(And Sue Storm was way more than just “an attention whore ditz”. Sure, the first few years of Sue on the title were shaky, but even in the latter Lee/Kirby issues, she’s asserting her independence, even going so far as to leave Reed when he refuses to treat her as an equal member of the team and respect her abilities. And Janet, who you insist wasn’t fleshed out until decades later, became a super-hero because she believed that it was the right thing to do and she needed to help Ant-Man make sure nobody else died like her father did. Her “ditziness” was mostly in her dialogue; she was usually portrayed as being just as competent as Ant-Man was. Um, for what that’s worth. )

Honestly, what surprised me most when I went back and read these Silver Age comics was just how good some of the characterization of women was. I won’t say all…Gwen Stacy and Betty Banner still stand out to me as being terribly sexist, even compared to other female characters of the period (and not, as you continue to insist, compared to my imaginary expectations of future versions of female characters of the period.) Admittedly, Marvel was generally more progressive than DC in that regard (although Sue Dibny was very well done.) But Gwen really was near the bottom. Even her post-Silver Age flashbacks tend to focus more on the hagiography of, “Ooh, isn’t it so sad she died? She’d have been so perfect for Peter!” Even in death, she’s defined solely by her connection to Peter Parker.

If you define “Mary Jane Watson” as a young aspiring actress-model-whatever who has a good heart that gets her into bad spots and bluffs more confidence than she has, then I can name a half-dozen of those. If you define “Sue Storm” as an introverted woman struggling with her relationship with a workaholic, then I’ve met a couple of those. If you define a “Jean Grey” as a young woman from a nice home who wants to be a “bad girl” and gets in over her head, then that is a type I know. If you define a “Janet Van Dyne” as a woman with minimal interests beyond shopping who puts up with an abusive relationship, then I have even met that person.

The problem is, these descriptions of these characters do not apply to their Silver Age incarnations, they are what those characters became after later Bronze Age retconning and fleshing out. If Gwen Stacy survived into the Bronze Age, she’d have been subject to the same treatment. Sue Storm was not an introvert struggling with introversion, she just an attention whore ditz. Jean Grey didn’t have bad girl issues that got her in over her head, she was a bland idealized good girl. Janet Van Dyne wasn’t putting up with an abusive relationship. There wasn’t much proof MJ had a heart of gold and was bluffing confidence, she was basically a raging narcissist party girl. That’s why I think it’s not fair to compare Gwen to other female character who had most of their fleshing out done post-Silver Age. You have to compare her to other female characters AS THEY EXISTED in the Silver Age.

(Gwen Stacy)’s actually Number Two on my list of Most Vapid, Inane, Empty-Headed Male Appendages In Comics History (shortly behind #1, Betty Banner.) Sue Storm, Mary Jane, Betty Brant…heck, even the Wasp was a more well-rounded female character than Gwen Stacy was! Gwen existed to do nothing but sigh and say, “Peter’s so dreamy…” (Until her father’s death, of course. Then she said, “Peter’s so dreamy…but I hate that Spider-Man!”)

@John Seavey:

To me, the acid test of female comic book characters is how often I want to compare them to actual women in real life. They are two-dimensional versions of three-dimensional human beings. If you define a “Lois Lane” as a persistent, curious, competitive and career-minded woman, then I can name a half-dozen of them. If you define “Mary Jane Watson” as a young aspiring actress-model-whatever who has a good heart that gets her into bad spots and bluffs more confidence than she has, then I can name a half-dozen of those. If you define “Sue Storm” as an introverted woman struggling with her relationship with a workaholic, then I’ve met a couple of those. If you define a “Jean Grey” as a young woman from a nice home who wants to be a “bad girl” and gets in over her head, then that is a type I know. If you define a “Janet Van Dyne” as a woman with minimal interests beyond shopping who puts up with an abusive relationship, then I have even met that person.

The person I have never met is a “Gwen Stacy”. She has always seemed more like a symbol of what young men think they want in a woman than an actual woman. That is part of why this story works so well. Gwen is largely what the reader wants her to be.

Compared to her, MJ was a feminist icon. She had goals, dreams, ambitions, and personality.

Reread those stories again without keeping any later retcons in mind. Just read them and try to consider them in a vacuum. MJ would hardly appear for large stretches at a time even. She was extremely 2-dimensional and vapid. You are letting later stories and retcons and creator legends color your perception I think.

Sue Storm, Mary Jane, Betty Brant…heck, even the Wasp was a more well-rounded female character than Gwen Stacy was! Gwen existed to do nothing but sigh and say, “Peter’s so dreamy…” (Until her father’s death, of course. Then she said, “Peter’s so dreamy…but I hate that Spider-Man!”)

