THE DEATH OF GWEN STACY

IT WAS THE MOST SHOCKING STORY IN COMICS HISTORY. GERRY CONWAY TELLS STEPHEN JEWEL ABOUT BREAKING SPIDERMAN'S HEART ON THE NIGHT THAT GWEN STACY DIED...

With Peter Parker’s beloved

girlfriend dramatically perishing after falling off the Brooklyn Bridge during a battle between the Wall-crawler and the Green Goblin, “The Night Gwen Stacy Died” remains one of

Spider-Man’s most memorable storylines to date. First published in Amazing Spider-Man #121-122 in June/July 1973, things could have turned out very differently if series writer Gerry Conway had agreed with John Romita’s original plan. For the veteran artist and Marvel art director initially believed that it was another of Peter’s nearest and dearest that should be destined to meet their maker.

“John thought that everyone had gotten kind of complacent and hadn’t done anything shocking since the Harry Osborn drug stories a couple of years earlier, so he said that we should kill off one of the main characters,” recalls Conway. “But the character that he thought we should kill off – because that would create reader interest, raise the stakes and make you realise that ‘yes, death is very much a part of Spider-Man’s world’ – was Aunt May.”

Taking over scripting duties on Amazing SpiderMan from Stan Lee with 1972’s #111, Conway insisted that Peter’s faithful aunt was too integral to the book’s central theme, that with great power comes great responsibility. “There’s always that sense of Spider-Man carrying the guilt of Uncle Ben’s death,” says Conway, who reveals he was never particularly fond of the strait-laced policeman’s daughter, a character that was first introduced in

Amazing Spider-Man #22 in 1965. “I’d never felt an emotional attachment to Gwen, as I’d never seen anything in her that was all that compelling,” Conway tells SFX. “She was a nice girl, and was sort of like the dream girl that every young kid would like to have as a prom date. But when it came down to it, she had no personality. Mary Jane Watson, on the other hand, I was infatuated with from the time when Steve Ditko was doing the book and she was being promoted as this mysterious figure that Aunt May was trying to set him up with. Peter was trying to duck out on that, and then we have this wonderful reveal that she is not just a good-looking girl but she also has a sharpedged personality. She was someone who could compete with Peter on an intellectual level because she’s quick-witted and funny, and she

embraces life in a way that Peter doesn’t. Peter is always on his guard while Mary Jane is full bore ‘let’s jump in there and see what happens!’ I liked that contrast, so I suggested innocently ‘why don’t we kill off Gwen Stacy?’”

As the only real threat in Spider-Man’s rogues’ gallery at the time, Norman Osborn was the obvious contender to kidnap Gwen before she becomes collateral damage in his deadly conflict with his archenemy. “At that point, the Green Goblin was Spider-Man’s most serious villain, as some of the others were getting a little too cartoonish and silly,” says Conway. “Doctor Octopus had been reduced from a criminal mastermind to this semi-ineffectual pudgy guy, who even had an emotional connection with Aunt May. The tier of villains under that were basically just crooks, but the one person who was Spidey’s version of the Joker was the Green Goblin, so it made sense that he would be the bad guy and then killing him off was a way to balance the scales.”

PASSING THE TORCH

Having made his comic book debut over at DC at the tender age of 15, Conway was still only 19 when he inherited Amazing Spider-Man from Stan Lee, who was gradually reducing his scripting assignments to concentrate on the publishing end of Marvel’s then-flourishing business. “Everything would kind of devolve down, as at that point there were three main writers working for Marvel – Stan, Roy Thomas and myself – so anything that Stan would give up, Roy got first writer refusal,” explains Conway. “He wasn’t really interested in writing Spider-Man, so I got to do that.” Conway admits that he wasn’t daunted by the formidable prospect of following in Stan Lee’s footsteps. “Amazing Spider-Man was Marvel’s premiere book, but the beauty of being a teenager is that you have absolutely no clue about what is realistic and what is fantasy in your life,” he laughs. “Teenagers have an inordinate sense of their own capabilities and powers as a human being – and certainly I did – so my confidence level was pretty high, even though I knew it was a huge undertaking. I’d been writing comics for four years at that stage, and Marvel had shown a lot of confidence in me. I was an arrogant teenager and it didn’t strike me as completely out of the ballpark, whereas today I’d be thinking ‘what the hell were you thinking?’” Consequently, Conway wasn’t prepared for the almost overwhelmingly adverse response from readers. This wasn’t helped by Gil Kane and John Romita’s art, which appeared to imply that Spider-Man’s actions had contributed to Gwen’s tragic demise. “Gil had taken over pencilling the book at that stage, and he did a terrific job but as a result of some of the art choices he made, I put in a ‘snap’ sound effect that seemed to imply that Spider-Man was partly culpable for her death,” explains Conway, referring to how Gwen died from the effect of whiplash even though Spider-Man catches her before she hits the water. “After the issue came out, there was a tirade of negative reaction from fans, who felt betrayed and upset, and all of that exacerbated by Stan, who subsequently denied that he knew it was happening, even though both he and Roy Thomas had signed off on it.”

Besieged by angry fans, Lee instructed Conway to resurrect the late Gwen in the time-honoured tradition of comic book heroes returning from the dead. “There was a pushback by Stan to undo it, because at the time he was going to college campuses a lot and giving paid speeches and he would be met by these angry protests from college fans, asking, ‘Why did you kill off Gwen Stacy? This is horrible!’” says Conway. “Stan was like, ‘Well, it happened while I was out of town.’ He disclaimed any responsibility for it, and he said, ‘You have to bring her back!’ But I was like, ‘Stan, I can’t bring her back, she’s dead!’ as