Death and Destruction
"One Note"
Gwen had to die! Nobody knew how to write to make her "interesting". (Funny, it always seemed to work for Archie and friends, with Betty and Veronica, and thats looked at as a "kids" comic.) She was used up as a character, and nobody at Marvel wanted Spiderman to marry. Even to a girl as remarkably perfect for Spidey as Gwen Stacy. Gary Conway asked if he could kill her; "throw her off a bridge", and Stan Lee said O.K. Stan later said that if he knew what Conway meant he'd never said yes. It really messed up the Amazing Spider Man universe. When Lee realized what had happened he sort of blew his stack. Nothing came of it overall, though. Just a major character was now dead.
John Romita, interveiwed by Roy Thomas for "Alter Ego" magazine, gives us these tidbits:
ROMITA: I think Stan was just subconsciously holding back on revealing Mary Jane.
RT: If so, do you think it was partly because, good as Ditko was and is, he didn't draw women as pretty as you do?
ROMITA: Stan wanted her gorgeous, while Steve's women were a little bit stiff and conservative-looking. They didn't move their bodies the way Stan liked. He wanted Mary Jane to be like a go-go dancer. That's what I did. But that first panel of Mary Jane looked so much better in the pencils. I did myself in with the inking. I lost the right expression.
RT: I know a generation of Spider-Man readers who might disagree with you.
ROMITA: Stan used to accuse me of favoring Mary Jane over Gwen. He'd want me to make Gwen more glamorous. But Gwen was more serious, especially after her father [Captain Stacy] died. I kept telling Stan, "Gwen's a lady - she's not the same kind of airhead that Mary Jane is. I can't have her smiling all the time." When he had me start putting Gwen in mini-skirts, I didn't feel it was right for her. Pretty soon it was hard to tell Gwen and Mary Jane apart. They were like Betty and Veronica - the same girl except for the hair color.
AND
ROMITA: Somebody - maybe it was Gerry Conway, who was writing the book then - suggested we should kill off Aunt May. Gil Kane was penciling Spider-Man then, but I was still supposed to keep an eye on it, and Gerry and I would talk over plots. I didn't feel Aunt May's death would make much of an impact. To do that, we had to kill off one of the main girls, and Gwen was the one Peter was in love with. Mary Jane wouldn't have meant as much; she was going with somebody else.
RT: As editor-in-chief at the time, I know that Stan, at least verbally, "signed off" on the idea of Gwen's death at some early stage. Like I once said about you, Gerry, and me: None of our mothers raised any sons stupid enough to kill off Gwen Stacy while Stan Lee was out of town and present him with a fait accompli! [laughs]
It's interesting that you felt the death of Gwen would be more symbolically important than Mary Jane's.
First to go as you can see, was her father, Captain George Stacy. In a battle between Spider Man and Doc Octopus, Cpt. Stacy attempted to save a child and was buried under an avalanche of bricks from a collapsing chimney. He lived just long enough to tell Spiderman to take care of Gwen. Cpt. Stacy knew who he was.
(The question one must ask is, WHO DOESN'T KNOW WHO SPIDERMAN IS? But I degress.)
Gwen was all shook up over the death of her father, the most dear person to her this side of Peter. She blamed his death on Spiderman, mostly as a plot device. I don't know if Marvel wanted to get rid of Gwen in a non-lethal way or what, but she went on an extended trip to Europe after this.
This is where the plot thickens, in a most sickening way.
Gwen, according to issue 512, had sex with Norman Osborne. (Say what?) Apparently distraught over the loss of her father, and drawn to Osborne because of his wealth, fame and power, Gwen quite happily gave up her virginity to this scumbag.
But the guy who wrote this into the Canon, J. Michael Straczynski, denied that this did anything to ruin Gwen Stacy's character. That she is still the same woman we loved so much in the past issues. Bull hockey.
Heres what it is reported he said, showing his abject denial that he really messed up the storyline. A poster has his comments on the inanity of it also in this clip.
None of it is my commentary.
WIZARD
Gwen Stacy sleeping with Norman was very shocking and hotly debated.
How did you react to that fan response?
