For all intents and purposes, she is the real MJ for the MCU. Doesn't matter what you want to think about her, the movies are treating her as the real deal. They are not gonna shove someone like Zendaya out of the picture, just to bring in some other person who also happens to be named MJ down the road.
I personally think they were initially undecided on how much she was MCU Mary Jane, and have gradually but clearly moved towards her being a clear incarnation of that character as the MCU Trilogy progressed, who just has a different name behind for her initials and the conventional re-imagining the MCU does of the comic version
s of the character. In particular, I think she was inspired by the Ultimate Comics version of MJ with a side of the Classic Marvel MJ’s “Shields herself from getting emotionally hurt, and secretly knows Peter’s Spider-Man but is genuinely drawn to him nonetheless” aspects.
No, she doesn’t have the red hair, or the model or actress aspect… I like her so far…
…I just also think it would be hilarious and cool if they leaned into using more Classic Marvel attributes for MJ rooted in the MCU version of the character to “torment” Peter (in a very “anger OMD supporters” way, I mean.)
This MJ could, if they wanted, easily react to having her own freedom and some ambiguous memories and mildly obsessive questions about waking up on Liberty Island after a Spider-Man Battle and no recollection of how she got there with stuff like:
- College kid MJ embraces her independence by embracing some of her own personal style - maybe going a bit punk-ish - and dying her hair red, which Peter is worried he finds too interesting when he’s trying to avoid being too close to her… and maybe makes a smooth business decision to make some Instagram model money - leading to Peter being tormented by
knowing her Instagram model handle but thinking he shouldn’t use it.
- Since MJ has this weirdly quiet and stuttering but very cute boy she’s curious about always showing up for coffee and seemingly too shy to flirt with her like she can tell he wants to, she starts calling him “Tiger” to tease him in a sarcastic, mildly acerbic and frustrated way.
- Since she’s not stupid and deduced who Spider-Man was previously, she starts doing that again, but this time they play up some of her trust issues because she’s meeting this Peter for the first time again, and so she sometimes feels drawn to him but resists going for broke.
I doubt they would actually do it, but it’s the sort of stuff I would definitely do, all while maintaining this MJ’s heavily sardonic and sarcastic nature (thus the “punk girl” idea.)