Gwen Stacy is Dead

ASM 121: Well, there is the ending. I'm going to offer two lines of thought. One is why this occurrence was "good" in certain respects. The other is why I am so deeply troubled by it. I'll do the former first.

When I was a kid, no one could get this comic, but EVERYONE heard about it. Even kids with the best comic stashes never had it. It was legendary. I myself was too young to have had any chance to see it at the newsstand. The Spideys I read were all post Gwen Stacy. They were all in the Mary Jane period. And as a young kid, I just loved Mary Jane. Seeing this hot red head with such a perfect personality, calling her boyfriend "Tiger" was just awesome. I remember once being in my early 30s and telling a girlfriend about this. Perhaps it was when the first Spiderman movie came out (can't remember). She tried one day to call me "tiger," either as a funny or perhaps to see if that could done, instead of, you know, "babe" or "hun" or what not. The point: it didn't work. But that was just it: no one real could ever be Mary Jane. If it were a movie, Mary Jane would easily have the best supporting actress award. That's how special her role was in the story.

And so, for people who only generally followed Spiderman -- and for the legions of fans that came later -- the death of Gwen Stacy was like the day the Americans beat Russia in hockey. It was a major, major event. It made the story more than just a comic book: it was now a graphic novel. Real, important people died. It had consequences. The hero could fail. The character development was very good. It launched the era of Mary Jane. People who read Spiderman were as much into the soap opera and personal stories in Parker's life as they were the neat costume and the battles. Just count the deaths in the story line: Foswell, Captain Stacy, etc. Each death involved a more important person. I thought Gwen's father dying was unbelievable. And now: they killed Gwen, which was something simply unthinkable. And the wasn't any warning. It struck out of the blue, seemingly for no reason. From this moment forward, Spiderman became something much larger than it ever truly could have been (if that makes sense).

But after reading every single issue up to this one, I must say that my views on this happenstance have greatly changed. More on that in the next few entries.