JMS
I knew it would be a hot button when I wrote it. Spidey's universe needs to be shaken up from time to time, or all the sediment will sink to the bottom. Gwen as established over the last 30 years was pretty much one-note. But here, yes, she made one mistake, one terrible mistake out of a lifetime of trying to do right. But what matters more, to me, is what followed. She had the kids, instead of pursuing other options, took responsibility-(as did Peter, in his own way)-made the decision to raise them, came back, faced down Norman Osborn, and was going to marry Peter and raise the kids and tell him the truth. Now, that, to me, is evidence of a very strong character. And I like strong characters who are just a bit flawed, but essentially noble. In that light, I think this makes Gwen a hero. Some fans said (repeatedly, on various sites) that this makes her a tramp, a whore and a slut. I disagree. Vehemently.
He actually said "some fans", but lovely how he really didn't answer the question. He didn't really give us his reaction (which I think would be annoyed and maybe surprised and indignant..but of course he can't say that
Almighty God, the man's a twit. A freaking, absolute twit.
What the hell happened to the guy who wrote Babylon 5? I liked and respected that writer. I looked forward to his stuff. I heard he was taking over one of my favorite characters and I was estatic. Estatic.
Is it senility? Can he really be dense enough to ignore the fact Gwen lied to her friends and famliy the entire time she was pregnant? That's what happened. How can he think that's heroic?
The Heroic thing to have done would have been to tell Peter straight away, JMS. Not this.
And again with the "one note". Here's a man who claimed to love Gwen. How can he love the character and then go off and call her "one note?"
Nevermind. I can answer that myself. He loves his version of Gwen. The one who apparently abandons her children in the hands of strangers. 'Cause that's the only way "Sins Past" works.
(So much for just insulting the work and not the man. But damn it, he's turned into a hack.)
As another poster said on the net: "she went from being a character everyone could like to a character only some would like".
So, "All Kinds of Amazing" becomes "One Note".
Now, not only was Gwen's father dead, but now her reputation was shot to hell and ruined. Osborne actually kept her in his manor house in Paris while she was pregnant. This officially made Gwen a "kept woman" and more or less Osborne's Mistress. (Gawd, the very thought makes me ILL!)
Heres an idea I had. Was Gwen Stacy Norman's Mistress?
From this union came two kids, twins, that grew at a remarkable rate. Gwen had them in something like seven months in Paris while at the Osborne Manor. Troubled by this, but no longer enamored with Osborne, she confronted him at his townhouse in New York where friend Harry was having a bad LSD trip. The spider friends tried to help him, but Norman had enough and threw them out. Norman had what he wanted from Gwen and she was nothing to him. He did, however, want total control of the kids. That was when Gwen confronted Norman and told him she'd never let him have the children, that she'd die first. Norman said, more or less, that he could arrange that, and the Osborne blood was special and thats why the kids were growing so fast.
Gwen must have confused this with Norman meaning he was a pure blood, like a Nazi, and told him he was nuts. She left, but Mary Jane over heard them arguing about the kids
Gwen explained to her what happened. I don't know what Mary Jane thought about this, but comic book readers all over the place labeled Gwen a slut. That was because she was unfaithful to the one man who loved her above all else, and had given away something that cannot be replaced, and had children by a man that was Parker's greatest enemy. This was horrible! It made a lot of Marvel readers angry, myself included. This also HURT a lot of us. You can see my commentary on this fiasco
here.Mary Jane swore to keep Gwen's little problem secret.
(Mad Goblin commented to me the following revelation:
We were discussing the Superman Returns trailer where Lois Lane has an apparently illegitimate baby, and I said
He replied
"Well, let's just say that Brian Singer didn't have a Joe Quesada telling him to make the father of the baby Lex Luthor...So you see, JMS came up with the idea, Quesada decided to make it totally bad. I would have delt with a messed up Felicia Hardy (whom I don’t like) in a much better way, and you probably wouldn’t be reading this web page right now.)
After Gwen confessed to her, Mary Jane slapped Norman. How she managed to live after this is unknown, for the Goblin doesn't forget. Oh well. She should have shot the S.O.B...... Twice.
Sometimes, though, I think Mary Jane slapped the wrong person. I think maybe she should have slapped Gwen for being such an imbecile, for betraying trusts, and for being unable to control herself. The Straczynski Gwen had a lot wrong with her, and all of it her own fault.
Things had spun out of control for Gwen. Without her father as an anchor and power source, she was on her own, and not doing too well. She had to tell Peter about the kids. She frantically searched for him.
Gobbo got her first.
