Gerry Conway On "The Night Gwen Stacy Died"

I agree with @ACira

Aunt May's death is long overdue. She serves no purpose in the comics anymore. I bet when all the heroes and villains die of old age, she will still be alive.

I'm still angry that idiot Quesada thought Aunt May being a gagillion years old was more compelling than marriage.

@Anton u suck on gustos left nut. Amazing spiderman had some of the beat action in a comicbookmovie ur crazy @ freaking.

@TheRealRemyLebeau
What? Stop silly fanboying, I enjoyed action of TASM too (wasn't that great, but decent), but it doesn't make the movie itself any better.

Gwen stacy has been over shadowed for years by mjw, I'm glad the original mythos of spidey are coming back.

@Anton I said what I said because of ur disrespect for conways classic writing smh, my other comment was directed at freaking.

@TRRL
Well, yeah, I do disrespect Conway's writing, never considered it any good.

That's just, like, only my opinion, man, don't take it too hard.

@TRRL
I do. Guess what, they do not talk like Stacy does in the movie. They are normal guys, just like the rest of us.

Police was portrayed well in 'Serpico', go check it out.

just reboot this shit already.

The amazing spiderman fits perfect with the MCU, no reboot needed.

@TheRealRemy NO PLEASE! I'm begging you! Keep TASM away from the MCU! I"ll never be able to watch another MCU movie again if that happens!

@DeadpoolsCommonSense

Why should I? Because I have a different point of view?

@Cipher I just fell out laughing right now!!!!

Completely agree with @Acira and @CaptainObvious.

Seriously some of you (ie Anton)folk here, WTF!!!
Amazing Spider Man #121 is one of the greatest Marvel comics ever written. Period. To suggest otherwise reveals either ignorance, arrogance or both. Like a reborn Christian looking down on the Gospel of John for its lack of parables. Give your head a shake.

Gerry Conway wrote some of the best early Spiderman issues after Stan Lee stopped writing it

CaptainObvious - and the whole I can't be with you because I'm a superhero living a dangerous life isn't old? Please

@CaptainObvious see, you trash Peter breaking his promise to Captain Stacy in TASM, but Peter does the exact same thing in Raimi's movies by eventually dating MJ at the end of Spider-Man 2 and throughout Spider-Man 3.

It's the same thing - both women know Peter is Spider-Man, both know they are in danger around him, both know why he's chosen to not be with them, both let him know that they don't care about the risks, and eventually, Peter relents. The only differences in TASM are Captain Stacy being the one to ask that stuff of Peter, and that Peter's relents quicker (plus, his age, and therefore naivety, are a factor since he's about 3 or 4 years younger than Raimi's Peter at the end of Spider-Man 2).

As for Gwen, I think we learn quite a bit about her in the movie. She worries about her father - might be a movie cliche, but her father is in danger due to his line of work, so if she loved and cared for him she would be worried. She's very close to her family - close enough to invite Peter to meet them before they even officially started dating (most people don't do that, this suggests she sought her family's approval). We also learn that she wants to become some kind of scientist (she interns at Oscorp, excels in science, and had Dr Conners write her a college recommendation) or perhaps a science teacher (she tutors Flash). She has something of a competitive streak (she considers Peter to be 'second in his class', behind her). She's brave too - she ensured everyone evacuated Oscorp while she remained behind to finish the serum. She's well liked in school, but not one of the 'popular' crowd, and has a strong sense of right and wrong (standing up to Flash when he beats up Peter). We also learn that, among all those other things, she's a regular girl who has silly fantasies (she wants a chocolate house). The main difference between the way she is characterized, compared to MJ in Raimi's films, is that Gwen's characterization is more subtle, whereas Raimi literally has to spoon-feed every aspect of MJ's life to the audience.

In Spider-Man (2002), we learn MJ wants to be an actress but is struggling to make ends meet as a waitress (a huge cliche of elephant-sized proportions), and we only learn this because she tells Peter outright. She dates Harry (where did that come from, by the way? They explain Harry asked her out, but why'd she say yes?) but has a thing for Peter. She has an abusive/neglectful father, although this seems to go nowhere in terms of characterization. We learn Peter met her as a child, and said some really stupid cliched crap about her (Aunt May explains Peter thought she was an angel when she moved in next door, Peter cried when she played Cinderella in elementary school), but that goes nowhere fast. She's one of the popular crowd (evidenced by her original relationship with Flash), but is one of the nicer ones (telling the bus driver to wait for Peter).
Now look at how her life progresses - she's a waitress who wants to act.
Next thing we know in Spider-Man 2 is that she's a stage actress. No mention of auditions or any subtle hints that her character is growing in any way, because even the filmmakers didn't see her as important - she was just a love interest to Peter, and someone he could save when she got abducted (3 times). That's not a character. That's a plot device. I mean, she's engaged to John Jameson - again, why? That relationship comes out of nowhere, and simply functions to make Peter jealous (in fact, that's probably why MJ went out with John in the first place). But, at the end of the day, MJ still feels like she's just a prize for Peter, and not a character in her own right - she's someone for him to save, then kiss.
Ironically, her only true characterization comes in Spider-Man 3, where we get to know a bit more about her personality. There's still no reason or chemistry between her and Peter, but we get that she cares for him. She gets jealous because Peter's too dumb to realize that phony-Gwen also likes him for some reason. She then breaks up with him because Harry says she has to or he'll kill Peter (shows she cares for his safety and is somewhat selfless), although, only Sam Raimi knows why she didn't just tell her superhero boyfriend to kick the crap out of the bad-guy who got his memory back and threatened them in the first place. Then, Peter punches her, she gets kidnapped again, Peter rescues her, and they possibly get back together (although we never know for sure as they just hug).

