Exactly. What matters is what the story does dramatically with it.
If you are doing a superhero story and introduce realistic physics, then it should be to make a larger point and it should be the most important thing in the story. In the story of Gwen's death, the snap clearly doesn't have that impact and central position. So it's just this half-assed thing.
Exactly. The intent with Gwen dying that way is to give Peter/the reader at the last possible moment that he could have saved her only for him to learn that it was beyond him. It's not far from the Perils of Pauline where the bad guy ties the girl on the tracks and at the last moment, she gets saved.Just a muddled sequence of events. Which is part of its brilliance, I think. In real time, for an incident like that, things would be very muddled and happen too quickly to track well.
You also see this in the Arkham Knight game where Batman runs around in a jet-propelled tank and rams into bad guys at full speed but the explanation is that a taser light non-lethally repulses them...and people say that Batman is the most believable hero.
The original has Peter saying that it looks like she's in a state of shock, and after the fall, we have Goblin saying that a fall like that would kill anyone before they reached the ground, so it seems she was just unconscious.
And the glider hitting her is also another clear hit she took, but like the web stopping her fall, the story never points out it did anything to kill her.
Thinking of it, it's surprising how the snap is only ever considered being there to indicate her neck was broken, but, maybe it was only there to indicate that she stopped falling, and that's all.
I think if Marvel were to properly throw realism in that story, they shouldn't say it was just the fall being suddenly stopped that killed her, the glider hitting her too, because keep in mind that the glider actually killed/knocked unconscious Norman himself, but the two situations are different, since against Gwen he hit her then moved to another direction, so maybe he didn't hit as hard, but maybe Marvel could say it still hit hard enough to break some of Gwen's bones, and then when she's falling, the fall being suddenly interrupted fucked her up even more, making her die from internal bleeding, 'cause at least by doing this, we don't have the story being goofy by ignoring the impact of the glider, only for "real life physics" to only happen at the moment the fall is suddenly interrupted lol.
The Night Gwen Stacy Died is a story about revenge.
-- Part 1 is about Norman's revenge on Peter for what he thinks happens to Harry.
-- Part 2 is Peter's revenge against Norman.
-- The point of the story is that revenge is corrosive...it takes Spider-Man down a dark path where he spurns friends (Harry and MJ), becomes nearly consumed by violence and ultimately finds it empty. You might think that I am agreeing with you but I am not.
-- The story is about a way out of revenge, and that is love and compassion.
-- In the story, both Norman and Peter lash out when they see people they care about (in Norman's case once cared about) get hurt.
-- In ASM#122, Peter's kind of becoming just like Norman in ASM#121, where Norman on seeing Harry ill and so on starts going nuts, dodges responsibility and attacks everyone. In Part 2, Peter after losing Gwen, lashes out at the cops and goes on a rampage.
There's one character who after being lashed at doesn't go postal, and that's Mary Jane. Peter lashes out at her at the end, out of grief, pain and blindness. MJ could have stormed out in anger as she looks she would in a moment, but instead in an act of compassion and love, she overcomes that and stays with Peter. The point of that story is that not everyone in the world is like Norman Osborn who will always look at somebody else to hurt to deal with his own pain. Peter in his rage nearly becomes like Norman but ultimately realizes it's empty and he's not so fallen that he's unworthy of love.
The Night Gwen Stacy Died is not a story about Gwen Stacy, about Peter's relationship with Gwen, nor is it a romantic tragedy. If you want a story about Peter's relationship with Gwen which is dark, bitter, and tragic, and also a romantic tragedy then The Death of George Stacy and ASM #91-92 is the one you want.
I agree with everything you've said here. Nice analysis.
And worth noting that Harry's descent into madness further explores the point Conway was making. If Peter had reached out to Harry in his moment of need instead of seeking revenge on Norman, he might never have become the second Green Goblin.
Perhaps. Of course, Harry had his own resentment to Peter that he kept hidden during the Drug Trilogy, so there were issues with him not tied to Peter walking out on him during a drug trip. Peter was enraged in that moment and he wanted to hunt down Norman so it's understandable why he acted that way. That feeds into the overall issue with Gwen's death, sometimes people can be understandably in the wrong. That it's easy to make mistakes and so on.
