The first wave of *real* gloom (as opposed to the standard neuroses that Pete had in the Ditko issues and the early Romita issues) set in when Gwen Stacy was killed, about 15 years before the marriage. Peter moped around for a while after Gwen's death, seemed to get over it, then Gwen's clone showed up and put him through the wringer all over again. *That* set the stage for gloomy, depressing stories if anything did.

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I have to disagree. While Peter's grief over Gwen's death certainly played a part in the issues immediately after her death, that grief NEVER became the focus of Amazing Spider-Man. Instead, the next few issues after Gwen's death dealt with the same types of Spider-Man adventures as they had previously. Spidey fought Luke Cage, the Man-Wolf, the Kangaroo, etc.

Certainly, Peter was melancholy during this period (and his relationships with various supporting cast members were strained), but he still joked, and still acted like Peter Parker. I wouldn't say that there was much more gloom than there was when George Stacy had died previously (and that had a much more soap-opera-ish feel in terms of the strain on Gwen and Peter's relationship).

Conway and Andru gradually showed Peter putting his life back together (and developing a relationship with Mary Jane), only to then have the Jackal come along and use Gwen's clone as a psychological weapon against him. But the book NEVER became excessively gloomy, and always remembered that it was The Amazing Spider-Man.

Aside from some of the grim detours in the late 80s and early 90s, (like Kraven's Last Hunt), I don't think the true era of gloom really started until the "everything you know is a lie" and "Spider-Man's world will never be the same" stunts began, one after another. You know; "Peter's parents are really robots", "Pursuit", The Clone Saga, the "death" of Aunt May, the trial of Peter Parker, the "death" of Mary Jane, etc.

Up until that stuff, Peter's entire life was not routinely upended in such damaging and unbelievable ways.

today all of the fanboys woul dnot want to have a gwen character because she is not so "kewl" for them. it is very sad and if they can get from there basement and take the hands off the penis for a little day they can see this. all of them now are to much grim and gritty and sexy. you have to admit they do not love a sweet good person or hero any more.
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You hear that, fanboys? Take your hands off the penis.

The very first Spider-Man story killed Ben Parker. Just because later writers take such an event as "permission" to tell dark stories doesn't mean that its the story's fault.

All in all, Spider-Man's world still remained basically upbeat for nearly 20 years after Gwen's death. If today's writers just so happen to blame that one old story for their excesses, then it's their fault.

Andrew, nice to see someone else on the "marriage wasn't the end of the world" side... :)

Stephen Robinson wrote: SER: A good sign of trouble is when you make a character less unique. 1960s Spider-Man: Teenage superhero who wasn't an adult hero's sidekick, who lived with his elderly aunt and had money trouble, and who's not beloved by the public at large for his heroic efforts The current character is flat-out less unique. What made Spider-Man appealing is not just that he's got spider powers. That's only part of it.

When assessing "uniqueness of character" I tend to take into account the history of the character as well as current status.  He's gone through a lot of things that other characters haven't.  His relationship with Mary Jane alone is something that hasn't been seen in any other comic.  Yeah, other characters have gotten married, but Peter and MJ's road to marriage was and is one of a kind.

But even if you don't take backstory into account...

The thing is, with the possible exception of "living with elderly aunt" (which went away 41 years ago), none of the aspects you listed are particularly unique these days.  At the time it occured, marrying him off enhanced his uniqueness rather than taking it away.  Major characters almost never got married and if they did, it was to someone who was "The Love Interest" from the beginning or someone they met the week before. 

That aside, "not beloved by the public" has nothing to do with his marital status and money troubles still occur with young married couples.  Keep MJ as an off-broadway actress instead of a huge movie star or supermodel and you keep the unique aspects of her personality while keeping them out of the upper class.

(I will agree that an ongoing membership in a superhero team is a mistake, but that's really easy to fix, y'know?)

 
 

<<They mention Uncle Ben periodically as well.  Is this because "fanboy writers"are clamoring for it as well? 
 
