12/65 - 06/73: Gwen Stacy Appreciation 2021

[Lukmendes]

Still having emotions >> being a fun person.MJ only got good/much better when she got them as well.The duality of Peter vs Spider-man means her being defined by that is a bit more interesting.

MJ definitely improved after Gwen's death yes, it's just that both her and MJ were similar levels of one dimensional, MJ was just not bringing drama when she showed up, so she left a better impression.

Great, this is a Gwen Stacy appriciation thread, we have one for Spider-gwen.As I've been told numerous times these threads are for fans of these characters , so let us enjoy the original character in peace.

Oh and btw I'm pretty sure more if not comparable amount of people have seen TASM which has normal Gwen and a very good one, and in terms of TV series spectacular which had normal Gwen >>>>(I can't put enough >'s here) Marvel's Spider-man which had Spider Gwen.

Well, Spider-Gwen was in that Spider-Verse movie, so she has more mainstream popularity besides just her design.

Spectacular Gwen is generally better though, but I do wonder how popular she is...

I loved it when she told aunt May what's what. Under Romita, she became a superfluous and irritating character.

That one was so bitchy that even Gwen regretted it afterwards, since Peter had disappeared and aunt May was naturally worried, so that was a really bad situation to complain about how aunt May thinks that Peter is too frail.

The one where she tells Flash to stop talking **** about Peter is better to me, since Flash was just being a douche, and really needed to be called out at some point.

[Spiderfan001]

MJ definitely improved after Gwen's death yes, it's just that both her and MJ were similar levels of one dimensional, MJ was just not bringing drama when she showed up, so she left a better impression.



Well, Spider-Gwen was in that Spider-Verse movie, so she has more mainstream popularity besides just her design.

Spectacular Gwen is generally better though, but I do wonder how popular she is...

The one where she tells Flash to stop talking **** about Peter is better to me, since Flash was just being a douche, and really needed to be called out at some point.

Agreed

She was also in TASM as well and funnily enough most people who cosplay as Spider-gwen do it w/ Peter as Spider-man w/ her.

That was a good moment

[Spider-Tiger]

It's baffling this is the first time someone made this joke when I posted this picture of Mexican Gwen lol.



When it comes to character development, MJ was just as one dimensional as Gwen, it's just that while Gwen's personality is largely defined by Peter, MJ's was largely defined by being easy going.

Arguably you can say MJ was even worse, since Gwen did show bigger emotional range at least.

Ultimately what made MJ the most interesting one is that she was less generic and less irritating to read, 'cause the relationship with Gwen got too much cheap drama and not enough happy moments with Peter, that and whenever they did get happy moments it was just the "Oh I love him/her so much" generic nonsense.

Gwen wasn't the only victim from the relationship too, Peter's character also got fucked over whenever he was talking to her or thinking about her, they didn't really interact as people and just kept thinking or saying how much they love each other too much, Peter obviously was less affected because he had other stuff to do, but he still got screwed, the relationship is this reverse symbiotic relationship where there are no real benefits to either of their characters lol.

Basically, Lee and Romita were lazy, real lazy, and honestly? If MJ was the chosen character to be with Peter when they were writing, she'd likely get fucked over too.

I think what MJ had going for her in that era was that she was fairly modern for the time. She really captured the 60's zeitgeist as woman taking jobs to support herself, working on her career as an actress, having fun, and playing the field. And unlike Gwen, she wasn't a reactionary character. She was a character that had a very defined persona (albeit two-dimensional) so she could step into a scene, shake things up, and other characters would react to her if that makes any sense.

Gwen had one persona during the Ditko era, but that was erased fairly quickly when Stan decided that she should be the Betty to Mary Jane's Veronica. And then when Stan realized just how "hip" Mary Jane turned out, he decided to overhaul Gwen yet again to look, and dress, and act more like MJ. (Romita has said that he didn't agree with this) And then when Gwen became full-time love interest and MJ exited stage left, Stan reverted the character to a dated love interest archetype. And that was the problem. Throughout her entire tenure, she was an amorphous character.

If you want to see a Lee-Romita take on the Peter-MJ relationship, read the newspaper strip from the late 70s/early 80s. He largely ignores the more nuanced Conway version of the character, and it's a fairly lighthearted relationship.

