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Share a moment in comic history that struck you like lightning
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64 posts in this topic

It could be the day Gwen Stacy died. It could be the day Uncle Sal bought you your first comic book. It can be any significant comic moment in your life. Even better if you have a piece of art from that comic please share it. Mostly this an exercise to whittle a way the next week until we disappear into HA bid or not bid mode. Have fun.

Amazing Spider-Man #121 (Written by Gerry Conway, Art by Gil Kane and John Romita)

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Incidentally it's been covered before but here is what Russ Burlingame reported on September 6, 2017----an exert  below from Gerry Conway's book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.

“She was a nonentity, a pretty face. She brought nothing to the mix. It made no sense to me that Peter Parker would end up with a babe like that who had no problems," Conway is quoted as saying in the book.

"Only a damaged person would end up with a damaged guy like Peter Parker. And Gwen Stacy was perfect! It was basically Stan fulfilling Stan’s own fantasy. Stan married a woman who was pretty much a babe," Conway continued. "Joan Lee was a very attractive blond who was obviously Stan’s ideal female. And I think Gwen was simply Stan replicating his wife, just like Sue Storm was a replication of his wife. And that’s where his blind spot was. The amazing thing was that he created a character like Mary Jane Watson, who was probably the most interesting female character in comics, and he never used her to the extent that he could have. Instead of Peter Parker’s girlfriend, he made her Peter Parker’s best friend’s girlfriend. Which is so wrong, and so stupid, and such a waste. So killing Gwen was a totally logical if not inevitable choice.”

 
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7 minutes ago, Blastaar said:

To keep it connected to OA....my first comic I "collected", not just read. 

 

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Oh man I remember this one. I still remember sitting at my desk and bag and boarding this powerful issue.

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40 minutes ago, davidtere said:

In 1970 at the local library, I went searching for a book 'about comic books'. The only book they had there was a copy of Seduction of the Innocent. I tried to read the text back then but it was boring. However the discovery of the images / pictures in the center introduced me to an entire new genre of comics. I was forever damaged. I don't think that Wertham had intended that to happen. Picture 1 is of course from SOTI. Picture 2 is an image I took a few years back when some of my comic book collecting friends were coming over. And to (also) keep it within the bounds of OA...I believe that Wertham probably would have had an issue with this page as well. 

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Wow that’s great. Exactly what I was counting on that you all would tie the art to the moment. Seeing these images especially in the context of your unique discovery at the library is thrilling.

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9 hours ago, grapeape said:

Incidentally it's been covered before but here is what Russ Burlingame reported on September 6, 2017----an exert  below from Gerry Conway's book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.

“She was a nonentity, a pretty face. She brought nothing to the mix. It made no sense to me that Peter Parker would end up with a babe like that who had no problems," Conway is quoted as saying in the book.

"Only a damaged person would end up with a damaged guy like Peter Parker. And Gwen Stacy was perfect! It was basically Stan fulfilling Stan’s own fantasy. Stan married a woman who was pretty much a babe," Conway continued. "Joan Lee was a very attractive blond who was obviously Stan’s ideal female. And I think Gwen was simply Stan replicating his wife, just like Sue Storm was a replication of his wife. And that’s where his blind spot was. The amazing thing was that he created a character like Mary Jane Watson, who was probably the most interesting female character in comics, and he never used her to the extent that he could have. Instead of Peter Parker’s girlfriend, he made her Peter Parker’s best friend’s girlfriend. Which is so wrong, and so stupid, and such a waste. So killing Gwen was a totally logical if not inevitable choice.”

 

Which is why I think Conway was wrong. Two flesh and blood people might behave like Conway said, but with comics, kids are projecting themselves into the superhero’s role. And what does a kid want? The perfect girl. What saved MJ is she wasn’t all that damaged, at least by today’s standards, and she looked hot.

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40 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Which is why I think Conway was wrong. Two flesh and blood people might behave like Conway said, but with comics, kids are projecting themselves into the superhero’s role. And what does a kid want? The perfect girl. What saved MJ is she wasn’t all that damaged, at least by today’s standards, and she looked hot.

You're not the only one who thinks Conway was wrong. My brother to this day curses Conway and Marvel for what he felt was a heartless betrayal of the readers. Gwen was the perfect girl, the girl Peter Parker deserved. Like every dirty trick foisted upon real life hard luck fellas, just when one of their own finds the perfect girl, she's taken away forever.

Conway's execution of what he saw as a pretty face-non-entity may have been a knee jerk power play against an irritant. Clearly what resulted was a more deeply injured alter ego of the world's most misunderstood superhero. Gwen was never going to be the woman to stand behind the man, who dressed beneath the costume of Spider-Man. She counted that masked hero as the murderer of her father. She hated him.

As for MJ it turns out she would and did stand behind Peter Parker and Spider-Man. The rest as they say is Marvel history. ASM 121-122 has  forever recorded the controversial and classic Death of Gwen Stacy. It's something my brother and I still talk about all these years later.

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32 minutes ago, vodou said:

How -in nearly 40 years of personal comicdom- have I never seen this until today lol

Clearly you never venture into the main comic threads on the CGC board. This image is used on a near daily basis, sometimes edited with other people’s faces. 

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I think when Bullseye killed Elektra-- I was an avid reader and subscriber (!) to Daredevil starting luckily enough with #158 and I loved all of the run-- when she died I was really blown away and I brought the book into school for friends to read-- and they were hooked too.

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