 No, that's the entire basis of Spider-Man.  Gwen has nothing to do with the basis.>>

It's the initial reason, but it's not the sum and substance of Peter's character.  He remembers Ben because he was a very important part of his life, as was Gwen.

Who is more important in the creation of Spider-Man?  Ben, of course, but that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with him thinking about Gwen once in a while anymore than it would have been wrong for him to do it with Aunt May if she had stayed dead. 
 

<<Gwen was mentioned because she has a big part in Peter and Spider-Man's history.  Her death is one of the book's signature stories. 
 
 Doesn't need to be for any reason other than you want it to be.  An unblemished girlfriend that died BECAUSE of Spider-Man hurts the idea that Peter needs to be Spider-Man because his Uncle Ben died since Peter WASN'T Spider-Man.  Contradictory points.  Gwen hurts the basis of the character>>

No she doesn't..  She didn't die because of Peter. She's dead because of Norman.
That his webline snapped her neck is semantics.  She would have died from the fall anyway.  So, anytime anyone close to Peter gets killed or hurt this goes against the basis of Spider-Man?  Not that the original story had him hurting Gwen because of that.
He didn't set out to kidnap her because of Spider-Man.

This doesn't change the lesson learned from Amazing 15, that with great power comes great responsibility.
That Peter should use his powers for good.

 
<<You postulated a theory that holds no water
Instead of just conceding that you were wrong or dropping out... 
 
 If you'll read all my posts you'll see that I conceded that JMS did not do it to make readers forget her. But I'm sticking with the theory that he intentionally tried to make her less likeable. "Forget" was too strong of a word. "Move past" is what I should have used.>>

So you've amended it again?  Fine, but I still don't agree.  I don't think his intent was to make Gwen less likeable or to have long time readers move past her.
I'll grant that he may have been thinking that his story would make Gwen a more fleshed out character, but malicious intent was not intended.  He seemed genuinely taken aback at how strong some of the negative reaction was.

We'e talking writer intent here.  That is the basis for your argument.  Just because fans think a writer damaged a character doesn't mean it was the writer's intent.

I don't believe Mark Millar set out to damage Tony Stark or Reed Richards, but I think he did.  Same with Grant Morrison and Cyclops.
 
<<you then added the, IMO,  ridiculous assertion that Peter's reminiscing occasionally on what a wonderful girl Gwen was somehow keeps him from really  moving on in his lovelife despite all the stories that show he has. 
 
 
If he's going to be single...and he continues to reminisce about a flawless girlfriend who is dead (even as little as once every 3 years)...how can the readers think that he may ever fall in love again?  You may realize that you can have many loves over your life.  A twelve year old readers doesn't...and that's who should be reading this title.  The memory of a flawless, dead Gwen hurts the reader's interest if we have a single Peter Parker and, as readers, are suppose to be interested in his love life.>>

Fact is, he hasn't been a single Peter Parker for the last 20 years  Quite frankly, this is silly when story after story after story has shown that he's moved on. 
He thought about Gwen before he was married to MJ and it didn't keep him from getting involved with Deb Wittman or the Black Cat.    Peter, the majority of the time has had a perspective love interest.  Gwen has never affected this except for the period  after her death and when her clone appeared.

Again, you are greatly exaggerating the impact that
 thinking about Gwen occasionally has had on Peter's love life.  Now, you can percieve whatever you want, that's up to you, but the actual books show that you're wrong.

<<The basis of the (single) Spider-Man character does not, should not have a corollary that Peter has no chance at finding someone as great as Gwen.>>

Since the books have not shown this, I think the problem pretty much exists in your perception, not the facts.

QUOTE: Aside from some of the grim detours in the late 80s and early 90s, (like Kraven's Last Hunt), I don't think the true era of gloom really started until the "everything you know is a lie" and "Spider-Man's world will never be the same" stunts began, one after another. You know; "Peter's parents are really robots", "Pursuit", The Clone Saga, the "death" of Aunt May, the trial of Peter Parker, the "death" of Mary Jane, etc.