"We feel saddness when Peter rejects MJ to keep her from harm from Spider-Man's enemies. Peter is now alone and nobody can understand how he feels and he can't be with the one he loves because he has to protect her. That is tragedy. That has emotional depth." - this I agree with, to an extent. We feel sorry for Peter because we know Peter wants to be with her, but we don't care about her, because she's not really a character. She has a lot in common with Gwen from the comics - in fact, she's more an adaptation of Gwen Stacy than Mary Jane. Mary Jane was the better love interest for Peter because she not only accepted him for his being a nerd, but she was strong and supported him enough to make sure that didn't matter. She was so confident that she was able to make him more confident, and her emotional strength became his as well. None of that comes across in Raimi's movies, and she's one of the worst characters in that trilogy.

i don't know, I loved the Raimi movies, but he really mischaracterized Peter and MJ especially, I thought. I mean as far as what I get from the comics, what I've built up about these characters, becuz i love what he did for what it is.

a lot of my issues with it have been hashed over to death, so don't wanna go in depth, but of the two characters, Peter was closer, MJ was way, way, way off. She was a girl named MJ. she had red hair and was an actress. besides that, i hardly felt like she existed. it'd be kind of hard to make a real attempt at her without portraying what she was before Gwen died and how when that happened, something about her changed too, or at least how she began relating to Peter.

MJ started out as a stone cold wild child. party girl. too hot to trot. Peter saw her as being superficial and unrelatable. When Gwen died, she started changing. But the core of her character still comes from how she was first portrayed. Especially for the time, she was an incredibly strongly written female character, she had depth and she had real balls. She was real deal and it made sense that Peter was able to rely on her and let her into his life entirely.

I'm gonna watch the Raimi movies again sometime in the next few months, cuz I do love them, but I don't remember anything strong, in even the slightest sense, about the MJ in that. She's totally a complete creation of Raimi's, as far as u can even say that she possibly exists at all.

and CaptainObvious, I'm not arguing against u here becuz I think we're talking about two whole different sets of criteria in judging the character, mine, how much she embodied the comic book MJ and yours, more about how u felt she worked for the point of the movies. I actually disagree with u on that, but that's just totality subjective.

but I do think that the whole ending promise thing is overblown, the way you're talking about it. the part that i don't like is, unconfirmed now, but i wonder how much of a role his parent's or other forces have to do with the spider and his powers. cuz, to me, anything besides the bite being a random accident takes away from the importance of Peter's choices. I can understand a valid argument against that, but that's me. and then also, I felt the importance of the burglar and Uncle Ben was mishandled. nothing contradicted it, but it was lacking, even with a much better portrayal of Uncle Ben in TASM

tasm is in the running to be the best cbm trilogy

tho, i do hope they go past 3 movies :)

@Acira & Fangz great points and I agree. @Capobvious u got owned my friend!

@CaptainObvious

You're pretty much right, but some people are easily impressed with the bare minimum of character development.

Other than Uncle Ben and Cap. Stacy the characterization throughout the whole film was garbage, especially Gwen and Peter.

"Gwen and Peter's relationship was too shallow and such a waste of time."

you must've meant thor and jane or tony and pepper :)

@SpecSpider - well, the witty banter that the movie version of tony has feels like a ripoff of fonzi and groucho marx

and gwen's and peter's relationship feels like a ripoff from the comics, which isn't a bad thing at all :)

"Name one memorable thing Gwen Stacy ever did besides die?"

Well, be the one - and only - true love of Peter Parker's life, for one thing. She was created specifically to be Peter's wife as they wrote Betty Brant out of his story.

Memorable? She was "the beauty queen of Standard High." She had a real personality- a bit snooty, but she was open-minded about Peter right from the beginning. And they had a real (comic book) chemistry, far more than almost any other Marvel couple.

Personally, I think Conway's original idea to kill Aunt may was better, but maybe only because I liked Gwen so much. Peter would have grown up more, although The Powers That Be at Marvel felt he wasn't ready for a wife. They could have gone that way, though- it'd have been great. How does he tell Gwen? How does she react? How does he protect her? What about kids?

It would have been groundbreaking. Reed Richards & Sue Storm got married, but their identities were public. Peter still had a secret identity.

The possibilities were great. OTOH, Gwen's death truly was historic. Still, I'd have preferred Aunt May finally checking out. It would have stayed truer to the realism Marvel established early on with their characters..