The Original Gwen Stacy Appreciation 2020

[Spider-Tiger]

To be honest, I don't think it serves any story purpose. I think the game is to elevate Gwen by sanding off her rough edges as a "true love" to undermine MJ rather than recovering or suggesting a good sense of her as an actual character.

And I honestly don't know why this original Gwen Stacy-protagonist series is doing, because the version of Gwen that has had success is Spider-Gwen and not 616 Gwen.

This is the sense I've gotten too, which is incredibly frustrating. I'm trying to give this the benefit of the doubt, but it seems to be propping her up just for the sake of propping her up. As others have pointed out, the solicits seem very fanfictiony.

And it is definitely riding the coattails of Spider-Gwen's success. Pre Spider-Gwen, I doubt this would have been greenlit.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

This is the sense I've gotten too, which is incredibly frustrating. I'm trying to give this the benefit of the doubt, but it seems to be propping her up just for the sake of propping her up. As others have pointed out, the solicits seem very fanfictiony.

And it is definitely riding the coattails of Spider-Gwen's success. Pre Spider-Gwen, I doubt this would have been greenlit.

Wouldn't say that. Pre-Spider-Gwen you still had Emma Stone, and before Emma Stone you had that House of M story by noted Gwenista Mark Waid, and before him you had Spider-Man Blue which probably did the most to revive Gwen as a character.

I think people still have an Emma Stone hangover...which is odd because that version of Spider-Man definitely failed and audiences favored Spider-Gwen over her greatly.

Christos Gage is definitely a writer with rather dubious views of gender and someone who did insert said views into mouths of his characters, as in the final issue of Superior Vol.2

It's frustrating that nobody wants to work with the Gwen that was originally written and instead they want to do fan-fiction when the thing to do is use the original stuff and fill in the blanks.

[eratas123]

Gwen’s issue as a character is that she doesn’t seem to have a consistent one. Whenever Peter, Flash, Harry, MJ etc etc dhow up jn alternate verses you can at least get a general idea of what they’d be like - Peter’s the nerd turned hero, Harry’s the rich kid with issues, Flash is a bully and MJ is the headstrong, fun character. While there are some unique variations they mostlt stick to this formula.

With Gwen you get none of this. Spectacular Gwen was Debrah Whitman, Emma Stone Gwen was blonde science MJ, Ultimate Gwen was a hardcore punk who threatened to stab a fucker and Spider-Gwen...let’s face it, she’s basically an OC. She has nothing in common with Gwen outside of being a blonde with a police chief dad who knew Peter Parker. Hell, even something as small as her economic background was changed - despite her dad having the same job Spider-Gwen is more or less stated to be middle class rather than the high society rich girl 616 Gwen was. Even character details like height, hair and body structure were altered by Latour to make her look more like a cousin than a dimensional variant of Gwen.

And I know this thread is for appreciating Original Gwen but I honestly don’t see the point of this upcoming. Google in Gwen Stacy on image search and chances are the majority of pictures that crop up nowadays are Spider-Gwen, so that’s how a lot of new fans are going to see her - not the girl who got bridged for Spider-man’s angst but a hero in her own right. Digging up 616 Gwen to turn her into Nancy Drew feels pointless since you have no clue who the audience for this is meant to be. The guys who read up on Gwen during her ‘glory days’ and think dying was her biggest contribution? The new fans drawn in by Spider-Gwen who expect her to be a tomboy rocker? Doesn’t seem like either would be all that interested in yet another Gwen reimagining.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Digging up 616 Gwen to turn her into Nancy Drew feels pointless since you have no clue who the audience for this is meant to be. The guys who read up on Gwen during her ‘glory days’ and think dying was her biggest contribution? The new fans drawn in by Spider-Gwen who expect her to be a tomboy rocker? Doesn’t seem like either would be all that interested in yet another Gwen reimagining.

Exactly. Gwenstalgia is very much a boomer or boomer-second generation thing.

