User blog comment:Ultimate Heatblast/The Fate of Gwen Stacy/@comment-4388254-20120923171911/@comment-61022-20120927030845

What are you talking about? Amateur writer? You're talking about Gerry Conway here. An icon. And there was a reason they killed Gwen Stacey: Spider-Man was all about tragedy, at the time his relationship with Gwen was getting to the point where the characters were going to get married. At the time it was the opinion that to have Peter get married would age the character before his time. At the time of that publication he was just barely starting college.

If you recall, one of the biggest problems with Peter's recent history was that they were trying to keep the character still appeal to the "down and out loner" that was his genesis, the problem was that his marriage to Mary Jane aged him, and limited what sort of things that could happen to the character. Mind you, when Marvel "undid" Pete and Mary Jane's marriage it was one of the most asinine ways possible.. But I digress.

As for Mary Jane being a "tramp" Have you ever read anything pre-Brand New Day? Really? Mary Jane has much more breadth of character than Gwen ever did as a supporting cast member. She was only in a relationship with Peter for 20 years of publications and then was married to him for 30 years more worth of publications. They developed her character to a fine point, the struggles she faced as the woman married to Spider-Man, her struggling career, stalkers, quitting smoking, dealing with the loss of a baby.

Calling her a tramp? Sheesh, talk about under rating a character. And you know, that's a really ironic thing to say when Gwen was the person who cheated on Peter while in a relationship with him and bore Norman Osborn's children (Or did you miss that story arc?) The only time Mary Jane has been with other men was (a) When she and Peter broke up a time or two when they were dating (b) when their marriage went sour and they were separated (although I don't recall there being a specific instance) and (c) After Marvel made the editorial decision to have Mephisto erase Peter and MJ's marriage from existence and they were... dun dun dun.. broken up. If anything, Mary Jane has been more faithful to Peter and Gwen was.

As for Gwen Stacy.. And I've read every Gwen Stacy story published between her first appearance in 1965 and her death in 1973. She went from a total snob and a real crieten to Peter, to being a doting love sick puppy who would smother Peter with love when he was around and cry when he wasn't. Really they didn't do much by way of character development with this one. The only thing iconic about Gwen Stacy in any way shape or form is the death of her father, which gave some MUCH needed tension in her relationship with Peter (for story telling purposes) since she blamed Spider-Man (right at a time that Peter was contemplating revealing his identity to her) and then her own death, which pushed really humanized Peter, the reader had to experience his loss and watch as he was almost driven to the point of mindless revenge.

I think when you're evaluating these characters you are not looking beyond superficial preferences as opposed to actually basing the characters merits by the contributions to the mythos, or their contributions to said mythos.