hey traincat, im a new spiderman fan so im slowly getting into the lore. i was just curious about the lore behind gwen and peter from an expert like you (esp her death’s impact on him and affecting his behavior with other characters) no pressure :)
Hey anon, welcome to Spider-Man! It's wild out here.
So I think it's pretty easy to get into the lore surrounding Gwen -- and PeterGwen -- because in the grand scheme of things, her appearances are fairly limited, especially if you compare her to other Spider-Man love interests like Mary Jane and Felicia. This doesn't mean she isn't important, though -- obviously she's left a deep, lasting mark on both the canon and the fandom. I have a Gwen reading list here but let's get into the nitty gritty.
Gwen is first introduced at a turning point in Spider-Man comics in Amazing Spider-Man #31, when Peter is just entering college, towards the end of the Ditko era. A vampy, sharp-tongued "beauty queen of Standard High" (Harry Osborn's words), Gwen and Peter's early interactions are kind of hilariously antagonistic. They're both clearly attracted to each other but neither one of them can communicate their way out of a paper bag, so they just end up clashing.
(ASM #34) The boy you like tries to pick up your book? Put the kibosh on him and show him who's boss by slamming your heel down on top of it.
With the slide into the Romita Sr. era's dreamier, more romantic take on Peter -- and his supporting cast -- Gwen softened to Peter, although she always had a quick temper, and they started dating. They bonded over their mutual status as science majors and their shared classes, although their relationship was frequently up and down, due to Peter's secrecy and jealousy issues (he was frequently convinced Flash was putting the moves on Gwen) and Gwen's temper. She couldn't understand why Peter was frequently missing during dangerous situations, but rest assured: only she was allowed to call him a coward.
(ASM #69) Love her. I'm an unabashed Gwen fan, so you're not getting like, an unbiased piece from me, sorry.
Peter and Gwen were tempestuous at times, but they were also very sweet and romantic. Peter in particular -- and we have to judge by Peter here because we just have other romantic entanglements of his to go by -- is an extremely devoted partner once he's seriously involved with someone. Peter WILL go from a third date straight to marriage if he has his way, and that's pretty much what happened with him and Gwen. You'll typically only hear her referred to as his girlfriend at the time of her death, because that's what she was, but if she and Peter weren't officially engaged, then they were at least seriously talking about marriage, which casts the relationship in a more serious light.
(Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2) "Whoa, lad! Better drop anchor while you can! Keep talking like that, and I'm liable to lead you to the preacher instead of the party! And I'm sure you wouldn't want that to happen... would you, Mr. Parker? I notice you didn't answer me, young man!"
(ASM #99) "And you also know -- what I'm trying to ask. What I wanna know is -- how will you feel -- after I ask it?" Oh my God, Peter. Like, I can't overstate this -- Peter and Gwen were going to get married to the point where, after her death, La Prensa, a publisher in Mexico to whom Marvel had licensed Spider-Man, said, "Haha. No." And continued to publish a series of comics where Gwen lived and she and Peter got married.
Yes, they were roughly nineteen, but it wasn't the first time Peter thought about marrying his girlfriend (he previously nearly proposed to Betty Brant), and he would only be twenty-three when he married Mary Jane. Some of this is because it was typical for people to get married younger at the time of publication of these stories; some of it is because Peter Parker is an insufferable marriage fiend. He LOVES being married so, so much and he is making it everyone else's problem.
(What If? #24)
But we don't live in the La Prensa or What If? canon, and Gwen would be murdered by Norman Osborn in Amazing Spider-Man #121. If you want to know what kind of freak I am, I actually have a signed poster of the cover of that comic by Gerry Conway, the writer of the time. I think it's hard to undersell how much of an impact Gwen's death had not only on Peter (and his surrounding cast) but also on the comics landscape at the time. It was almost unthinkable that Spider-Man, our hero, wouldn't be able to rescue his girl from certain doom -- a fact that's lampshaded in Peter's tragic monologue as he attempts to pull Gwen to safety.
"Who else could save a falling girl from certain dea -- Hey kid -- what's wrong? Don't you understand? I saved you -- you can't be -- No, oh no, no, no -- don't be dead, Gwen -- I don't want you to be dead!" (ASM #122) It's such a heartbreaking monologue, in part because the sentiment is so childish in its nature -- "I don't want you to be dead" -- from a character who assumes so much responsibility and was in a lot of ways already hardened by the deaths of Uncle Ben and George Stacy.
The "snap!" sound effect when the webline connects with Gwen's ankle was also so upsetting that it's been left out of a lot of retellings of the story, because of the implication that, while the Green Goblin is responsible for throwing Gwen off the bridge, the actual physical act that killed her was the whiplash when Peter tried to save her. (I think TASM2 struck a good balance with this, that Peter is ultimately too late and can't catch her in time, and that she's doomed from the fall no matter what, while changing things slightly.)
"Maybe you killed her." (Webspinners #12)
So much of Gwen's legacy is connected to her death and how it changed the nature of Spider-Man. TASM/2, for instance, exist in a world where Peter being unable to save Gwen is a foregone conclusion -- Captain Stacy, dying in Peter's arms, doesn't say, "Look after Gwen." He says, "Stay away from Gwen." Her green coat and purple skirt, the presence of the bridge, it's all foreshadowing of her fate.
You'll see people claim sometimes that Gwen's death doesn't have that much on an effect on the cast of Spider-Man, but it's not true. The reminder of what his father did to her -- and Gwen was Harry's friend before she was ever Peter's girlfriend -- is something that haunts Harry in his darkest hours.
(Spectacular Spider-Man #180)
(Spectacular Spider-Man #200) "She fell... and, in a sense, we all fell with with her." Sentiment of the fivesome for real. Gwen's loss is felt in MJ's determination to defend herself and in Peter's rage when Gwen's memory is invoked, like in Spider-Man & Black Cat: Evil That Men Do #6 when Felicia is taken to the bridge by a man Peter views as an enemy and Peter, triggered by memories of Gwen's fall and Felicia in what he views as danger, nearly beats him to death. (I'm probably a little more positive on Evil That Men Do than most people, because I love PeterFelicia and have a certain tolerance for early 2000s bro-y comic book writing, but content warning for like. Everything in the book. I would look up a list before you go into it. The same with The Child Within, which unlike Evil That Men Do is a genuine masterpiece.) Similarly, when Norman tries to throw MJ off the bridge in an echo of his murder of Gwen, Peter responds by catching her in a different way.
(ASM #512)
Gwen haunts the narrative -- sometimes melancholy, like Spider-Man: Blue, or Romita Sr. and DeMatteis' stunning oneshot in Webspinners #1, The Kiss. Sometimes controversially, in the now retconned Sins Past. Sometimes vengefully, in the case of Norman Osborn, who hallucinated her ghost in the dreadfully named Gold Goblin series not that long ago.
"Tell Gwen I miss her, too." (Spider-Man: Blue #6)
"I'm talking about guilt, Mister Osborn. Welcome to it." (Gold Goblin #1)
She and her relationship with Peter are part of the mythos, and for a character who only appeared originally between issues #31 and #122, which is nothing in the grand scale of Spider-Man character, she's more than left her mark of the body of canon and I find her continued presence so fascinating. I hope that helped a little!
