In the J. Michael Straczynski's "Sins Past" storyline in The Amazing Spider-Man #509-514 (August 2004 - January 2005), it is revealed that Gwen Stacy secretly had children with Norman Osborn.
Now, because she cheated on Peter with Norman, does that make her...a whore?
Newsarama readers speak out:
"Perhaps "whore" is a bit vulgar and overstated, but it's meant to be. Gwen's portrayal in "Sins Past" was totally out of character. In the original comics, she was shown as a decent person having a loving relationship with Peter. However, she lost her virginity to a sweaty psycho why exactly? She felt sorry for him? Send a fruit basket next time. Sleeping with your boyfriend's best friend's father is not the act of a decent person."
"I can't believe people are still calling her a whore for having sex with Norman Osborn ONCE. Some people have some serious issues with women. "
"She did a pity f*ck with one guy other than Peter. Perhaps, she's no longer Polly Pureheart and the more correct term (which I'd hardly think qualifies) would be a slut but it's a bit ridiculous."
"Was Gwen selling her a$$ on the street. Man, she had some sins in her past. But, my guess is Spidey still loved her, he's that good of a guy."
"I thought the reaction to Gwen's behavior was one of the best things to come out of "Sins Past." You could've gotten like six or eight psychology PhDs out of analyzing the ripples that went through fandom. Seeing how som fans felt about Gwen afterwards, I thought it was all hyperbole and exaggeration, until I watched "Fat Camp" on MTV last night - this girl, who had liked a guy there the summer before, simply didn't like him the following summer and was dating another guy. His immediate go-to name for such behavior? "Whore." So I guess it's a societal thing to call women degrading names for the slightest perceived infraction...but blended with some mythological overtones in this instance." (from Matt Brady)
"I'm betting that if your girlfriend or wife ever sleeps with your best friend's father you would consider it more than 'perceived infraction.' I would that while the wound was still fresh you would even blurt out a degrading name or two."
"Sometimes, comics fans scare the ____ out of me."
She certainly made a poor decision. But some part of her must have wanted to sleep with Norman in the first place. You don't just fall on a wang by accident.
ReplyDeleteShe's not a whore. That's for sure. She cheated. If she were still alive, I'm sure it would be hard to Pete to see her in the same light. But since she had long since past, how could he not forgive her.
A lapse in judgment does not a whore make.
I'm not going to debate the "morality" of a fictional charater in a comic book. Especially since it's another obvious attempt, amongst many, to inject realism into fantasy.
ReplyDeleteAll it brings up to me is that women should not be hoisted on to the pedistal that we men put them on. They're people they make mistakes as do we all. Would a man have forgiven that? I wouldn't, but I know plenty of men that do.
If there's any story non-canonical enough to prove this is the Fan Fiction Age of Superhero Comics, this piece of shit is it.
ReplyDeletethe beat just let me know that girls are reading comics! shocking.
ReplyDeleteSee, I more have to look at the issue in a critical way, which I tend to hate with my comics. I mean, the story starts to fall apart when implausible or just plain goofy twists are interjected. I think I had heard that it was meant to be Peter's kids, but the decision came from on high that Spidey wouldn't have done it before his wedding night?
ReplyDeleteThoughts:
ReplyDelete1) Sometimes, comics fans scare the ____ out of me, too. :)
2) Don't know if her behavior was "immoral", but it was certainly wildly out of character. Because frankly, after reading the Essential Spider-Man volumes, Gwen Stacy only had one character trait, and it was "Peter Parker is dreeeamy." She was a vapid, sexist Stepford Girlfriend, who existed solely to be Peter Parker's Love Interest and nothing more. (See also 'Ross, Betty'.) That's why Peter eventually wound up with Mary Jane; because MJ had a personality, ambition, and the capacity for personal growth. (Sure, she was flighty and ditzy in her early appearances, but she was also shown to be working for herself, finding small parts in the New York theater scene, and moving up in her career. Whereas Gwen mentioned once that she was a science major, somewhere in between bouts of mooning over Peter.)
The whole idea of Gwen Stacy as Peter Parker's One True Love comes more from Jeph Loeb's mini-series than it does from any of the comics published at the time; read between the lines, read interviews and it becomes pretty clear that Loeb thought they made a mistake by making a change to the series, that it should have just kept going the way it was forever and things aren't as good now as they were then. (But that's Jeph Loeb in a nutshell. :) )
In short, all of the retcons to Gwen Stacy are attempts to layer depth onto a basically cardboard character, and it's not surprising they don't fit with the original "vision" of her.
