Comic Book Resources

Ummmm ... there ain't no cover where the cover homage should be. Or is there? My old eyes might be playing tricks on me.

That Namor cover ain't showin' up, friend.

As for the covers...all three of those issues feature characters imitating the stars of the book in some way? The Uncanny issue features the Warskrulls disguised as the X-Men, the other X-Men cover has Cerebro's fake X-Men, and the Fantastic Four cover was the tragic story of l'il Freddy Bannion, who immolated himself playing "Human Torch."

Ah, whoops, I realized a second after posting that "The Shattering" uses a Skrull Wolverine impostor, not Cerebro's phony X-Men. Those were issues earlier, in "Hunt for Xavier."

The bridge also shows up in the Spider-Man movie, as well as in Ultimate Spider-Man. In both cases the Green Goblin throws Mary Jane from the bridge, but she is rescued by Spider-Man.

If we're going to list all appearances of the bridge that relate to Gwen Stacy, and not merely the times someone is thrown off of it, it also appears in Marvel Knights: Daredevil #8, where Spidey and DD have a heart-to-heart with Spider-Man recalling Gwen's murder, and in Spider-Man: Blue, at the very end of the series.

Man, they should really establish some bridge moratorium for a while or something.

Harry Osborn took Mary Jane to the bridge for a conversation in Spectacular #200

That's an easy one. Uncle Ben.

Ok, in all seriousness, I'd love to see Scott Lang brought back. Just for the simple reason that I really liked that character. How many super hero dads are there, really? Better question. How many superhero deadbeat dads are there?

To put a finer point on what Omar said for the 3 cover connections: all three covers have Skrulls impersonating someone. The Alicia on the FF cover was later revealed to be a Skrull.
From what I remember, the connection is between covers and not what's inside.

Right, sterg. This is why I usually make these things harder. People complained about how difficult the first three were, but as soon as I ease up, they get figured out very quickly.

In the last issue of Kevin Smith's Spider-Man/Black Cat miniseries, Francis Klum takes the Black Cat to The Bridge to talk about how he saved her. Spider-Man figures he's going to kill her, and in the ensuing fight , Klum is knocked off.

IIRC, in Spider-Man's Tangled Web #5, the Rhino goes to The Bridge to commit suicide, as he is too dumb to win over the woman he loves. He subsequently gets his intelligence boosted to such levels that he can no longer relate to anyone, and again climbs the bridge to kill himself and have a heart-to-heart with Spider-Man in #6, only to invent a procedure to again lower his intellect. The whole story, "Flowers for Rhino," was presumably a riff on Flowers for Algernon.

The Bridge is indeed overused.

If I could bring one Marvel character back from the dead it would be Turner D. Century. Why? Because he was the goofy, really stupid villain type that Spiderman needs.

That and because I'm him for Halloween.

In Adam-Troy Castro's novel Revenge of the Sinister Six, Mysterio sets up a looping hologram at The Bridge of Gwen Stacy falling, over and over.

Magik, the Belasco aged ruler of Limbo version and not the pre-teen legacy virus casualty one.

I'd bring Pyro back. I have absolutely no idea why, but I'd bring him back.

If you hadn't said "one" I whould have said the X-Statix.
Well, except Dead Girl and Henrietta Hunter, who the point of was that they where dead.

The homage is to Iron Fist v.1`#2.

The bridge also shows up in an issue of X-Man (# 37 I believe), as X-Man (Nate Grey)is on the same bridge trying to erase everyone's memories of him, thinking the world would be better if he'd never interfered in everyone's lives after arriving in the 616 Earth from the Age of Apocalypse (whew!). Spidey shows up to stop Nate before he overloads his powers and dies. Nate warps reality somehow to bring the gun-toting, human rebel Gwen Stacy from the Age of Apocalypse to the bridge, and she's knocked off by some generic villains a few panels later. Spidey saves her (apparently he's had some practice!), she recognizes Peter through the mask, but then fades back to her own reality before they can talk. At the time, I thought it was pretty heartwrenching.

I seem to recall a Clone Saga issue where Ben Reilly saved some blonde girl from falling off the bridge, by swinging down and catching her instead of just webbing up her legs. I couldn't tell you what title or issue it was, though.