[Lukmendes]

I think what MJ had going for her in that era was that she was fairly modern for the time. She really captured the 60's zeitgeist as woman taking jobs to support herself, working on her career as an actress, having fun, and playing the field. And unlike Gwen, she wasn't a reactionary character. She was a character that had a very defined persona (albeit two-dimensional) so she could step into a scene, shake things up, and other characters would react to her if that makes any sense.

And her being that fun was an accident, since, y'know, story makes it quite clear that Peter gets annoyed at how irresponsible and uncaring she is lol.

Gwen had one persona during the Ditko era, but that was erased fairly quickly when Stan decided that she should be the Betty to Mary Jane's Veronica. And then when Stan realized just how "hip" Mary Jane turned out, he decided to overhaul Gwen yet again to look, and dress, and act more like MJ. (Romita has said that he didn't agree with this) And then when Gwen became full-time love interest and MJ exited stage left, Stan reverted the character to a dated love interest archetype. And that was the problem. Throughout her entire tenure, she was an amorphous character.

Yeah, like I said, Lee/Romita were real lazy with Gwen, her personality being changed that much to the point she's just "female love interest" just ruined her.

It wasn't just her too, Peter was just "male love interest" when talking with Gwen, or thinking about her, the romance between both was just lazy, Peter just doesn't look as bad because, y'know, main character and has more **** to do, Gwen in general showed up to talk about Peter, talk with Peter, or think about Peter lol.

She went from "More or less Liz, but in college" to "MJ-lite" to "generic love interest", like you said, an amorphous character lol.

Sad thing is that, she could be developed in a way to explain those sudden changes, an idea I have is that, since she seemed so fascinated with Peter, she decided to change the way she acts to get his attention, and of course, if this were to be developed more, it should be treated as a really bad thing, 'cause changing who you are just to get someone else's attention ain't healthy.

And that's just a half assed idea I have, there are better ways to do this, but unfortunately nothing of the like will happen, and Gwen will remain as, these 3 different characters happen to share the same name lol.

If you want to see a Lee-Romita take on the Peter-MJ relationship, read the newspaper strip from the late 70s/early 80s. He largely ignores the more nuanced Conway version of the character, and it's a fairly lighthearted relationship.

Not really surprised to be fair, the little I read of the newspaper strip was lighthearted in general, like silver age stuff.

[Frontier]

And her being that fun was an accident, since, y'know, story makes it quite clear that Peter gets annoyed at how irresponsible and uncaring she is lol.

Audiences tastes skewed differently ?

[Lukmendes]

Audiences tastes skewed differently ?

Oh definitely, a bunch of old men trying to write an annoyingly irresponsible woman instead made a fun character who does her own thing and tends to steal the scene when she shows up, that kind of irony is just great .

Hell, ASM#43 even accidentally made her into an audience surrogate, since her first reaction to learning that Rhino is attacking the city is to want to see it, something the fans would definitely want to see.

[PanicPixieDreamGirl]

I just got done reading The Clone Conspiracy and I really liked the portrayal of Gwen in that. It added to her character, I think, I was fascinated by how she reacted to knowing there was a superhero version of herself out there.

So I suppose the philosophical question here is, can we call the clone Gwen (who can remember the point of her own death even) the "real" Gwen?

[Ozymandias]

Of course it is, even if there were small changes you could still consider it that way. You need some fundamental change to alter identity.

In philosophy, there's even an scenario to test those changes. What happens if some discovery reveals Plato didn't make this or that speech? Would be still consider him to be the same Plato we've been told? Depends on the speech in question.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, when was the last time she had a solo?
And her character is pretty pointless, I liked her way back but not anymore.She overstayed her welcome and much like Miles(even morese) 616 is a bad place for her.

During King in Black, seven months ago.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/King_...arnage_Vol_1_3

[Spiderfan001]

During King in Black, seven months ago.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/King_...arnage_Vol_1_3

Yeah that tie in thingy was fine IG

[PanicPixieDreamGirl]

Of course it is, even if there were small changes you could still consider it that way. You need some fundamental change to alter identity.

In philosophy, there's even an scenario to test those changes. What happens if some discovery reveals Plato didn't make this or that speech? Would be still consider him to be the same Plato we've been told? Depends on the speech in question.

Shout out to Real Gwen for going out like a boss, then. Loved that bit.

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[Spiderfan001]

Shout out to Real Gwen for going out like a boss, then. Loved that bit.

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Atleast Dan did 1 thing right, the irony is heavy w/ this one real though.