"I Remember Gwen"

[cyberghostface]

 

I posted a panel from this story the other day, and it inspired an...interesting discussion. Here's the context behind it. It comes from Amazing Spider-Man #365. Tom DeFalco plotted it, Stan Lee wrote the script and John Romita Sr. illustrated it.






Mary Jane thinks about the day Captain Stacy died, in which during a fight between Doctor Octopus and Spider-Man, a chimney fell over and Stacy was crushed saving a little boy from being hit.

Comments

[roxrox]

Daw!

[darkblade]

Then again if you didn't make sure they stayed together it'd have been you having rapidly aging mutant Goblin babies and getting dropped off a brdige.

[xammax]

1 - MJ has standards
2- Never happened, whatever crazy ass never happened thing your talking about
3 - MJ knows the Osborn gene is crazy; she dated Harry

[lamashtar]

The funny thing, I think the Goblin/Gwen ship is supposed to have happened in between those panels above, after Gwen dumps Peter (way more time passes), and before she decides to forgive him.

[punishermax]

As much as I disagree with essentially everyone here about Spider-Man and his relationships, I love Gwen. Maybe my favorite Spider girlfriend.

[tifaeria]

Mine too. <3

[punishermax]

She's so....Sixties. In the best ways. She's like a fun, blond Veronica from Archie. Plus her going from hating the nerdy Peter Parker to liking him is pretty sweet in the comics.

I know it's a huge comics moment, and a fantastic issue but her death is one thing I would change in comics.

[tifaeria]

Aw, this story is always one of my favorites, showcasing all three of those characters positively.

I always love Gwen. She's one of my top favorite characters in Spiderman.

[roxrox]

Good story, but it just makes MJ look like a total rebound. lol

re: Gwen versus Mary Jane

[hohaiyee]

I think it's important to remember that people always change. Peter and Gwen back then was perfect for each other, but Peter today is more matched with Mary Jane. If Gwen didn't die, then Mary Jane would have changed in a different way and found a person other than Peter.

[skalja]

Yeah, the way it actually happened was much less so -- MJ was his first serious girlfriend after Gwen died, but two years later. Then they broke up, Peter dated a few other people -- including Deb Whitman and Felicia Hardy -- and finally got back together with MJ for good more than a hundred issues after Gwen died.

[unicornicopia]

I kind of desperately want a story focusing solely on Gwen. Like an AU one-shot where she lives, but eventually grew apart from Peter or never knew him at all. I think that Gwen kind of gets stuck in the box of being "The Girlfriend that Died" and that's a shame.

re: AU Gwen

[hohaiyee]

Hey, "No one stays dead except Bucky, [DC Comics'] Jason Todd and [Spider-Man's] Uncle Ben", and Jason and Bucky is already back!!!

[cleome45]

I always wanted to see an AU where she became the next Capt. Stacy.

[cleome45]

"I hope we'd be friends for life!"

Shouldn't this have launched about twenty-two thousand OT3 fics?

Crap. I really have been here too long, haven't I? :o

[lamashtar]

One of us....one of us.....

[sailorlibra]

Personally, I think MJ shows a lot more depth here than Gwen. But I don't really know much about Gwen and one-dimensionity could just be because this is through MJ's perspective and MJ thought of Gwen as just being kind and unselfish. I dunno. What I do know is that I love me some Mary Jane and would love to see more of her.

[skalja]

This story suffers a lot from "Saint Gwen" syndrome, and while she was alive, Gwen herself suffered from "Silver Age female" syndrome. In my opinion, post-death Gwen writers tend to ignore most of the things that actually made her interesting, like her interest in science and politics or her temper. Even the stuff they do keep around, like how she got along with pretty much everybody, they make kinda boring.

[galateus]

Present-day MJ's hair and facial expressions are ridiculously over-the-top soap-opera/romance-comic-y. It's amazing.

[jaybee3]

This story is so sweet (and DeFalco's art is gorgeous). I know Stan Lee can be corny at times, but it's a good corny (I'd rather read his Spidey newstrips than BND).

