gwen stacy

, , , , 0 Comments


harryosblog:

Amazing Spider-Man #121 (June 1973)

Harry’s relapse leads into the most famous (probably) Spider-Man story of all time: The Death of Gwen Stacy.

As time goes on, it’s going to become steadily more obvious what made Harry do it, because this is the beginning of Norman becoming the big bad of the Spideyverse. Also the beginning of Harry’s mental health issues – the doctor diagnoses him with schizophrenia, and that’s gonna be with him the rest of his life.

I don’t know whether the portrayal of Harry’s addiction and mental illness qualifies as sympathetic these days even if that’s what they were going for – Peter doesn’t seem entirely sympathetic, and he’s the one we’re ‘meant’ to listen to. I do think the writers were trying, but – I guess what we know about the nature of addiction has, luckily, moved on.

Also interesting, in the panel where the doctor says Harry’s been taking LSD: Gwen looks sad and worried. MJ looks furious.

, , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Some Raimi Spider-Man headcanons that no-one asked for:

  • Peter is autistic, and has selective mutism (that bit in the first movie where he just smiles at MJ instead of answering her made me think of this: I hope it’s accurate)
  • Harry is bisexual: he hides it well. His feelings about Peter have always been deeply confusing and contradictory.
  • Ursula and her father are Jewish (Mageina Tovah is, after all.)
  • Gwen is openly bisexual
  • Flash Thompson later got in touch with Peter and MJ and apologised for his behaviour in high school, which is why he can be seen in the background at Harry’s funeral.
  • MJ and Gwen sought each other out after the events of Spider-Man 3 and became friends. (Well, that’s semi-canon anyway I guess, the novelisation has them hugging at the funeral)
  • Gwen has three younger brothers, because that’s a bit of canon from ASM that I really like. (It always weirded me out that there were so many only children in the Spiderverse)
  • That little boy who is impressed at Peter’s car stunt is this universe’s Miles Morales.
  • May knows her nephew’s secret identity because she’s essentially his mother. Robbie knows too, because he’s much, much less self-obsessed and cynical than Jonah and quickly worked it out. Ursula also knows, because she lives next door to Peter after all and has witnessed his suspicious comings and goings. All three have sworn to themselves to never, ever tell anyone.

, , 0 Comments

That fic I wrote reminded me of how unnerving (and fascinating) I find Norman’s misogyny to be. In the comics, Norman’s murder of Gwen definitely has a misogynistic edge to it – he refers to her as a ‘worthless female’ and a ‘simpering girl’ and implies that her life wasn’t worth much anyway. (Which is another reason I’m so mad that the movies made Harry Gwen’s killer instead. Harry doesn’t have that same attitude, not at all.) Then, of course, much much later he slept with Lily purely to make her a pawn in his plans, slept with Gwen herself at one point (yeah, sorry, Sins Past is still in continuity, alas)…etc etc, I’d have to look for more examples. I think it’s probably one of those things that evolved as time went on, but I really want to know how and why and when.

Raimi-verse Norman, on the other hand, is definitely a misogynist from the get-go. He leers at MJ (that, and her reaction shot, was in there for a reason), he tells Harry that women -‘a pack of ravening wolves’- are only after his money, also tells him to sleep with MJ and then ditch her, later tells Peter he’ll kill MJ ‘nice and slow’ and just generally…yeah, I get a woman-hating vibe from him. Which I also find unnerving and fascinating. I mean, I loathe Norman as a person, but I love him as a character and villain, and him being (depending on the universe) at least somewhat of a misogynist is probably one of the reasons why – Green Goblins don’t exist in real life, but Norman Osborns definitely do.

«< 3 4 5 6 7 >»