Sins Past

[Enchantress]

Anyone reading this Amazing arc right now?

I'm enjoying it, although the 2nd part had my jaw dropping and I was like 'woah' [spoiler]after Peter got the letter looked at and found out Gwen was pregnant. But, the conclusion I've come to is.... the kids aren't his...They're Harry's. Why else would Gwen have run off like she did? She and Peter were in love, she finds out she's pregnant and instead of telling him runs away? Yup, it just smacks of Harry here.[/spoiler]

If you aren't reading it, you should!

[Local Hero]

it does fit doesn't it.. [spoiler]the osbourne genetics have a predisposition for blaming other for their station in life.. norman blamedspidey for never makinf it big... harry blamed spidey for never making it big (cos spidey effectively killed his pop).. it's not hard to believe that kids brought up (or accellerated) they are gonna be genetically predisposed to blaming others for thweir situation[/spoiler]

[Enchantress]

[spoiler] you know, some nay-sayer out there is going to disagree, saying it's just another writer's attempt to take a piss on Gwen Stacy. Personally, I think it fits, makes all the sense in the world to me. Why else would the Green Goblin want to drop her off a building other than to get at Spidey? [/spoiler]

[Spiderbob]

[spoiler]not to be the nay sayer...but I don't think it's Harry. Yes.. there have been hints...rumors...whatever...to the fact the Norman is involved in this arc...but I don't see Harry as the father.
For one, why would Harry get intamite with his best friend's girlfriend?? and if he tried, why would Gwen agree? It doesn't fit either of their characters. Also, why would Gabriel resemble Peter in his old age if Harry was the dad? I just don't see it happening...though if you look at the preview for #511 it looks like MJ knows more than she's telling...[/spoiler]

[Spiderbob]

Just got issue #511 in the mail. Yet another great issue with awesome story line, OUTSTANDING drawings, and another tormenting cliff hanger.
[spoiler]
-Peter compares the DNA on the envelope (DNA from tongue of kid who licked it) to DNA of Gwent Stacy's (got it from her grave). They match. They're her kids.
-MJ reveals to Peter at the end that she does indeed know who the father is but we have to wait till next issue to hear who she says it is.[/spoiler]

[Enchantress]

I'm only a few weeks behind you! That issue was great and yeah, I liked the cliffhanger. The only problem is I have to wait another MONTH before I find out what MJ knows!

[Spiderbob]

[spoiler]Ugh. That pretty much sums up my emotions on the next issue of ASM. Just, ugh. I really don't like this right now. Hoping it'll turn around but I really am against this. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it turns out that Gwen's kid's father is....



Norman Osborn.

Think that's bad, then listen to this. It wasn't r**e (not sure if I"m allowed to say that word on here), Gwen...um...got intimate with him willingly. Yeah. Apparently she it was a mix of pity and attraction to his 'magnetism'. So right now I'm feeling kinda sick to my stomach. I'm praying for a turn around. Please God let there be a turn around. [/spoiler]

[SLVRSR4]

[spoiler]As awful as it sounds to say (VERY AWFUL), I was hoping the children WERE Norman Osborn's. I was thinking this for a while, now, and had it BEEN the result of a r**e, then it would have made Osborn even more of a sinister and vile person. It would have also explained why he felt the need to kill her. Not that r**e should ever be used in this fashion, but in todays more "hardcore" comics, it would have been a feasable storyline.
[/spoiler]

[Spiderbob]

[spoiler]But it's not a result of r**e. Gwen got intimate with him willingly. I just don't see this happening. Gwen and Peter were blissfully in love. Why would she have such attractions to a middle aged metally disturbed buisness man and not the love of her life? Also, MJ confronts Norman about the issue in the flashback and he lets her live?!?! He lets her live with such knowledge for so many years?!?! Doens't sound like the Osborn I know. The only thing I can think of that would excuse this is that Osborn knew that if MJ told Peter it would devestate him and thus let him live, but that's kinda stretching it. Also, this story makes it appear that Osborn planned Gwen's death AND his death so he could go to Europe and claim the children and the glider just conviently 'killed' him off (unless that was planed too.) I just find it really disturbing, messing up Gwen's and Norman's characters, and praying for a miracle turn around. Though if this turns out to be a dream I might be even more mad. ugh. On the plus side, the art is Beautiful. The guy sure can draw. Well, that's my rant for the day.[/spoiler]

[Spiderbob]

JMS giving his reasons for his story in Amazing. Kinda gets you into the mind set of what he was thinking when he wrote the thing.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Consider what you just wrote...that the character has been portrayed in the
same way for *thirty years*. No change, no growth, no surprises...thirty
YEARS.

