Sins Past vs. One More Day.

[Batman Begins 2005]

I know how reviled Sins Past and One More Day are. Having never read them, I got them out of the way recently. Both are bad for what Sins Past does to Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane keeping that a secret. One More Day a deal is made with the devil to conceal Spidey's secret identity, end the marriage of Peter/Mary Jane Watson to bring Aunt May back alive. I'd say One More Day was the worst of the two.

Having read both, it's soured my opinion on JMS Spider-Man work, a shame as his characterization work with Peter/MJ/Mary Jane was the book's biggest strength. Nobody wrote Aunt May as well as JMS. Does Sins Past and One More Day blot JMS record on the book?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Sins' Past ruined Gwen Stacy as a character and its unnecessary because the content of Gwen when she was alive is sufficiently damning. It did kind of put a damper on Gwenstalgia pieces...i.e. Gwen is this perfect angelic being who no one can compare with and all those bridge-marking scenes which have become jokes. A worthy end but the means were unjustifiable.

Still it only ruined one character and particular kind of story.

OMD ruined Spider-Man as a character, degraded him morally on a level below Dr. Doom, and put a damper on all Spider-Man stories going forward. It's damage was far more widespread.

[Snoop Dogg]

babies = i'm ruined

[Miles To Go]

I can forgive Sins Past mainly because it helps shatter the saintly myth of Gwen Stacy, and it's a decent enough story with powerful Peter and MJ moments, I'd say it's follow up "Sins Remembered" is a much worse story for it's icky attempt at teasing Peter with one of his late girlfriend's kids while remaining married to MJ.

OMD is just a poorly conceived editorial mandate, it's not even a story, it's a mechanism to get us from one continuity to another and is largely the reason that present day Marvel continuity is living on borrowed time unless they reveal it was memory alteration and not timeline changes, because eventually we will have a creative regime that will wish to undo it.

It doesn't ruin JMS's run for me, JMS' run ends with "To Have and To Hold", ironically a story he never even wrote but sums up his era rather appropriately.

[Prof. Warren]

I don't believe Sins Past ruined Gwen at all. In fact, I think it made her a more layered, sympathetic character.

She was always something of an idealized character, lacking much depth. Sins Past showed her to be very human and flawed and capable of complexities.

Yes, she makes a mistake in being with Norman but it's rooted in understandable emotions. I think her transgression makes her more relatable.

OMD is little more than an editorial mandate.

But whether you like or hate or are indifferent to either story, I don't think it should affect the overall view of JMS' run.

Personally, I think his run ran out of steam pretty early on. I don't think he ever topped that first Morlun arc. His run was always at least readable and I liked his portrayals of Peter, May and MJ, but I think he came out of the gate guns blazing but wasn't able to sustain that excitement. His era was such an improvement over the Mackie run that I think it looked pretty good at the time but it hasn't held up as a particularly great run.

[U.N. Owen]

Sins Past ruined one character.

OMD made the entire Marvel Universe look inept.

Peter Parker spends most of his time being an angsty crybaby who refuses to take responsibility for his actions.

Reed Richards can bring people back from the dead, but he can't heal bullet wounds. Dr. Doom had an opportunity to one-up Reed Richards, but can't heal bullet wounds.

And Dr. Strange can bend time and space to make meetings with the top scientists of the world, but can't heal bullet wounds.

Of course, let's not forget the insulting issue 3 where one of the versions of Peter basically insult the audience for liking escapist fiction.

[Tycon]

How did it “ruin” her? Cause she slept with some old guy? Put her on a cross and burn her!

[leokearon]

Sins Past was bad but OMD is way worse. Sins Past can easily be ignored, OMD can't

[Revolutionary_Jack]

How did it “ruin” her? Cause she slept with some old guy? Put her on a cross and burn her!

This isn't about slut shaming or any such thing. Using the word "ruin" is a little too strong so if possible maybe I would walkback that...but basically it creates a huge problem if you say that the most famous instance of women in refrigerators...you know girls whose main importance to the story is to provide a fount of guilt and manpain to the hero...had an affair with the man who killed her. And this is absolutely inserted retroactively and basically not grounded in the material in any way.

