By Andrew A. Smith
McClatchy-Tribune
April 29, 2014 -- You know Gwen Stacy is dead, right?
I’m not talking about her fate in the movie Amazing Spider-Man 2, premiering May 3. I don’t know that myself, and wouldn’t tell you if I knew.
No, I’m talking about comic books, where Gwen Stacy has been dead since being thrown off the George Washington Bridge by the Green Goblin in 1972.
That’s a long time to be dead in comics – long enough that it may even be permanent! But the reasons for that and how it came about is a story in itself.
Let’s correct one misapprehension right away: Gwen Stacy may have a place in Spidey history as Peter Parker’s first great love, but – unlike the current movies – she wasn’t his first girlfriend. That honor would go to Betty Brant, introduced in Amazing Spider-Man #4 (1963) as J. Jonah Jameson’s secretary, when Parker was still in high school. Early on, Parker also had a crush on perky and popular blonde Elizabeth “Liz” Allan, who was dating the bully who made Parker’s high school years miserable, Eugene “Flash” Thompson.
But those two romances, such as they were, didn’t go anywhere. Readers felt Brant was too old for Parker, even though they were the same age – Brant just seemed older, because she had dropped out of high school to get a job to support her family. Also, at least to this young reader, her pageboy haircut and office-appropriate clothes made her appear a bit dowdy. And Parker’s crush on Allan cooled (just as her crush on him heated up), and Allan later went on to marry Harry Osborn, the son of the Green Goblin.
So where was Gwen Stacy? Not at Parker’s Midtown High, that’s for sure! While many of the movies, cartoons and other Spidey media establish both Stacy and Mary Jane “MJ” Watson as Parker’s contemporaries in high school, in the comics he didn’t meet either until he went to college.
Stacy appears for the first time in 1965, on Parker’s first day of classes at Empire State University. As a science major she appreciated Parker’s intellectual gifts, but thought he was egotistical (because he didn’t hang out with “the gang”), and that he was wasting his talents due to personal irresponsibility. Which is ironic, since a sense of responsibility is what drives Parker to constantly change into Spider-Man. But it was those changes – and Parker’s unexplained absences – that led to Stacy’s disdain.
Also, while Stacy was supposed to be a blonde bombshell, many readers only knew that because of the reactions of the other characters. Because, while original Spider-Man artist and co-creator Steve Ditko was the perfect man to draw Spider-Man, his retro and gritty style didn’t lend itself to drawing gorgeous women. In fact, Gwen – with her hair pulled back by berets and her Rubensesque (or Ditkoesque) extra-wide hips – could have passed for Parker’s mother!
But that all changed in a few more issues, when Ditko left the strip (for still unexplained reasons). Marvel editor and “Spider-Man” writer Stan Lee cast about for a replacement, and landed on veteran John “Ring-a-Ding” Romita. And what a change that would be!
“Johnny had been drawing romance strips for years; gorgeous girls and glamorous guys,” Lee said in Excelsior!, his autobiography. “It must have been agony for him to change his style in order to imitate Steve Ditko’s entirely different way of drawing. But he did it, and he did it beautifully. Then, slowly, subtly, little by little, ol’ Ring-a-Ding started depicting the characters in Spider-Man in his own style, making Peter a little taller, a little handsomer, and a little more matinee idol-like, with piercing eyes, strong chin and a heroic demeanor. He also made Peter’s girlfriends look like pin-ups.”
Yes, that’s girlfriends plural, because just as Gwen and Peter got eventually got over their initial misimpressions and started making goo-goo eyes at each other, Lee shook up the strip by creating a love triangle with the addition of red-haired party girl Mary Jane Watson. As drawn by Romita, her memorable introductory line in 1966 was, if anything, understated: “Face it, Tiger … you just hit the jackpot!”
This was the end result of a long-running gag in Amazing Spider-Man. While Parker was still in high school, his doting Aunt May was always pushing for him to meet the niece of Mrs. Watson next door, a girl named Mary Jane.
Parker figured any girl his aunt would approve of must be boring, and probably unattractive as well, so he was always finding excuses to avoid meeting her. The joke was, as the readers (and Betty and Liz) knew, MJ Watson was and is drop-dead gorgeous.
