Sins Past. is that storyline really that creepy or overexaggerated? Spoilers

[Mister Mets]

one of the true low points in the whole history of Spiderman. Nothing worthwhile or redeeming in the whole arc. should have come polybagged with a vomit bag

It should've been a hoax by Mysterio, with a final issue featuring a pissed off Spider-Man chasing Quentin Beck.

[Tuck]

Anyway, I enjoyed the story for what it was. Didn't find it sullied Gwen's reputation so much as made her slightly more interesting.

By shoehorning it into existing continuity it created a situation where Gwen was pressuring Peter into marrying her, while expecting him to raise kids he wasn't aware of who were Peter's best friend's half-siblings.

Dude, it was Jerry Springer levels of f***ed up.

[Scott Taylor]

By shoehorning it into existing continuity it created a situation where Gwen was pressuring Peter into marrying her, while expecting him to raise kids he wasn't aware of who were Peter's best friend's half-siblings.

Oh that old chestnut!

Dude, it was Jerry Springer levels of f***ed up.

Its a story that couldn't have been done in the 1960s, thats for sure.

[Mike]

Worst comic book story ever.
These issues ended up in my shredder.

[The Kid]

one of the true low points in the whole history of Spiderman. Nothing worthwhile or redeeming in the whole arc. should have come polybagged with a vomit bag

Pretty much. I assume that God Doom and Franklin and Reed have wiped it from continuity in Secret War. If it never gets brought up again, I'm just going to assume that's true. Especially since Clone Conspiracy completely ignored it and Peter had no idea what Deadpool was talking about when he brought Sins Past up. The most unnecessary story ever.

[Tuck]

The most unnecessary story ever.

Aren't they all?


Wait . . .

[marhawkman]

My biggest issue is the children who look like adults. That is creepy and messed up, especially given the real-life medical condition they're said to have (progeria.)

Well, accelerated aging, which means that yeah, they look like adults, but are a lot younger than they look.

Yes, I know how progeria actually works. It cause people to become feeble before they become old, and in some cases before they become teens. At any rate, since it's due to being born with Goblin serum flowing through their veins, it's probably not the same as the real thing. Also it's not clear if Normie was lying about whether it'd kill them.

I have to say that it was a REALLY tragic story, especially how Spidey had to fight someone who wanted to kill him, had the strength and weapons to do it, but was obviously the daughter of his dead girlfriend. Well, Normie apparently did something to make her look more like Gwen than she would have naturally. Still though, sucked to be Spidey, that was one cloud that had a lining made of volcanic ash...

So part of why the arc was unlikable is that it had no real good parts.

[Lee]

By shoehorning it into existing continuity it created a situation where Gwen was pressuring Peter into marrying her, while expecting him to raise kids he wasn't aware of who were Peter's best friend's half-siblings.

It's especially egregious when you read Gwen's thought balloons. If she had cheated on Peter with their friend's creepy dad, hidden a pregnancy, gave birth to secret super-aging children and abandoned them in Europe... then her concerns and priorities in the Stan Lee and Gerry Conway issues were messed up.

[Tycon]

Clone Conspiracy's back-up story retconned Sins Past by altering Norman's intentions of killing Gwen back to the original "i hate u peter pickle pepper so i'll take ur gf and drop her". If we have to thank Dan Slott for anything, it has to be that.

[Turlast]

I'm one of the rare people that actually enjoyed the story.

I never had the attachment to Gwen like many others, so her giving in to Normie's charisma is alright with me. I can admit that the story is really creepy, though.

[Vixx]

(Takes a deep breath)

There are two sides for me -

The first : as a technical story, the effort and research that went into threading this through the old books was excellent. Seriously don't blame the writers; I'd buy them drinks and applaud what they attempted.

It's worth reading for this alone ...

Except...

The second : while the book needed something like this to help define a single narrative that's grown fractured over time; it is part of the one two punch that rips out a lot of the foundation of the book for what seems like editorial reasons - combined with OMD, it frees spidey to be single; but only by fucking over the memory and reputation of a long dead, long tortured character.