Three decades.

Thirty years of lying fallow. Thirty years of being just one thing.

As a writer, I believe -- and this is subjective -- that if a character sits
that long without anything new, the character is dead in more ways than one.
It's a bell that just rings out the same note endlessly.

I came out of the junior college system (before ending up at SDSU) and in the
years after I got out of Southwestern College (the JC in question) I'd
sometimes pop by to see teachers and stuff...and so many times, years and years
after I'd left, the same people were there...doing the same things they'd done
before...taking similar classes...saying the same things they'd said
before...even to some extend *dressed* the same way.

No change. No growth.

Creeped me out in the worst way.

Now...on the flipside...I got an email last year from a woman I knew in high
school (just a casual friend, no more than that), and she was talking about the
guy she'd met there in class and, subsequently, married.

In the course of said email correspondence, she drops in the information that
about a year or two ago he moved out, started in on hormones, and is en route
to becoming a woman.

Even after thirty years, the most unlikely people in the world, the ones you
thought you knew everything about, can surprise the hell out of you.

A few months ago, a woman I've known as a friend for nearly twenty years took
her own life, something I could never have anticipated.

People change. Things change. The way we see them changes.

Yes, Gwen is no longer "alive" but as a fictional character she is really
neither alive nor dead...but her character persists in the books, in whatever
form, and in that respect she is as alive as anyone else...maybe, for Peter,
moreso.

To leave a character stagnant, unchanging, and the way our main character views
her as equally unchanging for thirty years is as close to the death of those
characters as you can come. The one-note bell.

So you take a chance...you add a layer to Gwen that you couldn't have
anticipated, as with the cases I noted above...where you think this couldn't
be...but it is.

Phase one of the story is how does SHE react...does she stand with courage,
does she try to do the right thing, or does she go the other way?

People who are never tempted, who are never put in places where they need to
make hard decisions, have it easy and are the least interesting
characters...it's when you put them up against a wall that they become
compelling. I wanted to put her character up against that wall, to bring out
stronger and, for all the railing against her, nobler characteristics. The
Gwen who goes toe-to-toe with Norman, devil take the hindmost, is a woman who
is worthy of Peter.

Phase two is how it affects Peter...does he turn against her, or does his
affection for her allow him to accept this? Which requires greater strength?
Which tells us more profoundly what his character is like?

I've always tried to inject a level of realism in my work, and life is about
change, about surprises, sometimes pleasant, sometimes not...what matters is
how we *react* to those changes. Do they make us better or meaner? Stronger
or weaker?

Go read "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg" by Mark Twain to see this played out
in ways better than I can describe it.

What you also have to remember is that I'm a *fan*. I grew up reading Spidey.
I, too, had (and still have) tremendous affection for Gwen's character.
Deciding to take on this story was very difficult for me.

But I felt it was in the end the right decision, and still do. Yeah, I could
leave the characters exactly as they were, and have them not change for another
five or ten years, however long I'm involved with the book...but would I
*really* be doing my job, or just cashing checks?

Anybody who hasn't changed a whit, who hasn't grown or shown surprises as a
person, in 30 years, as Twain said, is dead and rotten and should be shoved
down a sewer.


jms

[The Mighty Thor]

I realize I am very behind here, but I just now read Amazing Spider-man #512, the issue in which it is revealed that [spoiler]Norman is the father of Gwen's twins[/spoiler]

I too have my reservations about how the illicit encounter happened, but I can't say it is impossible. I wasn't reading Spider-man way back when Gwen was still alive, so I don't really know how desperately out of character this seems. Although it does seem implausable, at least on the surface.

I'm sure there have been one or two issues since #512, and that the storyline has been concluded by now. I have high hopes for the resolution of this story. Because even though the story details are a bit suspect, JMS has handled the emotion of the situation perfectly thus far. And I must agree with Spiderbob in that Deodato Jr. is doing a first rate job of rendering this mostly out of costume story. Its a real trick to make superhero comics compelling when there are no superheroes to be found.

[Enchantress]

Ok, I think we just finished reading #513 and I have to ask (since I'm sure everyone's read it by now! I know, I'm so behind it's not funny)

[spoiler]Did anyone else's jaw drop in the reinactment of the death of Gwen Stacy? I was sitting there going....
"Oh my god, he's not going to do this again!"[/spoiler]

[Spiderbob]

Not really. Was pretty sure she'd be okay. The arc itself has me so ticked off it's not even funny. Hate the way it was handled, hate the ending, just hate it. Ugh!!!

[spoiler]The Grey Goblin!!! WTH!?!?![/spoiler][/i]