Still that point about Harry being abandoned by Peter is interesting to keep in mind if Kindred-maybe-Harry comes to pass.
Oh, Peter's anger was absolutely understandable. Just another example of why ASM was light years ahead of everything else on the stands in terms of complexity. And even if he hadn't been hellbent on vengeance, he would still have needed to find Norman and bring him in, because he was a danger to everyone Peter knew. Ideally, I think, Peter would have found someone to look in on Harry while he went after Norman, but even that's no guarantee that Harry would have felt any less abandoned in his state of mind. In hindsight, Peter would probably consider his reaction a personal failure, even if we as readers understand that his mistake doesn't absolve Harry of personal responsibility. Such is Peter's life that he's often left with few choices, all of them unsatisfactory, and he tends to blame himself when things go wrong.
Last edited by David Walton; 10-30-2019 at 07:30 AM.
Why is this such an argument?
Spider-Man accidentally, unwittingly, snapped Gwen Stacy's neck.
It has always since been a part of the dramatic tragedy of being Spider-Man.
Happened in Amazing Spider-Man #121, happened in Amazing Spider-Man 2.
He has, however, learned better sweetheart-falling-off-bridge-saving since, such as Mary Jane Watson in Marvel Knights Spider-Man #12, by actually strategically slinging web strands at all the limbs, back, and head, for actual saving safely.
Because it's ambiguous in the original story, contradictory, and is inconsistent with web mechanics before and after.
A crappy movie.happened in Amazing Spider-Man 2.
He has saved a falling baby by using a single strand of web fluid and numerous other instances after Gwen's death. And before.He has, however, learned better sweetheart-falling-off-bridge-saving since, such as Mary Jane Watson in Marvel Knights Spider-Man #12, by actually strategically slinging web strands at all the limbs, back, and head, for actual saving safely.
Some people just don't like that take.
Either version would arguably work.
Didn't happen in the latter; Gwen hit the floor before webbing could do anything. (Frankly, I thought it was the ultimate cop out to strip Peter of any part in it; it was a weak ending to a botched retelling of a story that could've worked had the Powers That Be been more interested in their craft then product placement and MCU envy.)
See above; some people just don't like the idea of Spidey doing it and the fact that it has become the canonical version of how it went down will never sit well with them.
Doctor Strange: "You are the right person to replace Logan."
X-23: "I know there are people who disapprove... Guys on the Internet mainly."
(All-New Wolverine #4)
You're missing the point man, retcons are what made Gwen die via broken neck because of the sudden stop, nothing in ASM#121 or #122 themselves indicate is was the sudden stop that killed her, only later stories that have Peter remembering it has her death being caused by the sudden stop.
It's not about liking whatever interpretation or not, it's just about understanding the original intent, Gwen's death originally wasn't because of the sudden stop, but later it was retconned that it was because of the sudden stop which broke her neck, and that's it, nothing complicated.
Last edited by Lukmendes; 10-30-2019 at 12:38 PM.
Also, there’s the panel where Peter bellows, “I killed her”, and the cops heard it, and think he did it.
My thought when I read it was it clear-cut showed Gwen maybe unconscious in free-fall, but Peter made sure of it and snapped her neck.
The reason Peter thought Goblin killed Gwen was because Osborn knocked her off the bridge in the first place to kill her, and Peter couldn’t alter that, where he tried, but killed her instead. I think Conway should have admitted he included the snap to deliberately show Peter ironically killed his own girlfriend. I don’t see any harm to the story to admit that. It gives more gravitas if that’s how it happened.
I was happy Peter took it as Osborn killed Gwen, and was okay with allowing the glider to kill the Goblin.
But like has been pointed out, Peter has never failed to rescue falling victims before and no one died. That was the most bizarre thing about this story. How can Spider-Man fail to do what he always does - succeed to rescue. Conway showing a super hero who doesn’t rescue when he’s right there. He wasn’t too late. He was there for the save. That shocked me more than anything.
Last edited by jackolover; 11-02-2019 at 02:15 AM.