If you want to write a story where you know Gwen Stacy is a racist and so on...well that is grounded in the material since #91-92 has her volunteer for the white nationalist DA candidate Sam Bullitt. If you want to do one where Gwen Stacy was a nasty person and a bully and a snob, that is grounded too. If you want to write Gwen Stacy and have her come back as a villain...there's enough in the old stories to suggest she has it in them.

But Sins' Past is just again a repackaging of sexist cliches. The only worth Gwen had is not as a person, not the flawed individual she was (which if she were to come back as a villain would allow her a chance to reclaim that), but as a sex object, and a broodmare. It makes The Night Gwen Stacy Died a story not about how Peter's constant lying and irresponsibility in allowing Norman a "second chance" despite continuous relapses led to Gwen's death...it becomes the story of a rich ******* getting rid of his young mistress.

If the story is about how perfect angel Gwen was the one who cheated on Peter and wanted him to raise kids that weren't his...while MJ remained faithful and devoted all the time...i.e "MJ rules Gwen drools" we all knew that already. Only a tiny minority actually believe that Gwen was Peter's intended and special one. She was unpopular in life, and far more popular and interesting dead than alive, and the number of stories where Peter and MJ have a relationship as a couple, pre-marriage, marriage and Post-OMD without discussing Gwen is greater than the ones where she is a ghost between them.

And again it's out of character. Norman Osborn returned from the dead in Revelations, then Revenge of the Green Goblin, A Death in the Family...the Norman of those stories if he had slept with Gwen would absolutely have rubbed it in Peter's face.

Sins' Past should never have been allowed past editorial but even then JMS has to take blame for this. Quesada told him to can the concept when his original plan for Peter being the kids' father was removed (I am agnostic about whether this would have worked or not if this concept still involved the kids being raised by Osborn).

[theoneandonly]

I think that Gwen must be in the afterlife saying my sugar daddy F.....d me and all I got was a short ride on his goblin glider to limbo.

[The Kid]

Both awful but I'm gonna say Sin's Past. Just completely unnecessary

Just to be clear, I hate OMD a lot too but it was an editorial mandate. Doesn't make much sense but I give it some leeway just because it was clearly just written to reset the status quo more than anything so the actual story was just irrelevant to me

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Personally I think comparing OMD and Sins' Past is flawed.

OMD should be compared to the Clone Saga. Both stories are considered the worst things in Spider-Man publ. history. The logic of both involved telling readers that 20 years worth of stories no longer counted, even if editors/writers out of denial/ignorance/cynicism said they did. Both stories fundamentally undermined and deprived the emotional center of multiple stories and events. One failed because it had a weak editorial institution, while the other worked because the people behind it were secure in their company seats.

Sins' Past was written by JMS, whereas OMD was only partly written by him. Joe Quesada has story credit and he's the real author of the story.

If you want to you can compare Sins' past to the Robot Parents Saga, to Evil That Men Do, and other turkeys.

[Mistah K88]

But Sins' Past is just again a repackaging of sexist cliches. The only worth Gwen had is not as a person, not the flawed individual she was (which if she were to come back as a villain would allow her a chance to reclaim that), but as a sex object, and a broodmare. It makes The Night Gwen Stacy Died a story not about how Peter's constant lying and irresponsibility in allowing Norman a "second chance" despite continuous relapses led to Gwen's death...it becomes the story of a rich ******* getting rid of his young mistress.

Preach. With the trend of EVERYTHING bad that has happened to Peter being caused by Norman Osborn, Sins Past was just over the top. Not only did Norman cause Gwen's death, he slept with her first! The whole shattering the image of "perfect angel Gwen" could have been done with some more tact. Maybe she supports police no matter how corrupt they were because her father was a captain, and she was a daddy's girl (thus any criticisms of the NYPD she would take as a personal attack). Maybe she was quite nasty and stuck up before she dated Peter, and her insecurities had her copy Mary Jane in order to be more appealing to him. There's plenty of source material prior to Sins Past that debunk the "perfect Gwen" myth.... It just had to be Norman... I bet in the future we will to learn that both Gwen and MJ fooled around with Norman just to really make Peter suffer.

[Batman Begins 2005]

Cheers to contributors/voters. As it stands, there's a 7-7 tie.

[Celgress]

OMD is in a class of awful all by itself, IMO.