Then you’re an extreme revisionist. Even Lois Lane didn’t do much but pine over Superman or try to prove he was Clark Kent for decades. And pre-Stern Wasp as a well-rounded female?

My ACTUAL position, when you strip away all the Spider-Man continuity folderol, is simply that most superheroes work better done as light entertainment, because of the inherent absurdity of the concepts involved.

@ Greg: I agree with you, but with caveats.

First, no one hates the “Women in Refrigerators” stuff more than I do. That tendency came into comics in large measure with the Death of Gwen Stacey and the Dark Phoenix saga. However, I think it is unfair to judge the stories themselves based on the unfortunate trends that followed. The short version of my earlier post is that Gerry Conway and Gil Kane told a great story here that was true to world Stan Lee and Steve Ditko had created.

Second, it is true that comics during the Silver Age were designed as entertainment for children. The lightness of tone that readers love in that material was the brightness of an adult trying to explain the world to a child. There is limit to where you can and should go with characters designed for that purpose. However, that was not true of either Golden or Bronze Ages. Golden Age characters were designed for a general audience, which certainly included everyone. That is very different than writing stories directed toward children. Bronze Age characters were tailored to college aged baby boomers and comic fans.

That is why “Identity Crisis” felt so appalling, while “The Dark Knight Returns” was justly celebrated. As a kid, the Ralph and Sue Dibny were like friends of your parents. They were unhip to a comical degree, but you cared about them. Conversely, Bruce Wayne is a brooding narcissist. He is much cooler, since he lives almost totally outside the world most suburban kids experience.

This is true of the vast majority of the Golden Age superheroes. I watch old episodes of “The Adventures of Superman” and the Fleisher cartoons with my young son. Both need careful previewing, because they are often shockingly violent, or mature in their subject matter. This is fifty plus year old content. “A Night of Terror” seemed like it was adapted from a James Elroy short story. George Reeves and Phyllis Coates were pretty frankly flirtatious in many places. Whereas, the Fleisher cartoons had Lois and Clark talking like a young couple talking twenty minutes before having sex, Reeves and Coates always seemed to be coming back from either his or her place. Her interest in getting married that turned up in the comics around this time makes a lot more sense.

Oh … the double identity business was treated as an inside joke, or more to the point as a private code that is shared between Lois and Clark.

The point is that I did not pick up on most this when I was a kid, but it is unmistakably there. You can read the content both ways and enjoy it equally. That is totally gone from modern superhero stories and has been for a long, long time.

I think the series was better for Gwen’s death for a long time. I’ve read just about every comic Marvel published in the 1960s, and I profoundly disagree with T’s statement that Gwen was no more vapid than any other Marvel woman. She’s actually Number Two on my list of Most Vapid, Inane, Empty-Headed Male Appendages In Comics History (shortly behind #1, Betty Banner.) Sue Storm, Mary Jane, Betty Brant…heck, even the Wasp was a more well-rounded female character than Gwen Stacy was! Gwen existed to do nothing but sigh and say, “Peter’s so dreamy…” (Until her father’s death, of course. Then she said, “Peter’s so dreamy…but I hate that Spider-Man!”) Compared to her, MJ was a feminist icon. She had goals, dreams, ambitions, and personality. The only thing she lacked was maturity, and you saw her gain it in one panel at the end of this story, when Peter lashes out at her and she refuses to let him drive her away.

No, the mistake they made was in bringing back Norman Osborn. His death is truly one of the finest moments in the series’ history, as karma deals out rough justice to him for his callous acts. Peter steps away from vengeance, showing himself as a true hero, the Goblin tries to kill him anyway, showing himself as an irredeemable monster, and he is hoist on his own petard for it. It’s a perfect end to the story…and a brilliant evolution to the character. From that point on, the Goblin becomes an idea, a standard that other characters rally to. He becomes a metaphorical ghost, haunting Peter by continually inspiring new villains to take up his mantle (and by the way, Roger Stern is an absolute genius for his decision to make Roderick Kingsley into the Hobgoblin. It’s so fitting that a fashion designer accused of stealing other people’s work and passing it off as his own should become an ersatz Green Goblin.) Bringing back Norman Osborn doesn’t just reduce the impact of the story, it doesn’t just seem implausible (really? A chunk of metal the size of a small tree through the heart is survivable?) It makes justice itself, not just Spider-Man, seem small and impotent. If the innocent die, but the guilty always survive for another go-round, it makes it hard to see how a hero can ever make any difference.

Norman should have stayed dead. Everyone should have left this story alone. It’s just too damn good to tamper with.