Not speaking to quality of the stories, but the gloom rarely lasted for long.  The "Peter Parker No More" stuff was about 6 months, the death of Aunt May was more bittersweet than depressing, the "wait, I'M the clone?!" grief lasted about two months, the post airplane explosion grief was about 5 months, etc.  I think JMS is really the first to try and really milk the gloom, and even then it hasn't been THAT long.  It's just that we kind of "smooth the line" between Sins Past and the Other, and again between that and to the later Civil War stuff up to now. 

If anything I think the concern might be in regards to writers who like to up the ante.  Once Peter gets past the death of the love of his life, it requires something more serious to bring him back to the "grim level" for the storyline at hand.

But really, I think a lot of the major writers at Marvel (not all Marvel writers mind you) just don't seem to know how to write stories where a superhero is "in trouble" on an everyday level.  We don't see stories where Spider-Man has an off moment and forgets to take pictures of his latest battle.  Instead Spider-Man has an off moment and his entire life is destroyed.  Since the major writers also don't seem to understand the concept of milking a situation before wrecking it you end up with mass destruction every six months.  And that just increases the "feeling of grim."

If more writers would stop trying to write stories that "leave a mark" and "change the character FOREVER!!!" and start just trying to tell good stories, I think we'd see more upbeat tones throughout certain books.

Andrew W. Farago wrote: Gwen was Peter's first real love, so killing her off killed off a certain sense of innocence in the books.

In a way, but I think Captain Stacy's death did as well. 

QUOTE: The stories that have dealt with Gwen since then include the Clone Saga and Sins Past, both of which seemed to exist primarily to make Peter Parker absolutely miserable.

Which Clone Saga?  The first one seems to be there both in response to the amount of freaking out amongst fandom that Gwen's death caused and as a way to show that Peter had actually moved on to Mary Jane rather than "going with what he can still have."  The second Clone Saga was designed to give us a single Peter Parker (or reasonable simulation thereof).  So the misery had an "optimistic" point to it.

Sins Past conceptually is an interesting beast.  I honestly think we should count our blessings on that one.  Because if a) JMS had his heart set on having someone deceased (but important to Peter) doing something really bad and Peter having to deal with it and b) Gwen wasn't dead, there's only one other person whose memory he'd be messing with...

QUOTE: Pure speculation here, but if Gwen had just left town instead of being killed off, I wonder if Peter Parker would have gotten married at all.

Since the impetus for the marriage was Stan wanting to write a married couple in the newspaper strip, I doubt it would have affected anything. :-)  It's not like the current creative teams had decided that there was nowhere else to go with the character other than marriage so that takes away from what we can speculate.

QUOTE: With Gwen and MJ both in the picture, you've got a Betty/Veronica/Archie triangle that isn't going to be resolved easily,

But if Gwen "leaves town for good," she's not really in the picture.  At best she can come back to town at just the right moment to be a spoiler for a serious relationship between Pete and MJ, but that's a card that needs to be played with extreme caution.  If Pete gets too wishy washy, he comes across as something of a dickhead, you know?  A year or two of doubt would be fine, but Pete's not a two woman guy.  Eventually he'd pick one.  (Even when he had a "Betty and Veronica" situation with Liz and Betty, he clearly preferred Betty.)

QUOTE: and there's the option of bringing in new characters every once in a while to shake things up (Gwen can date Flash, Flash can date MJ, MJ can date Harry, Harry can date Gwen, Gwen can date Peter, etc.).

Yeah, but that was always an option.  (Adding new girls to the mix strikes me as more interesting than just flip flopping among the same, btw.)  However, if the fans (and creative teams) clearly prefer MJ, options are fewer.  Because no matter how you try to mix things up, all roads will lead to MJ and eventually you run out of convincing reasons to keep them apart. 

That's kind of the paradox of "romantic tension."  Once you get them together it can come across as less interesting than the way it used to be.  But if you keep coming up with obstacles to preserve the tension, then those can get more and more contrived and fans won't like that either.  So you either take them to the next level and see what happens next or you split them up for good and try to come up with a new love interest that doesn't come across as a refried version of the last one.  And even that can be hit and miss.