The crazy reason that Gwen Stacy was killed off in the Spider-man comics makes the writers look a bit devilish in a kind of pragmatic way. Does anyone really know why she was killed? A lot of people lost their minds over this when it happened in the comics first off, and then in the movie people couldn’t believe that they would actually go through with it. I honestly blanked when I saw someone comment that they couldn’t believe that the writers wouldn’t change something and allow Gwen to live. People knew it was coming and still couldn’t accept it despite the fact that changing it all around, a common staple in comic books, probably would have had disastrous results.
Gwen Stacey was for better or worse the love interest of Peter Parker and would have likely become far more had the story continued. Of course there’s always the writing to fall back on and the fact that she could have been just one woman in his life that meant something very special but wasn’t destined to stick around forever. Obviously that wasn’t good enough for the writers though since they went to Stan Lee with the idea to kill her off. Stan was on his way out of the office and was in a rush so when they passed the idea by him the only response he gave as a noncommittal one that they obviously took as a green light to go ahead and get rid of the character.
And so we have the highly emotional death of Gwen Stacey. Stan didn’t think it through and when he returned and saw the issue he was aghast at what had been done. It was only after being told that he’d given the okay in an absent-minded sort of way that he remembered. Of course he couldn’t take it back, not at that point. Such a monumental shift would have been kind of a slap in the face to the fans at that time, though by now we know that people come back to life in comics all the time. Heck, they’re doing it in the movies now and it’s become quite a trend.
But Gwen died because it was believed that her and Peter’s romance would eventually lead to marriage and after that to something that might betray the whole idea of Spider-man. Sigh, but then again, he did marry Mary Jane after a while, didn’t he? Great job writers, way to call that one.
Gwen was killed off because her death would mean the erasure of a romantic interest that could become a problem and would give Spider-man the tragic life story that would continually haunt him moving forward. So it’s not just Gwen they were messing with, it was Spider-man as well. Writers can be so cruel sometimes and all because the creations they’re put in charge of aren’t considered real and are therefore open game to do with as they please. I can’t really talk since the characters in my own stories suffer quite a bit at my hands.
But Gwen could have been written out in a different way.
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