The original Gwen Stacy has interesting stuff, namely in the Ditko period, and also in some of the issues in the Lee-Romita era, namely her partnering with Sam Bullitt that feels like something that ought to be addressed.

I do think it's dishonest if writers come in and don't deal with the fact that Gwen was originally quite unpopular.

[eratas123]

Exactly. Gwenstalgia is very much a boomer or boomer-second generation thing.

The original Gwen Stacy has interesting stuff, namely in the Ditko period, and also in some of the issues in the Lee-Romita era, namely her partnering with Sam Bullitt that feels like something that ought to be addressed.

I do think it's dishonest if writers come in and don't deal with the fact that Gwen was originally quite unpopular.

One of my biggest issues is that they market this as Gwen’s never before seen backstory, which just feels super dishonest. Spider-Gwen, Ultimate Gwen etc etc didn’t pretend to be 616 Gwen, they were their own characters. This Gwen, from what we’ve seen, is Emma Stone Gwen mixed with a hint of Ultimate/Spider-Gwen’s headstrong personality.

Honestly if they wanted a high school Gwen Stacy comic making a prequel for Spider-Gwen seems more appropriate. I’ve seen more than one fan complain that Gwen’s entire origin story only showed up in one splash page and we’re dropped in medias res. Showing off her early years before she was hated by the public, when she focused on stardom vs heroics and interactions with characters like her Peter, Wasp, the Mary Janes etc etc would’ve been fun.

Granted I’ll probably still buy this comic, if only cause I wanna see how badly they retcon Gwen and since its coming out in a day or two, but still as far as miniseries go this feels like one of the more blatant hype grabs alongside the Noir comic.

[Frontier]

I have to think there is a plot relevant reason for them doing this comic now, otherwise I just don't get why they would put the spotlight on 616 Gwen now of all times.

[eratas123]

I have to think there is a plot relevant reason for them doing this comic now, otherwise I just don't get why they would put the spotlight on 616 Gwen now of all times.

Big thing a while ago is people assume 616 Gwen is Kindred. Not sure now.

[Ozymandias]

I do think it's dishonest if writers come in and don't deal with the fact that Gwen was originally quite unpopular.

When was that and where's the poll that said so?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

When was that and where's the poll that said so?

Read any interview with Lee or Romita Sr. or scour the letters pages of the comics. You will find a lot of complaints about Gwen back then.

There was obviously no "poll" as such because this was Pre-Internet but empirically it was widely known among people back then that Gwen was not an especially intriguing or popular character. It was her death that made her famous and memorable and again that wasn't because of the fact that she died...but because it was presented as Spider-Man failing to save her, and readers didn't like Spider-Man looking like a loser and so on, or Gwen's death happening in such an unfair way.

Take a neutral observer like Roger Stern. Stern who doesn't think Peter/MJ should be a couple and so on, had this to say about Gwen:

"Gwen's Stacy death made her the holy version...this ideal woman for Peter...People who say that weren't around for the whole run. They've forgotten how nasty she was. She wasn't the most stable. She'd be all lovey-dovey one moment, and then hands-off the next. She was very strange. Just prior to her death, there was a long period when they were on the outs."
— Roger Stern Spider-Man Crawlspace Episode 37: Roger Stern Interview Pt. 2', Timestamp: 52:00 — 55:00

[Frontier]

Big thing a while ago is people assume 616 Gwen is Kindred. Not sure now.

I think the leading theory is Harry right now, but you never know.

[Spider-Tiger]

Wouldn't say that. Pre-Spider-Gwen you still had Emma Stone, and before Emma Stone you had that House of M story by noted Gwenista Mark Waid, and before him you had Spider-Man Blue which probably did the most to revive Gwen as a character.

