I came across this comic on a list of recommended reads from a YouTube channel called Variant Comics. The Night Gwen Stacy Died was one of their top listed recommendations.
If you have watched the Spider-Man movies, this one loosely ties in with the Tobey Maguire versions. The comic story is quite tragic and intense. There are some notable differences between the movie and the book, but the story is very similar.
If you’ve only watched the movies, you might think that his love interest was always and only MJ. This is generally true across most of the movies I’ve seen. However, as shown by this comic, that has not always been the case. In fact, I don’t know if Peter Parker and MJ are ever together in the comics. I haven’t gotten that far into them.
One thing I found surprising was the intense emotion displayed by many characters in this series. If you look at the expressions on their faces — Peter Parker, the police officers, Norman and Harry Osborn — they all look extremely tense and upset.
I was also surprised to see that Peter Parker isn’t always kind to others. Harry is struggling with personal challenges, and Peter treats him pretty harshly at times, which I didn’t expect.
As the story moves forward, it’s clear that Peter is deeply upset about Gwen Stacy’s death, so it helps explain some of his anger. Still, it seems like he could benefit from managing those intense emotions a bit better.
I’m fairly new to comics and I think some are better than others. I would love to see an updated version of this story with current art and perhaps refreshed language. This one is fairly old, so some of the language and references feel dated, but that doesn’t take away from what is still a powerful read. The story, though tragic, has inspired some great films over the years, even if they changed the main love interest.
If you are a fan of Spider-Man, you will likely appreciate this story. Just keep in mind that it is quite dark. Don’t expect any happy endings here.
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