The idea that Spider-man has two origin stories is a profound one. First, Peter gets his powers and grows into the man and hero we know. Second, the trauma of Gwen's death is what freezes Peter's character development in place and *keeps* him a comic-book hero perpetually trapped between the ages of 25 and 35. I've heard that soldiers and first-responders can have a similar freeze happen to them as well. Erik Erikson's theory of eight stages of psychosocial development are worth a look in regard to this.
gwen being the original true love interest is still weird to me thanks to the 2000s movies and the 90s cartoon I grew up on that made me like spiderman so much.
It comes with the territory in becoming a fan of something that’s been around for decades before you were even born. I remember being a bit shocked at learning just how many interests Batman had over the years that weren’t Viki Vale. Ironic considering how underused I find the character to be these days.
@@Chadnvaldr They didn't, it was revealed to be a false memory implanted in MJ and Norman and the twins were clones. Even if it wasn't undone ... it was an absurdly stupid idea to write such an out of character storyline. It's something you'd say, "Nope, too stupid. Didn't happen." As a fan, cause it changes a fundamental element of a crucial storyline.
I feel like this turning point really highlights the difference between the pain Peter suffered then and now. Back then, it was taking everything he'd been through up to that point and continuing to grow. Spider-Man is relatable because of all he endures and the strength and wisdom he shows as he matures. But a lot of times since One More Day he lost that, just falling back into old habits and regressing. He suffers and loses, but he doesn't grow as often just because a married Spider-Man or the like isn't seen as relatable when it is. There can be problems and growth from that as well, but Marvel wants single lady killer Spider-Man instead.
Or single, constantly suffering, going thru one tragedy after the next Spider-Man. 24/7/365. And is that a truly engaging or even plausible status quo? Peter Parker would probably be depressed and even quite suicidal at that point.
@@srstriker6420 exactly. They think it represents Spider-Man From the glory days of the 60s and 70s to keep him this way, but it's just a cheap flanderization of his character. Renew Your Viws was an excellent, natural continuation of his story from the post-JMS days. The Nick Spencer run did a lot of good trying to fix the mistakes of the precious decade's worth of stories post-OMD, and it even felt like he was being written more consistently in character again, but editorial just couldn't let him fully fix OMD and let Peter/MJ formally get back together and stay together. There are plenty of ways that writers who don't know what to do with MJ can shuffle her out of the way for a while. Basically every job she's ever had has taken her all over the place. The "problem," then, is that some people don't like that they can't have Peter have dead-end hookup after dead-end hookup in MJ's absence like they want, as if that's either responsible or even in-character for Peter.
I may have grown up with the 2000s movies and MJ, but Gwen Stacey is still my favorite spider-man love interest. Unless you count Chat. That one "Best Spiderman Girlfriend" youtube essay convinced me. Edit: I knew you all would know exactly what I was talking about lol
You saw that too? I almost forgot, but yea, I agree. The whole being at least semi active in the adventures until the run ended was nice. Though Emma being involved the way she was different…
I prefer Gwen too. Honestly, reading through the 616 comics, MJ never really lived up to the hype and neither did the 616 romance between her and Peter. 616 never really had a really perfect love story but something about Peter meeting Gwen who he knew loved him for just being Peter was a wonderfully unique aspect to their bond. I like that they had similar temperaments and personalities and had a cute way of being happy together. The way 616 MJ was retconned to have always known Peter's dual identity felt cheap and further made the connection forced. Plus, I question if 616 MJ would have cared for him if she didn't know his dual-identity, I don't get the sense she would. I do love the adaptations of the comics more for romances. I loved Emma Stone's Gwen and Kirsten Dunst's MJ quite a lot because they both used things that worked in the comics and utilized the better elements while shelving the stuff that didn't.
Or the absolute shitstorm that is most of the backend of Dan Slott's run where he flanderizes the character, ir the shitstorm that is the editorially mandated end of the otherwise mostly excellent JMS run (I swear JMS didn't deserve to have his name on those abominations). Spuder-Man hasn't been consistently handled well since the McFarlane run ended in the mid-90s (around the time I was born). He's been radically up and down ever since. There have been many great Spider-Man stories since, but for every good or great one there's another bad one that completely betrays the character or is just plain bad. The only consistently solid, long-lasting run on Spider-Man was Brian Michael Bendis's Ultimate Spider-Man.
I feel like Conway being so young at the time may be (at least a key part of) why he was so effective writing the character at that point in his development.
@@matthewschwartz6607 It was great. I'm surprised how well Conway was able to right a character out of his run on Spider-Man considering many authors fail to do so.
@@chrisdaily2077 - I’m reading some of it now, and I really like how he handles Brock and Cletus. I see Cletus as a complete sociopath who is irredeemable , and I think that Conway shows that. Although he did a REAAALY poor job with Chthon, he was waaaayyy too weak. I have (And read.) Spiral, that was okay (I would give it a 3 out of 5.) . I did read this his Renew Your Vows series was really good .