Sure people liked Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy, but Spider-Gwen proved that a Gwen Stacy could sell her own comics. Remember Spider-Gwen's introductory issue was only a one-shot. It was the massive interest and sales that the issue generated that resulted in her own series. I can guarantee there are readers that will buy this (or at least the first issue) because they are fans of Spider-Gwen and aren't going to make that distinction.

So yeah without Spider-Gwen maybe we would have gotten a one-shot or a flashback arc in a satellite Spider-Man title, but a mini series under the title Gwen Stacy? I doubt it.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, the debut of Earth-65 Gwen was Edge of Spider-Verse #2, which was labelled as Gwen Stacy: Spider-Woman. Fans immediately called her Spider-Gwen, and a few months later when they reprinted it, it was Spider-Gwen #0, Marvel having adopted the fan name as a way to distinguishing this suddenly launched title from the then also recently launched run of Spider-Woman starring Jessica Drew. She got a book and stuck around due to fan demand.

[Ozymandias]

Read any interview with Lee or Romita Sr. or scour the letters pages of the comics. You will find a lot of complaints about Gwen back then.

There was obviously no "poll" as such because this was Pre-Internet but empirically it was widely known among people back then that Gwen was not an especially intriguing or popular character. It was her death that made her famous and memorable and again that wasn't because of the fact that she died...but because it was presented as Spider-Man failing to save her, and readers didn't like Spider-Man looking like a loser and so on, or Gwen's death happening in such an unfair way.

Take a neutral observer like Roger Stern. Stern who doesn't think Peter/MJ should be a couple and so on, had this to say about Gwen:

"Gwen's Stacy death made her the holy version...this ideal woman for Peter...People who say that weren't around for the whole run. They've forgotten how nasty she was. She wasn't the most stable. She'd be all lovey-dovey one moment, and then hands-off the next. She was very strange. Just prior to her death, there was a long period when they were on the outs."
— Roger Stern Spider-Man Crawlspace Episode 37: Roger Stern Interview Pt. 2', Timestamp: 52:00 — 55:00

All I get from that is: there's no poll to support the claim.

Interviews give you opinions, letters are handpicked, none of that tells you about how popular the character was.

[Mistah K88]

Gwen’s issue as a character is that she doesn’t seem to have a consistent one. Whenever Peter, Flash, Harry, MJ etc etc dhow up jn alternate verses you can at least get a general idea of what they’d be like - Peter’s the nerd turned hero, Harry’s the rich kid with issues, Flash is a bully and MJ is the headstrong, fun character. While there are some unique variations they mostlt stick to this formula.

With Gwen you get none of this. Spectacular Gwen was Debrah Whitman, Emma Stone Gwen was blonde science MJ, Ultimate Gwen was a hardcore punk who threatened to stab a fucker and Spider-Gwen...let’s face it, she’s basically an OC. She has nothing in common with Gwen outside of being a blonde with a police chief dad who knew Peter Parker. Hell, even something as small as her economic background was changed - despite her dad having the same job Spider-Gwen is more or less stated to be middle class rather than the high society rich girl 616 Gwen was. Even character details like height, hair and body structure were altered by Latour to make her look more like a cousin than a dimensional variant of Gwen.

Was she though? Was Debra ever "smart" or "nerdy" in comics or do people assume she was because she wore glasses? I think with Spectacular they just based Gwen of of her simply showing up in Peter's classes back in the day. There were SOME instances of her saying she was studious, but I don't think that was ever touched up on. When it comes to Ms. Whitman, I remember Deb not really being a post grad student like everyone else (maybe I'm wrong). I think Debra was more prominent in the 90's animated series than she ever was in comics (which may be where her perceived intellectualism comes from, though I think she also got pimped out to Morbius and Flash in that cartoon...it's been a while).

[Ozymandias]

without Spider-Gwen maybe we would have gotten a one-shot or a flashback arc in a satellite Spider-Man title, but a mini series under the title Gwen Stacy? I doubt it.

And without Gwen, there never would've been a Spider-Gwen, so which was first the chicken or the egg?