Has the Spider-Man editorial hate ever been this large and transparent?

[Spidey_Legend]

i rmember liking the Brunette more. Honestly I read all of the Ben Reilly spider-man issues and I don't remember Janine at all. I guess maybe I didn't read Lost years? That might be it.

Jessica Carradine, right? The Burglar's daughter?

Not very fond of her and yes, Janine/Elizabeth (her real name) was mainly in the Lost Years comics.

[Xenon]

"With great power comes great responsibility."

being a responsible adult... that's a great way to describe fatherhood too.

I have no problem with him having kids (and when he does, I hope they give him more than one, one is such a cop out), but I'm also in no hurry. Just give him a few years alone with his wife first in my mind.

Jessica Carradine, right? The Burglar's daughter?

Not very fond of her and yes, Janine/Elizabeth (her real name) was mainly in the Lost Years comics.

Ah right I rmember that hook. i meant to read Lost Years but it looks like I missed it somehow. Might not have been able to find it back in the day. I wish I could defend ol' Jessica, but I can't remember anything from that run except I liked it in general and thought the Mysterio story was especially good.

[Kevinroc]

Jessica Carradine, right? The Burglar's daughter?

Not very fond of her and yes, Janine/Elizabeth (her real name) was mainly in the Lost Years comics.

Yeah, Janine/Elizabeth was also the mother of Reilly Tyne/Darkdevil over in Spider-Girl.

[KurtW95]

By his own admission, Stan had a terrible memory, so I don't know about taking his word on everything as the unvarnished truth.

The point you're trying to make is that Conway killed Gwen because he thought Peter should be with MJ. But Conway was not the only one involved in the decision to kill Gwen. Even if Conway didn't get Stan's approval (a pretty dubious claim in and of itself), he still would have needed John Romita, Sr. and Roy Thomas (who was the editor at the time) to agree. And Romita has said Gwen was his favorite. And Romita either agreed with the idea of killing Gwen, or came up with the idea himself.

https://www.cbr.com/john-romita-sr-r...-and-stan-lee/

(Here's an interview where he claims that killing Gwen was his idea, and that Gwen was his favorite.)

-I take great pride in that. When people say, "Did you really want to kill Gwen Stacy?" I say, "She was one of my favorite characters." She was a Ditko character, remember. I created Mary Jane but Gwen Stacy was my favorite character and I did that knowing that that's how I could get people's attention.-

Romita said they didn't get Stan's permission, so if you want to believe his whole story, you should believe that too. But you've also got Conway bashing Gwen as terrible and boring every time he brings it up and saying that it was his idea and Stan approved it. My thought is that some people misremembered. And while Stan Lee had his own issues, many of them were later in life. As memory loss often works like that. People can remember stuff from fifty years ago easily but stuff they take in from the past ten years is easily forgotten. But anyway, I think it's most likely that the most commonalities suggest what happened. ie. Romita wanted to kill a character, it was Conway's idea to kill Gwen, and Stan didn't know about it.

[Kevinroc]

Romita said they didn't get Stan's permission, so if you want to believe his whole story, you should believe that too. But you've also got Conway bashing Gwen as terrible and boring every time he brings it up and saying that it was his idea and Stan approved it. My thought is that some people misremembered. And while Stan Lee had his own issues, many of them were later in life. As memory loss often works like that. People can remember stuff from fifty years ago easily but stuff they take in from the past ten years is easily forgotten. But anyway, I think it's most likely that the most commonalities suggest what happened. ie. Romita wanted to kill a character, it was Conway's idea to kill Gwen, and Stan didn't know about it.

Conway also got a lot of crap from people for decades so he might be a little bitter about all of this. Particularly after Stan metaphorically threw him under the bus.

I think, taking the Rashomon effect into account, that we will never fully know what happened, but I think you might be bringing your own assumptions into your thoughts on what happened. The truth is Romita said Gwen was his favorite, and he still agreed with killing her. And they still needed approval from the editor (Roy Thomas).

[Spidey_Legend]

I have no problem with him having kids (and when he does, I hope they give him more than one, one is such a cop out), but I'm also in no hurry. Just give him a few years alone with his wife first in my mind.





Ah right I rmember that hook. i meant to read Lost Years but it looks like I missed it somehow. Might not have been able to find it back in the day. I wish I could defend ol' Jessica, but I can't remember anything from that run except I liked it in general and thought the Mysterio story was especially good.

I like the mystery around Jessica and the thing that she is The Burglar daughter. Her being infatued with Ben, not so much.

Lost years was difficult to get in those times. I had the same problem. I read it way later than the main title for example.

