"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.

[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.

[chipsnopotatoes]

me three! i grew up during the gwen years :D

really nice of mj to remember her this way.

[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

[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: 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.

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!!!

Re: AU Gwen

[punishermax]

Gwen is on the level of Uncle Ben though. As much as I hate to say it, she can't be revived because she represents such a pivotal moment in Peter's life.

Re: AU Gwen

[unicornicopia]

Hah, I really don't think I'd want a resurrected Gwen unless she ran far far away from the current Spideybooks :/ I mean, the retcon of her having Norman Osborne's mutant babies really damaged her character and it would take a MAGNIFICENTLY talented writer to rectify it.

As is, I think I'd prefer just to see her in her own alternative universe where certain things can be ignored.

[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

[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

[xammax]

Do we still have access to that series of posts?

[punishermax]

Which ones?

Re: AU Gwen

[galateus]

Like nerdy!Gwen in the Spectacular cartoon?

[jlbarnett]

from what I recall the only reason she hated him was because he didn't like her. She was offended by it.

[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.

[xammax]

There was an old series that was literally the Entire Saga of Gwen Stacy

[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.

[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.

[tifaeria]

I don't think so. We should try and do another series of posts surrounding her. It never hurts to show more scans of Gwen.

[kagome654]

It's not even that he didn't like her, it's that he ignored her (he had a lot going on at the time), and she (like Harry and Flash) assumed it was because he was a snob. That aloofness both infuriated her and attracted her to him.

Yeah, very 60s.