There has always been something a little bit pure about Gwen Stacy.

Mind you, this was back in the days before Gwen's character was cloned or recast in a harsher light in the Ultimate universe. More importantly, it's before recent plot twists altered her sweet nature enough to have had a wild fling with Norman Osborn -- Peter Parker's best friend's father and the Green Goblin to boot -- and had his twins in secret.

No, I'm talking about the original Gwen, blue-eyed and blond-haired all-American girl and Peter Parker's first love. Sure, Gwen didn't know Pete was Spider-Man, and she bitterly (mistakenly) blamed Spider-Man for her father's death, but outside of that little hitch she was the perfect girlfriend for our bashful hero.

And then she died, killed in a terrifying encounter with the Green Goblin, and comics changed a little bit, forever.

Sure, sympathetic characters had died before. Most were like Peter's Uncle Ben or Bruce Wayne's parents, killed as a prelude to explain a hero's motivation but never really developing as unique characters on their own. A few were heroes who, invariably, returned to life. But Gwen changed things. She was an innocent, caught in the crossfire for no reason other than loving the good guy. (Remember, this was before anyone decided she'd had sex with Osborn, used their children to blackmail him and gave him plenty of motivation to kill her, Peter's girlfriend or not. By the way, who ever approved that script was a moron.)

Pure, sweet, innocent Gwen Stacy is back in Spider-Man: Blue, a lovely, romantic and melancholy tale by Jeph Loeb.

This new look at Peter's relationship with Gwen is told in the present. Peter, long since married to Mary Jane Watson, is alone in his attic, taping a one-sided conversation with Gwen in which he looks back at their relationship and the way it developed. It's one of those heart-breaking moments; Peter, very much in love with his wife, is still trying to come to grips with the loss of his first real love. After all, Peter still believes he should have been able to save her.

The story has plenty of Spidey-action, with grand battles between our red-and-blue hero and foes including the Goblin, the Rhino, a pair of Vultures and Kraven. But it spends more time looking at the relationships in young Peter's life -- his growing friendship with Harry Osborn, his first meeting and early romantic interest in Mary Jane and, of course, his growing love for Gwen. You won't find Gwen's death in here, by the way -- that's been told and retold often enough. This isn't about that part of her life.

Art is by Tim Sale, Loeb's longtime partner, and while I've often thought his work was a little too pinched and drawn, he does a beautiful job in Blue -- particularly in his interpretations of the two women in Peter's life. As the title suggests -- and as was similarly done with two other Marvel tales, Daredevil: Yellow and Hulk: Gray -- Sale works with a largely blue palette. Far from being a monochromatic work, however, it serves to accent the remaining colors.

It's rare for a mainstream comic to focus so much on the heart instead of the fist. Loeb and Sale pull it off here with grace and style.

by Tom Knapp
Rambles.NET
17 February 2007