Originally Posted by
Revolutionary_Jack
If I am being honest, ASM#121-122 wouldn't be among my top list of all-time great Spider-Man stories leave alone all-time great superhero comics stories, leaving further alone comics' period. I don't even think it's Conway's best either. The First Clone Saga is a better story from a sequential art perspective. And I also like the Tombstone Saga and the Saga of the Spider-Mobile among his stuff, as well as Parallel Lives. When I think of great and affecting stories, I think of The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man or The Gift or JMS' stuff like The Conversation. On an issue-by-issue level, Kraven's Last Hunt is miles better and of course the Master Planner Saga.
I mean compare Green Goblin in these two issues and Kraven in KLH. Goblin is a bigger villain than Kraven of course but KLH built up Kraven as this scary, threatening, impressive and tragic figure. Whereas Goblin in this comic is basically Snidely Whiplash. Even Harry Osborn was a more impressive villain in JMD's Child Within/Best of Enemies. Goblin was a really impressive villain in the Ditko years and Norman was a tragic villain in The Drug Trilogy but here he's basically a clown...Norman's trigger for becoming Goblin (his stock prices fell) and then attacking Spider-Man through Gwen is just random. The way it should have been done is Norman needs to be driven to real desperation, I am talking Norman finds out his Goblin identity is exposed, his son sees him as a lunatic, his reputation is in tatters and then Norman decides to attack Spider-Man and when that gets out of hand he decides to really really hurt him. For all its flaws The Amazing Spider-Man 2 understood that. Harry Osborn attacking Gwen in that movie is framed as a final spiteful act of desperation after a series of exchanges with Peter dealing with crap like tainted blood. I mean the movie made a mess of executing it but on a plot level that's much more solid than what Conway did. In comics, Paul Jenkins in A Death in the Family basically made Green Goblin a truly impressive, dark, scary and tragic villain there and provided a more interesting look on how Gwen's death defined him as a character than this story did. Likewise, Mark Millar's Marvel Knights Spider-Man finally gives Norman a core and motivation for being Goblin, i.e. it's an outlet for him to escape a mid-life crisis.
If we look at a bigger comics' perspective and think of stuff like The Eternity Saga from Ditko's Strange Run, or Kirby's Galactus Trilogy, Steve Gerber's Batman Strange Apparitions, Moore's Swamp Thing, Simonson's Thor, or Frank Miller's Elektra Saga and other stuff Claremont/Byrne got up to, then I don't know if it measures against that on both an art level and story level or character level. Again the really great issue is ASM#122. The title The Night Gwen Stacy Died refers to the Epilogue which actually takes place in the evening or late in the day when Peter comes and meets MJ, and she stays there holding vigil through the night. It's really about the aftermath of Gwen's death.