The boy she spent a movie madly crushing on now has a girlfriend and she’s not jealous she’s happy and encouraging (and I think we can assume she likes Mary Jane, too.) Oh Ursula, my lovely mature sweet underappreciated baby.
(You did your female characters REALLY well, Spider-Man trilogy. I’ll never stop loving you for that.)
A photoset dedicated to the underrated, unsuperpowered, and often unnamed characters of Marvel movies who either supported others in their times of need, or fought alone for what they thought was right:
The German man (The Avengers): Stood up alone against an Actual God The train passengers (Spider-Man 2): Saved Spider-Man and then defended him, completely unarmed, against a very armed supervillain Christine Everhart (Iron Man): Demanded accountability from Tony Stark, and it was also thanks to her he got to Gulmira as fast as he did Ursula Ditkovich (Spider-Man 2&3): Offered Peter food and friendship at times when he really needed it Mr Ditkovich (Spider-Man 2&3): Not only tolerated, but liked and cared about his difficult tenant Alicia Masters (Fantastic Four): Made Ben Grimm realise he was still human and showed him love and kindness Stanley (The Incredible Hulk): Gave Bruce a room, a job and a friendly ear The old security guard (The Avengers): Helped Bruce out and gave him some (sadly deleted) advice The crane operators (The Amazing Spider-Man): Did what they could to repay the person who helped them The people on the Queensboro Bridge (Spider-Man): Risked their lives to try and stop the Green Goblin Martina (The Incredible Hulk): Didn’t give Bruce away to Blonsky’s men Travis and Heather Hudson (Wolverine): Offered kindness to a stranger and died for it
I bet if the Raimi Spider-Man films were a thing, Ursula would be massively popular. I mean, she’s basically…she’s basically the Spider-Man franchise’s closest thing to the massively popular Molly Hooper, you guys. And I suppose Darcy Lewis in Thor got about as much screentime as Ursula did across two Spider-Mans and she’s massively popular.
But on the other hand YOU CAN’T HAVE HER SHE’S MINE I WROTE A WHOLE FIVE-PART STORY FOR HER
Title: The Storyteller Author: sarah531 Rating: PG13 Fandom: Spider-Man, 2002 movieverse / Raimiverse/ whatever you want to call that particular universe Pairings: Peter/Harry, Peter/MJ, Ursula/Peter Summary: Peter’s kidnapped, MJ’s injured, Harry’s dead, and Ursula Ditkovich has mere hours to save half of New York.
AN: This has literally been sitting around in various forms for years. Having unexpectedly found myself back in Spider-fandom, I thought it was high time I finished it…
Title: The Storyteller Author: sarah531 Rating: PG13 Fandom: Spider-Man, 2002 movieverse / Raimiverse/ whatever you want to call that particular universe Pairings: Peter/Harry, Peter/MJ, Ursula/Peter Summary: Peter’s kidnapped, MJ’s injured, Harry’s dead, and Ursula Ditkovich has mere hours to save half of New York.
AN: This has literally been sitting around in various forms for years. Having unexpectedly found myself back in Spider-fandom, I thought it was high time I finished it…
Title: The Storyteller Author: sarah531 Rating: PG13 Fandom: Spider-Man, 2002 movieverse / Raimiverse/ whatever you want to call that particular universe Pairings: Peter/Harry, Peter/MJ, Ursula/Peter Summary: Peter’s kidnapped, MJ’s injured, Harry’s dead, and Ursula Ditkovich has mere hours to save half of New York.
AN: This has literally been sitting around in various forms for years. Having unexpectedly found myself back in Spider-fandom, I thought it was high time I finished it…
Title: The Storyteller Author: sarah531 Rating: PG13 Fandom: Spider-Man, 2002 movieverse / Raimiverse/ whatever you want to call that particular universe Pairings: Peter/Harry, Peter/MJ, Ursula/Peter Summary: Peter’s kidnapped, MJ’s injured, Harry’s dead, and Ursula Ditkovich has mere hours to save half of New York.
AN: This has literally been sitting around in various forms for years. Having unexpectedly found myself back in Spider-fandom, I thought it was high time I finished it…
Title: The Storyteller Author: sarah531 Rating: PG13 Fandom: Spider-Man, 2002 movieverse / Raimiverse/ whatever you want to call that particular universe Pairings: Peter/Harry, Peter/MJ, Ursula/Peter Summary: Peter’s kidnapped, MJ’s injured, Harry’s dead, and Ursula Ditkovich has mere hours to save half of New York.
AN: This has literally been sitting around in various forms for years. Having unexpectedly found myself back in Spider-fandom, I thought it was high time I finished it…
I enjoy talking about the non-superpowered ladies of superhero films, a lot. Maybe you’ve noticed.
Anyway, Ursula- she’s actually kinda my favourite thing about Spider-Man 2. (It doesn’t hurt that Mageina Tovah is cute as a button.) I think she’s sort of the audience surrogate throughout the film, picking Peter up when he’s down. I read so many reviews of that film saying the ‘cake scene’ was pointless, but I think it was probably one of the most important scenes in the whole film: people like Ursula are what Peter’s fighting for. There are other scenes, of course, where we get to see why Peter puts his life on the line to save these people- like the train scene- but with Ursula, we get to put a name to a face.
And I think, as well as being a sort of symbol, Ursula’s a good character in her own right too- in a way, she’s almost a female version of who Peter was before he got superpowers. She’s got a crush on the person next door but is too afraid to show it, she’s clumsy and she’s shy. Mageina Tovah described her as “just a very sweet person who wants to take care of people and fix people”. (And that’s the sort of character I always like, so I suppose that’s the reason she’s stuck in my mind all these years.)
But, interestingly, those aforementioned characteristics aren’t her only characteristics- you ever noticed, she’s not in the least bit jealous of MJ, even though MJ’s the actual girlfriend of the man she likes? She tells Peter to call her and is delighted when he does. (I wish Ursula and MJ had had a scene together.) And– her adoration of Peter doesn’t extend to when he starts yelling at her father. She’s the one who says how uncool that is, a tiny little character thing I always appreciated. I never really liked that the last we ever see of Ursula, Peter’s taking advantage of her good nature, being all flirty with her and making her bring him stuff. I always wonder what happened after that, to the other girl next door…but I guess we’ll never know. I like to think she had a nice life fixing people.
And, of course, she’s named after Steve Ditko. He really couldn’t have asked for a better tribute.
