Comics nerds like us have generated endless discussion — spoken, print, online — about the decision to kill Gwen Stacey. Who came up with it? Why? What did her co-creator, Stan Lee, think of it? Was it a good idea? Alan Stewart covers some of the controversy on his own blog if you’re curious, and haven’t heard it all already.
I’ve seen nowhere near as much discussion of the Green Goblin’s death the following issue. No surprise, really. While killing off a major antagonist was rare back then — and despite his later resurrection, Norman Osborne dies very, very dead — there’s no real controversy about it. By murdering Gwen Stacey (despite the endless debate whether it was really Peter who finished her off, the ultimate responsibility is clearly the Goblin’s) Norman graduated to “he needed killing” status. In their final battle Peter loses any interest in bringing the Goblin in to stand trial.
This is truer to Peter’s character than I realized when I first read it. Peter’s always had a reservoir of rage; when it looked like Dr. Doom would kill Flash Thompson, Peter’s initial reaction was delight. Of course, Peter overcame that thought and saved Flash; likewise, even after Gwen’s death Peter’s decency wins out.
As Peter informs the Green Goblin he’s going to jail — no passing go, no collecting $200 — the Goblin makes his play. It doesn’t end well for Norman.
These issues are about two years ahead of where I’m at in rereading the Silver Age, but after reading Amazing Spider-Man # 96 I couldn’t help thinking about them.
” … And Now, the Goblin” is best remembered as the issue without the Comics Code Seal of Approval, because in the story Stan showed someone taking drugs, an absolute taboo (I will be blogging about this aspect soon). It’s also the second time that Norman Osborne regained his memory since Spider-Man gave him amnesia about his criminal life. He arranges for Mary Jane to perform at an abandoned off-off-Broadway theater he owns and while he’s there, something begins to surface in the back of his mind … yep, it’s one of his former lairs and sitting there has restored his memory again.
Even though it’s a good story (continuing into the next two issues) it got me thinking that the Goblin was becoming unusable as a foe (something I only just remembered saying in an earlier post). Because he knows Peter’s identity there’s no way to simply lock him up in jail; he has to have his memory wiped every time. Done frequently enough, it would look ridiculous.
Nor can we go with the old “The backlash destroyed him — there’s no way he could have survived that explosion!” because Peter would always have to worry he’d turn up again. After a while, that would look silly too.
In #122, Spider-Man doesn’t consider that if he brings in the Green Goblin, his secret identity is over (I’m surprised nobody’s ever What If-ed that). It’s not surprising, given the circumstances, that he doesn’t think about it, but it’s inevitable. As a practical point, death is the only way to end the story (I stand by this, even given that once Harry learned Peter’s identity, he played cat and mouse games for years). It was also better for the series as a whole to take the Green Goblin off the table.
Gerry Conway made plenty of bad calls in his early comics career. This wasn’t one of them.
Cover of #121 by John Romita, everything else by Gil Kane.
