We need some fun stuff to fret about, and Marvel provided that yesterday with a teaser image and a tagline:
NOTHING IS SACRED…
Stay tuned next week for more information from Marvel Comics.
The art by Paco Medina and Morry Hollowell teases one of the third rails of comics history: the return of Gwen Stacy.
Or does it?
Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker’s first (and perhaps greatest) love famously died in Spider-Man #121, as Spidey was battling the Green Goblin and Gwen toppled from a bridge. The actual cause of Gwen’s death has remained unclear over the 52 years since the sad event. As Brian Cronin notes in his examination of the subject, the *snap* suggests that the shock of Peter’s web catching her broke her neck, while Green Goblin insists it was the fall itself that did it. In the movie version, it’s clear she’s alive before the webbing hits her soooooooo…….yet more guilt for Peter Parker to live with.
Gwen’s death was the first truly shocking death in modern comics, and it’s the one death that the comics have never reversed. Bucky was another hard and fast exception to the “no comic book death is final” rule until Ed Brubaker came up with his brilliant resurrection as the Winter Soldier. Jean Grey….oh, man i don’t even know. My comics continuity history is fuzzy after the 90s, so I’m not on the up and up on who has stayed dead the longest, but Gwen has stayed dead and that’s the way it is. And the way it should be.
Except for the other times she was teased as being alive, of course. According to Screen Rant these include: “a temporary ghostly spirit, a multiversal superhero from a parallel world, or more recently, a figment of Peter Parker’s fantasy.”
Back in the real world, Spider-Man is getting a new creative team in April including current writer Joe Kelly and new teammates John Romita Jr., and Pepe Larraz. And in May someone is going to stand over Gwen’s grave with a shovel. Compelling stuff.
Anyway, this harkens back to all my musings about long running characters in comics. IT’S BEEN 50 YEARS since Gwen died…a person who picked it up on the newsstand would now nearing retirement. Peter Parker’s guilt over the death of Uncle Ben (another stay-dead, although with many many multiversal versions who are running around), and his sorrow over Gwen’s passing are foundational lore for the character to be revisited and revised over and over for current audiences. Every generation gets the death of Gwen Stacy it deserves. Some may worry that the threatened Gwen revivals are coming at an ever accelerating pace – but such is the world we live in.
In comics, for a death to be truly shocking….there must also be a shocking attempt at a resurrection. Teasing Gwen’s return is a tried and true shocker, so why not have another swing at it in 2025?
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