It was hilarious watching Parker squirm on the hook, trying desperately to avoid meeting a girl that would eventually make his eyes bug out. But it turns out the joke was on the book’s creators, because MJ proved extremely popular with readers – more popular than Parker’s ostensible girlfriend.
“Johnny and I had always planned for Peter to be in love with gorgeous Gwen,” Lee said in his autobiography, “and one day end up marrying her. But somehow, Mary Jane was the one who seemed to come alive on the page. She crackled with energy, excitement, sex appeal. Much as we tried, we couldn’t make Gwen as appealing as MJ.”
So Gwen had to go. According to numerous accounts, it was Romita who suggested knocking her off. (He was inking the book at the time; Gil Kane was the penciller. But Romita also had a say as Marvel's art director.) At that point Gerry Conway was the writer on Amazing Spider-Man, and he took the idea to his editor, Roy Thomas, who then took it to Lee for approval. Once everyone signed off – although Lee says he doesn’t remember doing so – Stacy’s fate was sealed.
“The Night Gwen Stacy Died!” appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #121. And naturally, fans howled with outrage. But, strangely, there were two other, completely unexpected controversies.
One is minor, and a little funny. Because, even though the script and the dialogue kept referring to the George Washington Bridge, Kane drew the Brooklyn Bridge – one of the nation’s most distinctive landmarks, which couldn’t possibly be confused with the GW Bridge. To this day, many readers are convinced the Goblin threw Stacy off the wrong bridge.
The other is that the way the story was drawn, it was technically Spider-Man – not the Green Goblin – who killed Gwen Stacy. The Goblin threw her off the bridge, sure, so legally, morally and in almost every other way, the Goblin is responsible for Stacy’s demise. But Spider-Man tried to catch her with a quick shot of webbing – and when it made contact and arrested Stacy’s fall, a small “SNAP” sound effect emanated from her neck. As the old joke goes, it isn’t the fall that kills you, it’s the abrupt stop at the end.
Fans were furious. It was one thing to kill Gwen Stacy, but the added detail that it was Spider-Man’s attempts at rescue that actually did the deed just smacked of cruelty.
So endeth the Gwen Stacy story – at least in comics. For most Spider-fans, Peter Parker’s most famous and enduring girlfriend is MJ Watson, the girl he eventually married (at least for a little while) in 1987. But for fans of a certain age (cough, cough), Stacy is a fond, wistful Spider-memory, of Things That Might Have Been.
Contact Captain Comics at capncomics@aol.com.
Replies
I wasn't there for all of this, I didn't start collecting until 1974 or so, but I think when a character dies they should stay dead. What always puzzled me was how passive Peter was when Norman Osborn turned up alive again. What irritated me was that Norman turned up alive again.
Captain Comics wrote:
Amen to that. That was a completely avoidable misstep that shouldn't have been allowed to see print.
I recall CBG doing a GREAT feature on that one little sound effect a few years back. Anyone know if that is available online?
That's one of my favorite stories that CBG ever ran: "Who Killed Gwen Stacy?", I think it was called. I had always hoped they would do a forensic follow-up to discover the circumstances behind killing Iris Allen.
It's a funny thing - when I first read Spider-Man comics, sometime in the mid-to-late 70's, Gwen was already gone, and never got mentioned that I recall. MJ was Pete's girlfriend and Gwen's name never came up. I think she gets spoken of more now than she did back then.
That may be because they brought her back and revealed her as Osborn's lover.
Except they didn't bring her back, and I don't recall the last time the storyline has ever been mentioned. I think it may have been Mopeed away
Mark S. Ogilvie said:
Someone on this board mentioned that Gwen Stacy was most famous for being dead. As a veteran Gwenophile, I grudgingly had to agree. That may change, though, with the marvelous job Emma Stone did bringing Gwen to life. That's what I'm going to remember now.
Oh, and "Sins Past" Did. Not. Happen. Call it a hoax, a dream, an imaginary story, a clone, a Mopee, whatever. It Did. Not. Happen.
See how easy that is?
More like deadly!
Alexandra Kitty said:
Captain Comics said:
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