"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

[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.

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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

[cyberghostface]

The rest of the article also does a decent job of fitting Sins Past into continuity. And this isn't a case of bias on the author's part, as he has been extremely negative towards both Quesada and Straczynski.

IMO, I think the story fails because it just convoluted the backstory of Norman and Gwen. But I don't have a problem with the characterizations of Gwen and Norman in this one particular story. People make it sound like she was having an affair with Norman for a long time while knowing that he was the Green Goblin to backstab Peter as opposed to the "moment of mutual weakness" that the encounter was, and ignoring that she was going to tell Peter had she not been killed.

Really, I think what's going on right now is much more damaging to Spider-Man by far.

[jaybee3]

If I'm right, in this article, the author points out there are some points continuity wise where the old stories can't match up to Sins Past, even if you think the characterizations make sense (which I don't).

I mean, I don't want to re-hash it but here you have virginal Gwen Stacy who had never been shown to even like or been attracted to Norman Osborn before, who was shown to be madly in love with Peter even if they had a brief (and it was brief) break-up and yet she would have a "moment of weakness" (and by the art good orgasmic moment of weakness- Ewww) with Norman yet would never do more than kiss Peter prior to that or EVEN WHEN she got back from Europe? It's not like she was saving herself anymore (though the original 60s Gwen probably would have). Why give a guy you don't like something like sex and yet the supposed love of your life who you want to raise the product of your one-night-stand with does not get to go beyond the petting stage?

Yeah. I know there are ways to make it fit it you try hard enough but its still tough to swallow. And Sins Past made every character involved look worse (and for super-aged kids never seen again?). Then came BND? The Clone Saga was bad, but IMO they can't hold a candle to what's been done to the Spider-Man franchise (comic wise) in this last decade.