Originally Posted by
Lunala
*bumps fist*
You... might be right in proposing that somebody in charge might be deifying that facet of her. Ghost-Spider isn't particularly interested in romance, and neither is Gwenpool, leading to some speculating she could be asexual. It didn't seem odd to me at the time but... huh. They're contrasting MJ and Gwen, and I didn't even notice. Those sneaky sharpies...
Your post reminds me of a thought I had about how if someone told me Miles Warren had somehow managed to make his way into the real world and bribed himself into Marvel's executive headquarters, I wouldn't have been surprised. Marvel is a bit obsessed with her recently? Ghosty is fantastic, and I appreciate her, and Gwenpool has her supporters. But with the new Gwenverse concept, it seems someone ostensibly enjoys creating new "clones" of her. Then there's the sexual element. Even in kid's cartoons like the 2017 Spider-Man series, I remember glancing at her strapped to a table by a leering Jackal, reimagined to be her uncle, and grumbling how gratuitous I found those teenage girl chest shots.
The thought of Gwen with Norman makes me recoil so fast it would leave skidmarks on the pavement, and the writing should never have put her with the villain who murdered her. That said, if witnessing all those thirst posts featuring 60-year-old Willem Dafoe(who seems like a genuinely good person) have taught me anything, there's nothing odd about a 20 year old developing a crush on a wealthy scientist and company owner. Certainly not in a universe where ancient beings regularly hook up with young mortals, and 10-year-old Sue Storm was crushing on 20-year-old Reed Richards(mercifully unrequited until she was older). Osborn should've dodged the connection due to the age gap and association with Harry, but he's the one I'm judging, not her. I'll repeat some posts here saying that Quesada shouldn't have presumed Norman Osborn was a suitable replacement for Peter, but, JMS was disproportionately nasty towards her when he wrote Sins Past. Gwen Stacy slept with someone once and regretted it, but oh no, it turns out she's pregnant with twins. Their sperm donor is cruel towards his son, her friend, and the half-brother of her children, so she tells the toxic pos, that he's not welcome in their lives and plans on introducing the twins to a much better daddy to her ankle biters. A mother standing up for herself and her right to put the welfare of her babies first is retconned into what caused the monster to snap that final time and kill her. Peter is then framed as heroic for forgiving her for sleeping with his enemy. Ignoring the fact though Peter never told her the Green Goblin's civilian identity. Peter would've had no right to dictate her love life when the incident happened, and she was literally thrown off a bridge for it. This harshly penalized a woman for the crime of maybe having sexual needs, directly pointing out she and Peter were never intimate, and well... I don't always notice sexism, but, that story was congealed with enough that it would've splintered Wolverine's adamantium claws if he tried shredding it. So I get why Spencer would want it gone, and I did too.
It's just... on top of everything else that development generated; you're right in saying this was unfair to Harry. A mentally ill man who died being redeemed did not deserve to be sent to hell due to a binding agreement that (I hope gets retconned fast) requires the readers to accept the fallacy that a maltreated child's personhood is the property of his abusive parent or the entire plot falls apart. Sins past had Osborn push that assertion, and this story (unintentionally) provided narrative support. It's natural for Mephisto, something of an abusive parent himself, to believe the same, but I doubt the Spiderverse was improved by bringing in that message. I preferred the Osborn curse remained a metaphor for the cycle of generational abuse, thanks.
That cheerily respectful letter Osborn sent Peter in that story was amazingly creepy.