Now I really wish Pietro had fallen off the bridge instead of just some building in Son of M. It would have made that scene even funnier.

Is it that all of the covers feature team members that once belonged to other teams? (She-Hulk, Marrow, Wolverine).
Or is somebody quitting the team in each of these issues?

I remember that scene in Daredevel #8 on the bridge too, pretty powerful stuff.

Argh - I come to post my desire to see Turner D. Century returned from the dead, and here Billy F has beaten me to it! I figured I'd be the only Turner D. Century fan on the entire Internets. Heck, I'd be even happier to see an Ultimate Turner D. Century show up in the Ultimate universe...

It was annoying me to see all these references to "the Bridge," when, to my recollection, it wasn't just some anonymous bridge that Gwen fell from, but the Brooklyn Bridge. (Since I grew up just on the Brooklyn side of the bridge, this has especial meaning for me.) Unfortunately, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Gwen_Stacy_Died) reminds me that in the original comic, even though Gil Kane had drawn the Brooklyn Bridge, "Stan Lee ... (as editor) mistakenly labeled it the George Washington Bridge." (I don't know why writer Gerry Conway wouldn't have been the one doing the labeling, or why New Yorker Stan didn't know the difference between the Brooklyn and G.W. bridges.)

But "[s]ome reprints of the issue have had the text amended and now state the bridge to be the Brooklyn Bridge rather than the George Washington Bridge. Also, Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 1) #147-148 (1975) and Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 1) Annual #21 (1987) imply that Gwen fell off the Brooklyn Bridge." So I'm going to stand by the Brooklyn Bridge I.D.

Of course, this doesn't work so well for Brian's discussion, since some of those other "Bridge" events may have taken place at other bridges. The Wikipedia article states, "Mary Jane Watson was thrown off the Queensboro Bridge in both Ultimate Spider-Man #25 and the Spider-Man movie." So maybe in the Spider-Man meta-verse, there is a Platonic Bridge - which, if you're romantically involved with Peter Parker, you'd be well advised to stay off of. (You can always use one of the tunnels or a subway line that runs underwater.)

I'd bring back Cypher (Doug Ramsey) - he was easily the most compelling of the relatively normal mutants...

I liked Jack of Hearts. what can I say? The costume was cool (until it was redesigned in Avengers disassembled)!

Is Hawkeye dead still? He'd be first on my list followed by Black Goliath if Hawkeye's alive.

After years and years of poupular guest-stardom, the Bridge should be awarded it's own comic. I want to see comic fans argue if the Bridge can beat up the Fantastic Four.

Joshua Cochran said …"The bridge also shows up in an issue of X-Man (# 37 I believe), as X-Man (Nate Grey)is on the same bridge trying to erase everyone’s memories of him, thinking the world would be better if he’d never interfered in everyone’s lives after arriving in the 616 Earth from the Age of Apocalypse (whew!)."

So it's the same bridge from It's a Wonderful Life? Wow, it really does show up everywhere.

"This is why I usually make these things harder. People complained about how difficult the first three were, but as soon as I ease up, they get figured out very quickly."

Well, it depends on your goals for the subseries: do you want rough stuff that no one will guess, or things that people might? For the record, I wouldn't have known either of your "easy" ones - neither this week's Skrulls nor last week's athletes. Sometimes I weep for my lack of nerdery.

All my early picks for "back from the dead" characters have already been taken - Antman, Cypher and Magik - so I'm going to have to think on this for a while. And of course, now I can't think of anyone who died that hasn't already come back (or won't sometime soon - I'm looking at you, Jean Grey)...

The Bridge kinda shows up in Superman/Batman in the issues where they meet very unsubtle parodies of the New Avengers, and Superman saves a girl thrown off the Bridge by ''Halloween'' or somesuch. He makes some arrogant remark about heroes saving falling girls where he comes from, implying (as I read it) that Spider-Man really is a failure as a hero for letting it happen to Gwen in the first place. Then the parody of Spidey attacks Supes, revealing that he planned the whole throwing-the-girl-off-a-bridge thingie to draw out the poor gullible sap who just happened to be flying by. Real classy homage to the Bridge scene from DC....

But, in any case, I'd say it is indeed a pretty classic scene if even the Distinguished Compitition is bringing it up.