They've never been able to just let Gwen - in any form - be. We can't have our memory of her, they either dig her up (literally).. Twist the knife with inferior clones, hunt down a copy with a sniper ... Or in this form; paint both the women Spidey loves as untrustworthy; MJ by keeping a secret well past what's understandable and Gwen for well, being every guys caricature of a crazy X girlfriend. It's the worst of guys writing women characters poorly ...

On top of that; it was just mean spirited ...having Gwen stray could have been a real moment for Peter - if it had been anyone but Norman. Imagine if it was say ... Flash... Or some random blonde douche from every 80s teen movie instead? People deal with this stuff... Especially when one is a ghost. Not only is it not believable without a lot of contortionist moves; it blows up a lot of what we know based on 50 years of history and forces us to eat this bullshit first with 2 worthless arcs; then by refusing to roll it back - despite every chance.

OMD was literally the "**** it - canon is hard" reset that nuked every damn thing under the sun - and this cockroach crawled out of the rubble intact....along with Aunt May - Marvels answer to Keith Richards. (As an aside - ASM 400 was brilliant)

It's the story where the trust a book gains by last 50 years is absolutely squandered by stewards so arrogant they refuse to budge - on essentially an important, but minor, charector that's been dead longer than alive.

Even a couple of official paragraphs from editorial stating - yup, fucked that one up... Didn't understand our own book, sorry - remember the 11th crossover we did last year where Spidey variant #16 (the one that can morph into whatever our focus groups say is under represented - as long as it isn't a white male in his late 20s in a serious relationship) saved The universe .. Again...? That deleted it... Sorry to our fans, writers, and moms ...

It would have done a lot smooth out some bumps as they terraform the book to some vision they want - but sadly - their own history prevents.

Basically - it proved they will burn it to the ground if necessary to get their Spidey; and the books been the poorer for it for a long, long time.

Ignoring it is fine - except like an relationship; the trust is still fractured. Anyone whose had a major blow up that goes a bit too far has experienced this - for example, you can't walk back a drunken game of MFK where you put your girlfriends hot sister in a slot other than K by Ignoring it. She remembers. Every syllable of what you said, what you were wearing, what you were drinking ...

We are supposed to pay - not care... Not question...not remember past (revenue) events.

In closing - **** this shitty story; and find the real joy of this charector elsewhere - like its rich history, some movies, under Roos, or the occasional tales that have a flash of brilliance but Pitter out too quickly.

[RD!]

Ive heard of the two siblings that are the children of Gwen Stacy and Norman Osborn but are people really overreacting too much over that story arc in original Amazing Spider Man?

The story arc cant be that "bad" or creepy.

Ive heard about other storylines that are far more messed up and creep from DC and other Marvel Comics stuff

It is not really 'creepy', there have been far creepier and inappropriate Marvel and DC stories written, even in recent years (the Chameleon arc of BND, for example).

There is one panel of Tommy Lee Jones's (Norman Osborn) face during orgasm that is off-putting, and the fact that these 10ish year old children are grown adults is bizarre, but explained they grew up quickly because of the Goblin serum.

JMS originally wanted the children to be Peter's, but I think that would have been just as bad as what we got.

I don't like the story very much, but not because of what it did to Gwen's memory or any crap like that. It actually gave her some character apart from crying all the time or being retconned into a saint. More in line with her very first appearances when Ditko was drawing the book.

I think that the children should have been Harry's and that they should have still been children. Maybe Peter could've found out Gwen cheated on him with Harry, had a baby, and now that baby was being raised by Norman etc. Sort of like a Damian Wayne type character before Damian Wayne was around.

However, the timeline doesn't work and Gwen could not have conceivably had a baby back in the day. The worst part of the story is how it just doesn't fit into continuity, and it's not good enough to re-write continuity for. I think Marvel is best to leave it alone.

I remember liking Sins Remembered for what it's worth. And Gabriel Stacy showed up in American Son if memory serves.