I agree wth your “ACTUAL position”, bar one thing. Spider-Man. His origin involves tragedy. There has always been a certain stigma attached to his powers, unlike a lot of other superheroes, which I think is one of the things that makes him so relatable. His lightness and humour reflect the absurdity of his life. He is all about learning and “growing-up”. Kids can appreciate being treated as “adults”, without resorting to what is “adult material”…

I know I did. I’m not talking about sex and violence, I’m talking about accepting responsibility for things. Learning to accept that we cannot win everything. Some of the harder lessons in life.

That, to me, was what made Spider-Man so special, compared with Iron Man, Thor, etc, as Stu, Cass and Dean pointed out…

See, this is where we disagree. Captain Stacy died because he took action, he stepped into the combat zone because he was trying to save a child. Yeah, it’s sad, and yeah, Gwen blamed Spider-Man… but it was forgiveable because we all knew the real facts.

It was forgiveable to US, but could you ever sell it as being forgiveable to Gwen? That was the challenge. Sooner or later, if Gwen was kept alive, someone would have to tackle this story. Spider-Man’s negligence in creating that web fluid that caused Doc Ock’s arms to lose control in a crowded battle zone could be seen by a reasonable person as causing Stacy’s death. It wasn’t as clear-cut forgiveable as you make out, even when one knows all the facts.

Stan Lee left without ever resolving this problem. From the issues I read after George Stacy died, I don’t think he knew HOW to resolve it. Gerry Conway didn’t seem to know what to do either, and he was so young at the time maybe he just didn’t know how to write the inevitable scene where Peter revealed what happened or how to make Gwen react to the death.

THIS is the problem with these types of tales, which I think a lot of people are saying in different ways, that they clash with future storytelling by calling into serious question the motives of characters who are fundamentally silly and not designed to withstand heavy scrutiny.

Well, yeah. I think, way back long ago and far away, that was probably my point whenever I originally was talking about this story in the column a couple of years ago. The trouble is, anytime anyone around here says so, a howling mob descends yelling about how there’s no limit on the different kinds of superhero stories you can tell and who the hell are we to limit the genre, do we WANT nothing but kid’s stuff…. etc.

My ACTUAL position, when you strip away all the Spider-Man continuity folderol, is simply that most superheroes work better done as light entertainment, because of the inherent absurdity of the concepts involved. You can get interesting culture-clash hybrid things when you deliberately play against that lightness — Miracleman, Brat Pack, The Authority, etc. — but when you do it in more mainstream books with characters like the JLA or Spider-Man you get something that’s both depressing and silly at the same time. I’m fine with superheroes for adults…. but I object to forcing what are essentially children’s characters, or let’s say popcorn-entertainment-type characters designed for a younger audience, into ‘adult’ scenarios they were never meant for.

I think this particular story is probably the earliest instance of that, as well-done as it was, and that’s really where my discomfort with where it leaves Spider-Man’s status quo comes from.

There are those folks that think it ‘raised the stakes’ or made the strip more ‘adult,’ or whatever. My feeling is that it put Peter Parker in a bad position ethically, just for the sake of keeping him going as Spider-Man.

The short version — Continuing to endanger his loved ones after Gwen’s death seems to me like something Peter Parker would not do. Spider-Man works better when Peter’s got the moral high ground. Then the misery of his private life looks bearable, even noble. When he doesn’t have the high ground, he just looks like a jerk.

From a detached (maybe “cold”), utilitarian standpoint, one might argue that it makes him more heroic going on as Spider-Man despite awareness of the fatal danger to his loved ones. In other words, Peter’s able to recognize that without Spider-Man, many more people will die than with, but the trade-off is that the people who DO die will often be close to him. Remember, that Spider-Man does not really have the same dynamic as Batman of possibly creating his own foes, so most of the people he saves would have died without him around.

Also to continue the Batman counterpoint, being Spider-Man is pretty much THE way for Peter to use his powers to help people, unlike Bruce Wayne whose vast resources may have been better applied in other ways. For Peter to retire the webs on account of of a personal tragedy undermines the essence of the character, and always fails, because it puts him in the ethically nasty position of ignoring the catastrophes and super villain assaults which always seem to land in his immediate vicinity. The moral high ground, in my opinion, IS to stay on as Spider-Man.

- However, there are complications in that to be truly noble after the death of Gwen Stacy, Peter ought to have continued as Spider-Man AND lived a life of relative isolation. Obviously though, this would fuck with the storytelling, as the supporting cast always drives a good chunk of the Spider-Man stories. THIS is the problem with these types of tales, which I think a lot of people are saying in different ways, that they clash with future storytelling by calling into serious question the motives of characters who are fundamentally silly and not designed to withstand heavy scrutiny.

No one really knew how to write her because no one knew how to handle the ethical issues George Stacy’s death caused. It was the norm for a superhero to hide his identity from a loved one, but after he is responsible for the death of her father? Where do you go from there?

