Mary Jane Watson - Skills and Equipment

Skills and Equipment

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Mary Jane has no special powers, but due to her relationship with Spider-Man and her job as an actress and model, she has found herself in danger many times. Having learned of the risk at the expense of her friend Gwen Stacy's life, she is unwilling to be dependent on others for her safety. Her intelligence and tenacity make up for her lack of superhuman abilities.

Mary Jane actually has training in self-defense, with teachers including Captain America. She has been able to fend off attackers of normal strength and skill, including the Chameleon, one obsessive stalker, and another stalker using a cue stick. Besides her training in martial arts, she is also strategically smart when fighting her enemies. On one occasion, she knocked out a kidnapper with a lamp and also electrified his bodyguards with it; and she was able to defeat Hydro-Man when she lured him away from water sources, and into hot dry areas, forcing him to evaporate (the latter only happened in the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon).

Furthermore, there were several occasions in which she saved her husband's life from his superpowered enemies when they had the upper hand: she beat Alistair Smythe with a baseball bat, and distracted his Spider-Slayer; she set the Hobgoblin's cape on fire; and she fended off Styx and Stone as they were about to kill Spider-Man. More recently, she thwarted the White Rabbit's attempts to rob a high-class party she attended, when no superhero was available to do the job. Most notably, she managed to defeat Swarm, a supervillain even her husband had trouble defeating.

Mary Jane also carries a gun (although Peter dislikes the idea) which she uses against the Green Goblin in Marvel Knights Spider-Man #12, and in the video game Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. After Peter developed organic webshooters, he modified his original webshooters into bracelets that she could wear discreetly, giving her an additional defensive weapon. She also carries a modified spider-tracer with an amplified signal that can be traced over long distances.

Mary Jane has used her fashion design and sewing skills on many occasions to make and repair Spider-Man's costumes. She also designed the Hornet, Prodigy, and Ricochet costumes. She is usually the person who provides first aid when Peter is injured.

On two occasions, she was possessed by the spirit of Red Sonja and battled Kulan Gath side-by-side with Spider-Man. During the earlier issues of "The Other" story arc, she borrowed Iron Man's old armor temporarily.

During Spider-Island she developed versions of Spider-Man's powers, including enhanced strength and agility, the ability to stick to walls and the ability to produce organic webbing. She lost these powers when given the antidote so she would not turn into a giant spider.

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