You mean that hasn't been retconned yet?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, if Gwen Stacey is a whore, what does that make Mary Jane?
I was thinking about Sins Past just the other day. I think my big problem with the story wasn't Gwen sleeping with Norman Osborn -- some hardcore fans have this idea that Gwen was almost inhumanly perfect and this doesn't fit with her character, but I thought they explained her lapse for the purposes of the story and tied it into Osborn targeting her later well enough. I also liked the little bit where Peter realizes the kids were part of the reason Norman stayed in Europe for a time, which was a nice addition.
ReplyDeleteMy big problem is the fact that Gwen and Norman have fully grown children running around and that it's the result of the Goblin serum. On top of which, the characters have shown up once since the first story which kind of makes Sins Past a pointless exercise in massive retcons. If the kids looked seven or eight or however old they actually are, it would be a little more interesting, but as it is for me, with time and perspective playing a part here, I think the story was fine. I just have a problem with the fact it all seemed to be about adding some new fully grown Osborn kids into the mix, and adding Gwen for some Parker grief and tragedy.
I remember hearing that Straczynski was planning on revealing Peter was the father at first, before Marvel asked him to change it. At least there's that to be thankful for, I suppose.
I'm cool with Gwen and Pete doin' the deed before they were married, and I'm cool with Gwen not being a virgin when she started dating Peter.
ReplyDeleteI might've even been alright, or at least been able to deal with, Gwen cheating on Peter with someone her age. Harry, Flash, maybe. It's the idea that she slept with Norman, and then later had his children without telling Peter any of it ever, that ruins the story for me. For one thing, it's ridiculously creepy, and secondly, it continues the "Lex Luthorization" of Norman Osborn, with every appearance since his resurrection revealing Osborn to be behind some great plot to ruin Peter's life.
Not to mention that it ruins the emotional impact that the original story held! In the original two-parter, Gwen is a tragic victim. She dies simply because of the fact that she happens to be in love with Peter Parker who happens to be Spider-Man. With "Sins Past," she's killed because the father of her children is pissed at her.
So I guess for me, it's not so much the actual, physical act of Gwen's sin that makes the story offensive. It's the other details that make the story repulsive.
-M
Oh! And not to mention that no sufficient reasoning behind Gwen's betrayal is given aside from "Animal magnetism," portraying Gwen as a swoony schoolgirl who'll crawl into bed with anyone who has enough chemistry.
ReplyDelete-M
"Anyway, if Gwen Stacey is a whore, what does that make Mary Jane?"
ReplyDeleteIf the rumors are true, it makes her available. Giggity-giggity!
I never read the story, but back when it came out and I was fairly new to posting, I got into it with another Newsarama poster and found myself defending fictional character Gwen's reputation ON THANKSGIVING DAY no less. After trying sarcasm, hyperbole and finally insults, I came to my senses (flaming = crack) and let the guy call the character a slut. I now share my secret shame with you all.
ReplyDeleteThose who remain interested-horrified in the social anthropology of Spider Man fans can go here:
http://forum.newsarama.com/archive/index.php/t-22026.html
IMO, Sins Past is an obvious attempt by the current editors at Marvel to tarnish and insult many of the best Marvel stories of the yesteryear. And there is nothing in Mary Jane's own history as a character to even remotely suggest that she ever knew anything about such an affair either.
ReplyDeleteAs for Strazcynski's attempt to claim that Peter and Gwen never had sex, I find that implausible too, because, while it wasn't overtly implied like it was later on when Peter dated Mary Jane, it's not like they didn't imply it at all. There were suggestions of it here and there, including IMO, when Gwen came back from London in 1971, following the story where Harry Osborn became addicted to PCP.
Some people seem to wonder why various storylines "don't stick" today. The whole Sins Past fiasco is just one of many examples of why they shouldn't: because they're forced, artificial, and clearly rock bottom.
Why can't comic readers accept that the changing of a character's actions, motivations, etc. - a character created decades ago, I might add - is just a device for today's writers to achieve their goals, which is ultimately to entertain us. Relax and let the story unfold. If you don't like it, I promise sometime in the near or far future another writer will change your favorite character into some other person entirely. Or, better yet, go back and read your classic issues and enjoy Gwen in all her 60s splendor.
ReplyDeleteAll of the above is why I love the comic medium so much. It goes on and on, for better or worse.