[Spidey_Legend]

Yeah, Janine/Elizabeth was also the mother of Reilly Tyne/Darkdevil over in Spider-Girl.

Yes. I remember that from MC2 too. Barely but I do.

One funny thing is that I always had problems calling her Janine. My mind stills indentify her as Elizabeth.

[ARkadelphia]

I have no problem with him having kids (and when he does, I hope they give him more than one, one is such a cop out), but I'm also in no hurry. Just give him a few years alone with his wife first in my mind.


Ah right I rmember that hook. i meant to read Lost Years but it looks like I missed it somehow. Might not have been able to find it back in the day. I wish I could defend ol' Jessica, but I can't remember anything from that run except I liked it in general and thought the Mysterio story was especially good.

Yes! Octuplets please. Because, you know.

[Garlador]

https://www.looper.com/1295560/spide...d-follow-suit/

LOOPER going in HARD, and basically expressing concisely how I feel. I honestly think the high of Spider-Verse right now is showing just how deep the gulf is between Marvel editorial’s mishandling and fans’ desires.

The more publications call them out, the more likely they’ll switch gears.

[marhawkman]

I have no problem with him having kids (and when he does, I hope they give him more than one, one is such a cop out), but I'm also in no hurry. Just give him a few years alone with his wife first in my mind.

they did, that was the 90s.

[clonegeek]

they did, that was the 90s.

Good stuff too, I'm more worried about the time they lost together after OMD. That needs to be changed

[exile001]

By his own admission, Stan had a terrible memory, so I don't know about taking his word on everything as the unvarnished truth.

And while Stan Lee had his own issues, many of them were later in life. As memory loss often works like that. People can remember stuff from fifty years ago easily but stuff they take in from the past ten years is easily forgotten.

Stan was always notoriously full of s**t. He was half-creative genius and half-snake oil salesman. You should never take anything he said as 100% truth.

Honestly, it was always a large part of what made him such a loveable character! But also why he fell out of so many co-creatives (or, in Ditko's case, demanded full creative credit of Spidey until the 00's!).

[Spider-Tiger]

Romita said they didn't get Stan's permission, so if you want to believe his whole story, you should believe that too. But you've also got Conway bashing Gwen as terrible and boring every time he brings it up and saying that it was his idea and Stan approved it. My thought is that some people misremembered. And while Stan Lee had his own issues, many of them were later in life. As memory loss often works like that. People can remember stuff from fifty years ago easily but stuff they take in from the past ten years is easily forgotten. But anyway, I think it's most likely that the most commonalities suggest what happened. ie. Romita wanted to kill a character, it was Conway's idea to kill Gwen, and Stan didn't know about it.

Here's another interview. https://www.twomorrows.com/alterego/.../09romita.html

Somebody - maybe it was Gerry Conway, who was writing the book then - suggested we should kill off Aunt May. Gil Kane was penciling Spider-Man then, but I was still supposed to keep an eye on it, and Gerry and I would talk over plots. I didn't feel Aunt May's death would make much of an impact. To do that, we had to kill off one of the main girls, and Gwen was the one Peter was in love with. Mary Jane wouldn't have meant as much; she was going with somebody else

Romita believes it was Conway's idea to kill Aunt May but isn't sure. Both take credit for the choice of Gwen Stacy. So perhaps it was neither of them that suggested May and both agreed that Gwen should ultimately be the one. Or maybe they're both right and flip flopped on the idea at different times. ie: Conway thought to kill May, Romita half-heartedly suggested Gwen instead, Conway loved the idea and pushed for it, etc. Regardless, they were both in favor of the decision.

Also, this is what Roy Thomas says in that same interview and Romita doesn't disagree:

As editor-in-chief at the time, I know that Stan, at least verbally, "signed off" on the idea of Gwen's death at some early stage. Like I once said about you, Gerry, and me: None of our mothers raised any sons stupid enough to kill off Gwen Stacy while Stan Lee was out of town and present him with a fait accompli! [laughs]

So that's at least 2 people (including editor) corroborating that Stan did know.

In the interview you cited previously, Romita says Stan accused them of doing it "behind his back" and wanted her brought back (which I believe Conway has said was the reason for the Clone Saga.) Maybe Stan forgot he approved. Or maybe Stan just pivoted when readers got upset about it. Regardless, Stan never pressed them to use Gwen after that and did not use Gwen himself when he wrote his newspaper strip only a couple years later.

[KurtW95]

I find it hard to imagine Stan Lee knowingly approved when all of these guys and the man himself said that he based her on his wife more than any other character.

[Bruce Wayne]

Well clearly Stan Lee can separate fiction and real life.