Originally Posted by
Kurt Busiek
So sure, Gwen was a a snob when they first met, and warmed up and got friendlier over time. They didn't really say why, just as they didn't say how Aunt May reacted when Peter stopped wearing his glasses -- in that case, I got an untold tale out of it, exploring that untold part. If I'd gotten to the college years, then telling the story of how Gwen developed and changed and why would be fertile territory for untold tales.
I would probably work with the idea that (a) Gwen is generally more reserved than MJ, so even after she's warmed up to the crowd, she'd tend to be frostier and less gregarious with newcomers than MJ is, as a nice way of exploring what makes them different, and (b) I'd probably figure out some incident (a kidnapping? an attack on her father? a betrayal by friends at Standard High?) that caused her to be even more reserved and defensive when college began, so those stories would be seen as a temporary condition -- she was more sheltered and reserved than MJ in general, but she was even moreso right around then for specific reasons, and as she got more used to college she relaxed and opened up.
That would preserve what we saw in both the Ditko and Romita issues, and it wouldn't involve saying any of them were wrong or didn't happen that way. It'd be a fleshing-out, not a retcon, additional information and context rather than contradiction.
That's how I tend to like it -- I want to work with what's there rather than overthrow it. And while the real reason Gwen started acting more like MJ was that Stan wanted Gwen to be more popular so he pushed Romita to change her, it still creates opportunity to create in-story explorations of the change while keeping the events of the original issues just as they are.
So yeah, if later stories come along and say MJ wasn't bubbly and out for fun in the Romita years, or that Gwen wasn't a snot to Peter when they met and changed later, then I'm going to think it's the later guy who got it wrong, not that Stan, Steve and John's portrayal didn't happen, that it's been overwritten.