as a superhero but ultimately, why? If this artist sticks around, I'll probably pick up another comic.

A completely inoffensive story, this really didn't need to be apart of an event, as it barely seem to have much relevance to it.

Not recommended.

The idea of MJ as a cape with Paul as her Great Value Oracle is a workable one, but not with this execution. The narration boxes about her motives are generic to the point of parody, the dialogue doesn't land, and nothing of consequence happens. MJ wanting to do cape stuff to distract from losing her kids is a good enough motivation, but the way that it's handled here is equal parts boring and underbaked, and it doesn't have enough charm to get by on. And what were they thinking with that cover?

Writing wasn’t bad but it was very stereotypical superhero tropes throughout the whole issue.

2 things were done right, the art was great and 2 of the last 3 text bubbles from MJ - she was already a hero. That’s what made her great, she didn’t have powers and she was a force in what she did in her own way. This is forced and not needed.

Major L for Nick Lowe who still oversees the subpar state ASM is in.

I just wasn't really into this one, unfortunately. While I didn't give this the same score as them, I still agree with a lot of what DerbyComics said in their review, so I would recommend you read that. As for what I can say about this, I just felt like Bronfman's dialogue was a bit too generic for my liking. It didn't really feel like any of the characters were truly authentic. The art was nice, but it too began to lose me a little as time went on. Also, I have to mention that this barely has anything to do with Gang War, despite it being listed on the checklist. I think I'll still check out the upcoming Jackpot & Black Cat series from Bronfman, but I'm not too hopeful about it after reading this, unfortunately.

Why does this even exist?

I just don’t get what Marvel is doing with Mary Jane’s new “powers” and Jackpot persona. They are literally the embodiment of a deus ex machina plot device that allows writers the ability to pull things out of thin air. Even aside from the randomness of her powers, how/where/when did MJ become trained in hand-to-hand combat or superhero agility?? There are a few scenes where she doesn’t use her powers but still manages to perform some Spider-Man ask moves that a normal person would never be able to do.

For being a Gang War tie-in, there is hardly any connective thread aside from MJ’s battle with Francine Frye’s Electro. It doesn’t even make sense how these two come to blows. This felt like Marvel’s attempt to remind us that MJ now has powers ahead of her upcoming series with Felicia/Hardy Black Cat. Given how this played out, I have no interest in continuing to follow along on her adventures until Marvel can explain her powers more and shows us there’s a deeper reason for it all. more

Character assassination in action. Or what I like to call "How to Turn Mary Jane into Mary Sue in just one issue."

There is no functional story here and Jackpot is literally a character that has all their flaws fixed instantly, and Mary Jane who has no combat experience suddenly gets perfect hand to hand combat. This isnt Mary Jane, this is some random BS.

Paul is still around for some reason just being a simp... I guess?

This book is just filled with ever negative modern Marvel Tropes. This is what you get when you get a My Little Pony author writing spider man. Note to author, you are not writing to Bronies, you actually need to write a story.

1.5 is for the art which is decent. I suppose you can give it a higher rating if you are that thirsty for girls in tights or to see She-Hulk in a tight outfit. But that would just be sad. more

Oh boy. My whole idea for going into this was "I hate the idea, but this might work", since that has happened before. But gotta say, I hated this issue. Might be one of the worst issues I've read in a while. I have so many problems here. The opening pages do not convey at all that they are here because of their dead adopted children. They might've progressed through it, who knows. The last time we saw them going to therapy was almost 6 months ago.

And MJ just feels off. Like she doesn't feel like MJ at all. The dialogue is so aggressively mediocre and Paul is still a nothing-character, that this didn't change at all. The fact this does not take accord any superhero stuff MJ has experienced before or even the identity of Jackpot just feels wrong. This feels like we are supposed to just accept this without any setup or anything really. MJ is a superhero now. And it's a direction I strongly dislike, because it's another part of Peter's life that is now Spider-centric. Like if you didn't know any better, this felt like an alternate universe story, because this just doesn't work.

MJ's powers don't make any sense. When Zeb or Jed were writing them, there was a sense of randomness and danger because of it. Now MJ can do whatever the plot needs and is somehow so experienced using them? And she can fly now? Because of the suit? That Paul made I guess? And when she can do whatever she needs whenever she needs, it's hard to be interested in anything. The small part that I was intrigued about her new powers is now gone.

The placement of this is just so off. Everyone acts like MJ has been doing this for a long time (even Peter which is odd) except we have no clue about this. There has been zero mention of Jackpot since #31, so it's hard to follow where we are with this. Even Peter and MJ interaction just feels so off.

The art is nice. It's charming. But when the writing and setup fails so miserably, it's hard to enjoy even the art.

I was a bit interested on the next MJ and Felicia book. But if this is the direction they are going, can't say the interest stays. more

This book was awful and a horrible debut with some of saddest, unfunny dad jokes it’s been my misfortune to read. The art was also choppy, pointing to Nick Lowe’s office being yet again highly unorganized and not knowing what it is doing with a second artist needing to finish the issue. Mary Jane’s powers were nonsensical and were just whatever writer Celeste Bronfman needed them to be - and since Bronfman apparently thinks having the power of vines makes one fly like Superman, the idiocy is flamingly bright. And Bronfman apparently can’t do even the most basic research because she turned MJ into a bad actress who couldn’t fool Francine Frye even though MJ easily took down Francine during the Nick Spencer run with only her acting skills. Bronfman would also have you believe this is some sort of parable about empowerment when Bronfman makes MJ dependent on wet blanket Paul and gives him power over whether MJ's gauntlet can be turned to 11 or not. That's the opposite of empowering, Celeste.

Jackpot? More like Hackpot. Or Jacksh!t. Take your pick. They are both perfect desciptors. more