Greg Bishansky writes...

While re-watching "Spectacular Spider-Man" as it has been re-run on the Vortexx, I wanted to talk a moment about what a wonderful job you did with Gwen Stacy on the series.

Obviously, Gwen's time in the comics was before my time, but I had read all those old Lee-Ditko and Lee-Romita and Gerry Conway stories years and years before Spec Spidey was a glimmer in anyone's eye, but for me... Gwen was a standard Silver Age girlfriend, and all that entailed. Mary Jane was more interesting, and I couldn't fault Gerry Conway's decision to have Green Goblin toss her off a bridge... it made for a classic story not just for Spider-Man, but for all of comics.

But I never liked seeing Gwen sidelined as all other adaptations seemed to do. For me, Spider-Man was a story about growing up and Gwen represented First Love to me. Yes, he dated Betty Brant first and flirted with Liz Allan, but Gwen was his first Great Love, and most people don't end up with their first Great Love.

So, for years, Gwen was a Silver Age girlfriend and a Stepping Stone in Peter's journey to manhood from my point of view, and little more than that.

And then your show came along, and while that's how I was looking at Gwen at first, she very quickly grew on me... to the point where I really didn't want to see that classic Gerry Conway story adapted into your universe on an emotional level. Although, to this day, my brain still tells me that sooner or later it needed to happen... and while you have dropped hints that it might happen, you've never confirmed it (and I'm not asking you to)... it's not something that I was looking forward to seeing happen. Something I was dreading, in fact.

So you got this guy who never cared for Gwen outside of intellectually believing in her importance to the mythos to fall in love with Gwen Stacy, and a lot of credit goes to Lacey Chabert, too. While I still love Mary Jane more than Gwen, I think you and your team did your job.