See, this is where we disagree. Captain Stacy died because he took action, he stepped into the combat zone because he was trying to save a child. Yeah, it’s sad, and yeah, Gwen blamed Spider-Man… but it was forgiveable because we all knew the real facts.

Gwen’s death wasn’t a ‘misstep’ on Peter’s part. Gwen wasn’t an innocent bystander or collateral damage. Peter didn’t do anything wrong. Gwen was sought out, targeted specifically by a supervillain because he knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man. It was the worst-case of every hero with a secret identity, and it wasn’t because of what Peter Parker did, it was because of who Peter Parker was.

THAT is the basic problem I’m talking about with the story’s premise. Construct it so it’s a case of Peter making a mistake and it’s a different story. This is a case where there was no right action for Peter Parker to take that would have saved her from the Goblin, because there wasn’t any action on his part at all — it happened due to the fact that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

The Peter Parker that I read about from Lee and Ditko and Romita wouldn’t have been able to deal with that, because there’s simply no way that he wouldn’t see that death as being Spider-Man’s fault; he knows that from that point on, every time he puts on the suit he is putting his loved ones at risk. Knows it, he’s seen it demonstrated.

There are those folks that think it ‘raised the stakes’ or made the strip more ‘adult,’ or whatever. My feeling is that it put Peter Parker in a bad position ethically, just for the sake of keeping him going as Spider-Man.

The short version — Continuing to endanger his loved ones after Gwen’s death seems to me like something Peter Parker would not do. Spider-Man works better when Peter’s got the moral high ground. Then the misery of his private life looks bearable, even noble. When he doesn’t have the high ground, he just looks like a jerk.

The trick is that Peter’s private life always takes the hit for what Spider-Man has to do — but we should never question the rightness of what Spider-Man does. That’s the whole point. If Spider-Man’s clearly in the wrong, like in this story where there’s no way for him to be right, then it doesn’t work. It feels off. It makes Peter a selfish moron to show him continue unquestioningly as a costumed vigilante after this. That’s my main objection to it.

Greg, I pretty much disagree with this.

To me, a well constructed story-telling is going someplace. The construction of the protagonist, the supporting cast, the setting and the every thing else create a forward momentum toward a logical conclusion. There may be 2, or 20, or 200 stops along the way, but the beginning defines the ending.

In classical tragedy, it was an ending that the audience knew was coming and hoped the hero could avoid. In that sense, Batman is the most classically tragic of modern American superheroes. Neil Gaiman did a great job making that point in “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” and it drove Frank Miller’s “Dark Knight” . However, Spider-Man is not far behind.

Spider-Man is, after all, a coming of age story. The choice Peter Parker makes at the end of Amazing Fantasy #15 is more mature than one he made to let the burglar go, but it is not fully adult. Lee and Ditko had people questioning the choices Spidey made in nearly every issue and his critics are not entirely wrong. Getting into pitched superhero battles in the middle of Manhattan is an incredibly immature thing to do. Literally hundreds of innocent bystanders are at risk every time Spidey and the Green Goblin square off.

In other words, the Silver Age Spider-Man had a Great Power, but was sort of limited from a responsibility stand-point.

More to the point, Stan Lee seemed to understand this. An awful lot of bad things happened as indirect result of Peter being Spider-Man over the years. Maybe he was a “selfish moron”, but that is hardly atypical of young men. Sadly, Peter soldiering on through reversal after reversal gave a sense that the consequences of his behavior were mounting, like those of an addict.

Gwen Stacey dying felt like the inevitable result of everything that had happened to that point. Sadly, the logical result of all this Peter leaving the web-shooters behind to help humanity as a medical researcher, or something. Obviously, that was never going to happen (or at least not in a lasting way). Marvel had pages to fill, so they kept the story going after the logical conclusion.

I think this story shows what a void the character of Gwen Stacy had become at this point. All the emotional impact is within Harry, Peter, and Norman; Gwen is practically a spectator in her own death.

As far as comic book superhero girlfriends go, Gwen Stacy was no more a void of a character than any other superhero character’s girlfriend. Even Sue Storm, a member of the Fantastic Four, didn’t really have many compelling narratives in this era. It’s just how they wrote women in general back then, not any inherent weakness in Gwen Stacy.

Gwen had become radioactive in the book since her father’s death, I think. No one really knew how to write her because no one knew how to handle the ethical issues George Stacy’s death caused. It was the norm for a superhero to hide his identity from a loved one, but after he is responsible for the death of her father? Where do you go from there? So they started trying to use her less it seems, not really knowing where to go with it. My theory is that at some point, Conway decided it would just be easier on everyone to just kill her.

The Spectacular Spider-Man has done more in two season to make her a character than anything the comics ever did.