It's also sad that the last few years have taken everything about this story and this version of Gwen, MJ and Peter and turned it on its head. Instead we have a Gwen Stacy who while putting off the supposed love of her life Peter physically (did he even get to 2nd base with her?), would have a one-night-stand with old-enough-to-her-father creepy Norman Osborn, have his kids and Europe and never tell Pete (and her famous death becomes all about that rather than the tragedy of her being in the wrong place), we have a MJ who knew all about Gwen's secret and never told her husband and an MJ who can literally state "I wouldn't trade our marriage for anything in the world" do just that (along with Peter) so Aunt May can live 2-3 more years and she can go to Hollywood and be involved with a dumb selfish steroided up actor and Peter can go to being a 20-something slacker with no direction in his life involved in some kind of harem comedy hijinks right out of Japanese manga.

Jeesh, it's like this Spidey-verse and the present Spidey-verse have NO connection whatsoever even in characterization (continuity changing is one thing, but characters should at least be written consistently from decade to decade).

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

John Romita's art, which is why MJ and Gwen look so good. His art defined them.

I'm with you on the newspaper strips vs. the current Spider-Man books. As far as I'm concerned, since Stan Lee created Spider-Man, whatever he writes about the character is canon. If something contradicts his Spider-Man, it's fan fiction. That means the newspaper strip is the real Spider-Man.

[cyberghostface]

we have a MJ who knew all about Gwen's secret and never told her husband

MadGoblin wrote a rather lengthy bit about why she wouldn't have.

---

Literally the day after Mary Jane finds out this information about Gwen and Norman's relationship - both of them are dead (well, Norman wasn't, but no one knew that for years), and Peter is, as MJ stated, "half-mad with grief." Harry is totally messed up and in light of his father's "death," needs his friends, including Peter, more than ever. It served NO CONCEIVABLE GOOD PURPOSE to tell Peter the truth at this time. Again, you have the situation where the principals in the relationship were both believed to be dead, and you have the emotionally fragile son of one of the principals just barely hanging onto his sanity. And as Mary Jane's and Peter's relationship became more serious, MJ could very well have believed that if she disclosed this information to Peter, he would interpret it as her trying to make herself look better by denigrating Gwen’s character. And when Harry was first released from institutionalization in Amazing Spider-Man #151, there was no point in potentially poisoning their friendship with Harry by disclosing his father's indiscretion. MJ may very well have believed that in Norman’s absence, Peter would resent Harry and take out his anger and frustration at the situation on him.

O.K. - so what about after Harry died - and there was no sense in protecting him any more or worrying about his and Peter’s friendship? Well, right after Harry's death, you had Peter's parents apparently returning from the dead, Maximum Carnage, the Clone Saga, and the apparent death of their own child. What time would have been a good time to reveal Gwen's tryst with Norman to Peter? Over breakfast one morning – “oh by the way, Gwen slept with Norman and had two kids.” When Norman resurfaced with a flourish in Spectacular Spider-Man #250 and tormented Peter a little, Spider-Man burst into Norman's townhouse and savagely beat him, all in front of Norman's security cameras. So does MJ tell him "oh, by the way Peter, Norman also fathered two children by Gwen." Frankly, she might have been afraid that Peter would have truly killed Norman Osborn after finding this out. And then it would all have been over. Peter and Spider-Man, as well as her own life, would have been finished. Of course, wouldn’t she have figured that Peter would rather find this out from her, as opposed to Norman Osborn dropping it on him by surprise? Perhaps she should have considered this – because she has to know that Peter is going to wonder for a very long time what other secrets Mary Jane may be keeping from him (but as I’ve said before, I actually like this development because it provides genuine tension to the marriage instead of “oh I’m so sick of Peter being Spider-Man,” or the “WE’RE TOO YOUNG!” bullshit we were force fed during the reboot).

So, from where I'm sitting, it's pretty easy to see here why MJ kept Gwen's secret from Peter. The cost-benefit analysis just did not weigh heavily in favor of disclosing such sensitive information.

http://www.spideykicksbutt.com/GreenwithEvil/DeFloweringGwen.html

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

MJ is calling Peter "man o'mine?" Does "talking (Peter's) language" include an unspoken offer to wear a blonde wig and a black headband later that night?

[wolfy]

Exclamation points!

[jlroberson]

Too many! All over the place! For no reason!

I suppose it's Lee's version of Kirby's problem "with" quotation "marks."