Because it's not to entertain us, it's to take our money. The selling point of 'Sins Past' wasn't the story, it was the retcon--we, as fans, were supposed to get excited about this new information that changed the continuity and the status quo of the fictional universe.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with that is, as you say, every writer thinks they can do that nowadays. There's a fundamental dishonesty to selling this week's issue as "a big, permanent change" and having it turn out that the big permanent change is the undoing of last week's big, permanent change. That fundamental dishonesty is what most "continuity conscious" fans are reacting against, even if they can't necessarily articulate it. After all, you don't hear this kind of backlash against Jeff Smith's Shazam series, do you? (OK, technically I'm sure you could somewhere, if you looked hard enough. But it's a very small voice in the back.)
Frankly, setting aside continuity and focusing on the story is likely to make me buy fewer comics nowadays, not more. (There's a lot of junk out there you have to read to "keep up" with events, always has been.)
Clearly this means JMS has no business writing Spider-Man.
ReplyDeleteIt says worlds more about Strazcynski's morality as a writer than it says about the morality of a comic book character.
Well, I don't know if it's entirely JMS' fault. If the story is to be believed, Strazynski wanted them to be Peter's kids, but Quesada nixed the idea.
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, poo-poo on JMS for writing a story simply based around the concept that "EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT THE PAST IS WROOONG!!!" but even MORE poo-poo to Quesada for thinking that this adds some kind of depth to the character of Gwen Stacy.
-M
I've got to go with the story I heard as well, simply because it rings true to everything I know about JMS from his writing and his interview.
ReplyDeleteImagine it: a story where Peter found out that the whole reason Gwen made a sudden trip to Europe was because she was pregnant and afraid of what Peter's reaction would be and that she went off to Europe to either have the kids without scandal or have an abortion (something not horribly uncommmon for upper-class girls with a bun in the oven at that time to do) and that she died before she could tell him the truth...
Now THAT would, for once, be a story with some social relevance and something that would truly change the characters forever. It would expand Gwen from being something more than Betty to MJ's Veronica and give Peter another tragedy to grieve, knowing he has a kid out there somewhere that he'll never be able to find.
Now I can easily see JMS writing a story like that. His original stories are full of that kind of tragedy and angst. And the concept was very well researched and fit seamlessly into past continuity - as Gwen did mysteriously take a trip to Europe for no apparent reason and there was a story where she wanted to talk to Peter alone about something important, but she never got the chance before she died... That's the kind of thing JMS does very well - write a story that builds off what came before in a saga.
That being said - personally, I'd hate a story like that. Peter has enough grief in his life and while I appreciate the attempt to add some character to Gwen, I'm not sure that whatever your vision of the character, she'd ever doubt for a moment that Peter would love her no matter what.
Anyway, the story we got? The one apparently handed down on high from Joe Quesada? The one where Gwen cheats on Peter with Norman Osborn, Mary Jane lies about the whole thing to Peter for years and we have full-grown Goblin children with a mad on for Peter?
I can easily see that coming from the same mind that did a story where Iron Man's armor achieves sentinence and becomes a mass murderer, ignoring numerous stories where Iron Man's armor was programmed not to allow lethal force.
Again, this is all besides the point. I agree with all those who find it disturbing that - given all the other possible explanations for why Gwen would sleep with Norman (side-effect of the Goblin formula that gave him hyperpheremones, Norman's natural charisma, just plain pity), why everyone latches onto "she was a whore!"
Chalk it up to the whore/Madonna complex so many men who don't really deal with women have about how all women are either chaste virgins or sluts and how there's no in between.
Alan David Doane said...
ReplyDelete"If there's any story non-canonical enough to prove this is the Fan Fiction Age of Superhero Comics, this piece of shit is it."
Sometimes, a person makes a heartfelt comment that sums up everything perfectly.
Gwen wouldn't have sex with Norman Osborn. By the time that deed would have occurred, it seems to me that Norman's facade was cracking up. Look at his behavior toward Gwen, MJ and Peter in AMAZING #121. It was becoming vaery apparent that Osborn was a loathesome, abusive person, and someone Gwen would have avoided for her own safety.
Gwen had her moments -- at one point, she told off Aunt May, chastizing her for keeping poor Peter on such a short leash. Who had ever done THAT before? Aunt May was so upset, she disappeared for a few issues and became Doc Ock's nursemaid.
This whole SINS storyline ... the creepiest part of all is that Kurt Busiek did it in ASTRO CITY, and did it better. The story involved Jack-in-the-Box ... or whatever his name is.
I know, I'm really late to this.
ReplyDeleteDidn't anyone else think Gwen was raped?
It wouldn't be unusual for Gwen to blame herself for Osborne forcing herself upon her. If it was her fault, then she could have avoided it. It's a coping mechanism that's common.
As a paramedic, I saw it numerous times by patients who obviously didn't ask to be beaten and raped.