Gerry Conway's Spider-Man run is arguably one of my favorite runs on the character! the moment Gwen Stacy died in the comics everything changed for Spider-Man at that point anything could happen! his arch-nemesis was dead. the Love of his life was dead. Mary Jane and him finally found out they loved each other. These stories are so much better than the stories we are getting right now I don't know if you've been reading the current Spider-Man run but it's not that good! I hope Spider-Man comics get good again.🤞
I miss the early days of comics, when the storylines were still fresh, and they weren't constantly rebooting or rotating the timeline to keep everything the same, but slightly newer.
I F**KIN’ LOVE THESE!! Your video essays are interesting, inspiring, thought provoking and efficient. As well as impressive, the editing it literal art and your deep dives into every action [be they of the writers or characters or viewers]. It’s awe inspiring. I’m a writer, I wish one day to write a book that will be publish and inspire and intrigue others. I want to make movies as my dream career. And these keep my brain open to taking greater narrative risk and actually tap into my creativity without playing it too safe I didn’t discover these videos till this year and bro just gotta say- keep up the good work.
Found this channel about a year ago give or take, seriously grateful for all your appreciation/inspiration videos dude. Hope you’re doing well and hope to see more of how you see things. All the best
Ah yes, long suffering spiderman... One could say he is the modern Odysseus... Or not... I don't have enough knowledge on this type of stuff to say that 100%
More like a modern Sisyphus of you ask me, but honestly you could say the same for any action adventure type character perpetually stuck in a floating timeline.
It's really nice to see a series of videos follow through past high-school and through the college years. Hell for as game changing as it is, I'm suprised by the suprisingly small pool of video discussion in detail Gwen's death and it's impact. I would really love a tv series that follows Peter from school to Adulthood and pulls from all these different eras into a cohesive journey. P.S Spectacular Spider-Man #200 is THE sequel to ASM #121 and #122 for me and Marvel is too coward to collect it.
This was a great video, I'm really glad to see you highlight the phenomenal writing of spiderman, these early stories are what we know of Peter and the lasting impact the juggernaut writers were at making characters indelible in the pop culture consciousness!!! I'm excited for part two!!!
Hell yeah I was wondering when the next part was going to be, I figured you were taking a break after Stan's MASSIVE run! Really great look at probably one of Spideys most important stories! I look forward to your take on the rest of the Gerry Conway run!
I challenge you to make a video on Ultimate Spider-man. Not the comic book. No-no-no, the TV show. I'm curious to what themes you could turn into a video.
LETS GOO! I was waiting for this for so so long! Thank you so much for putting this out! I can't wait for part 5! Thsse are always so good and insightful! Thanks for all the great video esssays. You always inspire me to write better and make a video essay of my own one day!
Your videos about the og spiderman comics are great, I really want you to cover the roger stern run. That would be lit as shit bou 🔥🔥🔥 I really want to see how it compares to the ditko/Lee and gerry conway runs. I know it doesn't mean much but I'd be personally grateful 🤙
Gwen fucking died! Like really think about it. Her dying back then was like if they killed MJ now(and committed). Sure its comics, no one dies forever, well except for Gwen! 616 gwen is dead, period. Whenever she does come back its usually just to redo her death or create a clone who dies anyway. How long was the gap? The gwen cannon to spider-gwen's creation? Was it like decades? Thats insane! You know why? What character in marvel comics history has ever stayed dead? Especially recently.
The only thing I can think of off the top of my head where a character's first love interest is eventually overshadowed by their replacement would be Cyclops and Jean Grey, sure we know they were together and were together first, but movie-wise its hard to think of Jean not being with Wolverine and in the comics its hard to think of Cyclops not being with Emma Frost. Otherwise such a changing status quo like this just seems crazy, in that it's lasted this long and become synonymous with the character on a fundamental level. I guess if I were to try to find anything in DC comics that matches this, maybe its that Robin will always eventually leave to become Nightwing, a turning point for the status quo. It always hits different when a character leaves, as opposed to when they join. (Maybe you could argue about Blue Beetle too, but nowadays they seem to skip over the idea there ever was a first Blue Beetle before Jaime anyway)
I'm in a very strange place of rapid choices and mistakes I'm making along with decision making for my future. I've been struggling the couple months. Long story short THANK YOU for making this video. I've only seen the movies and shows of Spider-man and could never give myself the time for comics or books. I don't know your name but your words and perspective has helped clear the fog. Thank you Implicitly Prententious, keep up the good work.
While there are other Gerry Connway works I enjoy I always found his run of Amazing Spider-Man to be lackluster save for the Death of Gwen Stacy and its aftermath.
So, more seriously, what's the plan, if any, to factor in Spectacular? -- which by its design focuses on Peter still being in college (albeit graduate school or something, idk, been decades since I've ready any of those original issues.)
Final one. The 'Snik" was highlighted but never discussed. In fact, I was worried at first seeing how the narration actively skipped over both that panel and the declaration "I killed Gwen Stacy". But maybe it's worse to show both of them without comment right before the following issue's message of "I got over it". ASM 275 was something of.... redo. A second chance, just not with MJ because doing that to a superhero's girlfriend would be stupid, right?
Yeah that’s what I think Peter Parker has Peter Pan Syndrome because he made a deal with the devil just to keep his Aunt May and is just going to repeat the same mistakes again which maybe he probably is outdated
