Sincerely,
Thomas Mets
What's part of the actual story is Gwen Stacy swerving drastically to the right. For a woman whose father was a liberal, who goes to college and is friends with Randy Robertson and others, to support Bullitt is a pretty drastic move. It's the equivalent of the one person in your group of friends who are generally Dem or blue-staters going on to suggest that Justice Scalia or Attorney Jeff Sessions or Joe Arpaio are awesome people who should be voted in or kept in power.
The fact is Bullitt is pretty right wing and is obviously conducting a dog whistle campaign. That's the case even outside of him being tied to white nationalist groups. Gwen Stacy sat in his office and listened intently as he railed against bleed heart types and leftists. That is sufficient enough to raise eyebrows of concern.
I mean if you want to look at it as if the story was written today with the current view and usage of language and completely forget things looked different in the 70s and left wing terrorism was a thing. But even then, you are still reading more into the plot than was there beyond a minor use of the "you killed my father" type trope.
Yes, that is an accurate assessment of the story. And I think the explanation for her heel turn is that she was heartbroken and lost over her father's untimely and pretty horrible death. Gwen was a weak-willed person, this story bears that out as much as any Gwen story. Recall she also lashed out verbally at an old lady once.
Honestly it was a fairly weak story and I wish I had more background as to why it was even written in the first place. Almost seems like its one of those "you had to be there" stories and was intended to undermine Nixon perhaps.
Every day is a gift, not a given right.
Considering how things turned out with Nixon . . . if you wanted to look for a Marvel story undermining him, try the original Secret Empire story arc in Captain America. While the writer couldn't say it in the comic itself, it was generally implied if not stated elsewhere that the true leader of the Secret Empire was meant to be Nixon, as a riff on Watergate where instead of just plain old political corruption, he was a downright supervillain plotting world conquest.
The spider is always on the hunt.
I actually think it's a great story overall. It's got great Spider-Man, Jameson, and Robertson stuff. Also pretty gutsy. Spider-Man, even then, was Marvel's most popular character and Stan Lee firmly planted Spider-Man and Peter forever left-of-centre of the political spectrum. No other publisher at the time was willing to do that.
The stuff with Gwen in it, is for me, a way of highlighting a rather forgotten and underrated story from the Lee-Romita era. And to me it's an example of a story that proved that Gwen did have elements of interest to her, which can be and should have been explored.
Gwen is Spider-Man's only love interest from a upper class and so on, and it's kind of interesting if you look at her as a snobbish rich kid who never entirely escaped her class biases and prejudices. That's certainly how Ditko wrote her, and elements of that original character and intent, despite Lee's attempt to overwrite it, end up showing up from time to time.
Doctor Strange: "You are the right person to replace Logan."
X-23: "I know there are people who disapprove... Guys on the Internet mainly."
(All-New Wolverine #4)
When a good chunk of American Conservatives are either pro or quietly ok with white supremacy its kind of hard not to call them out.
As for Gwen. I dont think she's a white supremacist. Bullit kept his ties to hate groups low so all she knew she was signing up for was a hard right conservative who told her he could deal with (what she assumed) was her Fathers killer. She could have done more research and should have but she was in an emotional state.
Also wasnt there an issue where Gwen is an out and out racist until someone calls her out ?
Last edited by jetengine; 08-28-2019 at 12:20 AM.