Some questions about Sins Past

Some questions about Sins Past.

Norman has had amnesia on and off all the time, it’s hard to keep track of. Sometime he knows that Peter is Spider-man, sometimes he doesn’t.

At the time he had sex with Gwen, was he aware that Peter was Spider-man?

What age was Gwen at the time? What age was Norman?

Did Norman know that Gwen was a virgin? Do you think she would have told him beforehand?

Do you think that Peter would have accepted her afterwards and helped raise the kids?

Why has Norman never taunted Peter about having sex with Gwen? Editorial reasons aside.

Who do you think made the first move?

If the pregnancy wasn’t an issue, do you think Gwen regretted the sex itself?

Gwen wouldn’t let Norman near the twins because of how badly he treated Harry, but was she aware of this before she slept with him?

My understanding is that technically she didn’t cheat on Peter since they were on a break. Did Peter date anyone else during this time?

Norman was in good guy Norman Osborn mode (not Green Goblin persona) though pretty much all later writers deliberately decided there was no real difference between the two/eliminated the entire split personality thing and had Norman be evil 24-7.

In the original GG stories, only the GG persona knew Peter was Spidey. Norman didn't.

Gwen was around 20 and Norman abusing Harry was a retcon that JMS tossed in on top of doing his best to write Norman as still having a split personality in the story as far as Gwen telling Norman she had his bastards/would never let them near her, as the real inciting event that caused him to snap/turn into GG and kill Gwen.

Also, it was a retcon and that was why it was never brought up. Though there is longstanding urban legend, that JMS (when his original proposal that they were Gwen/Peter's kids was vetoed) got the idea of making Norman their parents off of a single line of dialogue from a Paul Jenkins GG story that had Norman reenacting Gwen's death with action figures and suddenly having the GG action figure make a pass at the Gwen Stacy action figure.

I don't think something done purely for shock value had as much forethought and careful planning as your asking for.

Was Norman ever really a “good guy”? I get the idea that he was always selfish and sleazy.

The whole thing was because JMS had a hard on for doing a story with Gwen having kids that rapidly aged to adulthood (and one of whom was a lookalike for Gwen herself) and would.not.give.up.on.it......

Even when editorial vetoed it, he simply reworked it to change Peter (their original father) to Norman Osborn.

Even JMS ultimately realized he fucked up and fucked up hard, to the point that he explicitly only agreed to do One More Day on the condition that Sins Past was one of the Spider-Man stories that got wiped out by the deal with Mephisto, but Quesada refused to let him do it after initially agreeing to it. And worse, Quesada explicitly stated after OMD, when no one knew WHAT Spider-Man stories from 1987-2008 were still canon or not, that Sins Past WAS 100% canon and survived the rewriting of the timeline.

At best he was an amoral businessman who was proven right when Mendall Strom turned out to be evil all along.

Also, he was a legit good father to Harry and his only "crime" was that he was an absentee father who basically let Harry have free reign with his bank accounts to buy drugs with. He never laid a finger on Harry or said anything cruel or abusive to him in the original Lee/Conway stories and it wasn't until DeMatties that Norman retroactively became a physically and emotionally abusive father.

Sins past never happened. Gwen is pure and perfect. Fuck JMS and Quesada.

Steve Ditko is adamant that Norman was always intended to be the Green Goblin, which would make him *at best* a sadistic criminal on top of being a highly amoral businessman in his 'day job'. He was never a particularly good person, but him being totally batshit insane on top of it came later.

>Quesada explicitly stated after OMD, when no one knew WHAT Spider-Man stories from 1987-2008 were still canon or not, that Sins Past WAS 100% canon and survived the rewriting of the timeline.
Quesada is such a little shit. When he dies of a heart attack and I say "GOOD", I'll bring this up to justify myself.

I can't believe this is still canon. And it IS still canon, right? Like said, it survived the wipe at the end of One More Day by editorial dictate. Peter Parker got cucked with his first love by his greatest villain, and it's still canon.

I know it’s a terrible story and it’s character assasination of the worst kind... but I find it so fucking hot. No idea why. I guess the idea of Gwen being seduced by Norman even though she knows it’s wrong, and justifying it in her head that she is on a break with Peter. The idea that it was (a) a pity fuck, and (b) her virginity makes the whole thing even hotter.

It's retarded. You can like it but you have to admit it's stupid.

I hope they don't retcon it but continue to not aknowledge it, because I want to retcon it, I have ideas about stories and I want to be a comic book writer.

Oh it’s stupid, no doubts about that. I guess I find the whole situation kind of arousing though.

I can't tell if Quesada hates Spider-Man or loves him in an incredibly twisted way.

How often is a hero cucked by his nemesis to the point where he might have ended up raising his kids? That's the most fucked up part. If Gwen had lived, she would have guilt tripped Peter into being step-daddy to goblin babies. And there would have always been that sexual tension between Gwen and Norman.

Now, it's the ultimate salt in the wound knowing Gwen gave it up out of pity to a Goblin, but denied it to a man she loved.

He's like Venom in that way. He hates him but he can never let go because he is obsessed with him. And banging his own daughter.

hating Spider-Man is a prerequisite for working at Marvel.

If Gwen lived this retarded story wouldn't have happened.

Norman was always an outright dick to Harry after the Accident that created the GG.

Norman being a shitty dad regardless of the Goblin kicked in not soon after he died.

>At the time he had sex with Gwen, was he aware that Peter was Spider-man?
Unless some retcon took place that I don't know of, he still had amnesia during that time.

>What age was Gwen at the time? What age was Norman?
Gwen couldn't have been more than 20-21 years old. I don't think we've ever had any sort of indication of how old Norman is but given how his son was in college at the time he should be somewhere in his late 40s-early 50s.

>Did Norman know that Gwen was a virgin? Do you think she would have told him beforehand?
He probably could tell, even if she didn't tell him.

>Do you think that Peter would have accepted her afterwards and helped raise the kids?
Sadly yes, Peter Parker is just that kind of guy.

>Why has Norman never taunted Peter about having sex with Gwen? Editorial reasons aside.
I don't really think there's another reason than that. He's certainly not above such methods when it comes to demoralizing Peter.

>Who do you think made the first move?
Norman.

>If the pregnancy wasn’t an issue, do you think Gwen regretted the sex itself?
She was the kind of character that would regret it.

>Gwen wouldn’t let Norman near the twins because of how badly he treated Harry, but was she aware of this before she slept with him?
Aware of how badly he treated Harry? Given the fact that they knew each other way before that she's probably had numerous chances to see his parenting skills firsthand. But then again if I'm not mistaken he was supposed to be a good father before the Goblin thing, in 616 at least.

>My understanding is that technically she didn’t cheat on Peter since they were on a break. Did Peter date anyone else during this time?
Technically she really didn't and I'd forgotten all about that until now and you even made me go back and check but yeah, they were and no he didn't.

It's worth noting that the first issue had been published before Quesada decided that Peter couldn't be allowed to be an absent father to fully-grown, illegitimate twins.

You might think this would be something important that would have been decided between the story being pitched, and work beginning on it, but Marvel doesn't work like that.

Why did JMS have such a thing for Gwen in the first place? I've read rumors that he would've stayed after OMD as long as Gwen was brought back.

That explains the ridiculous "We never even did it" explanation for why Pete couldn't be the father, they couldn't alter the already published issue and really didn't have much time to think of anything better.

user, she seduced him. That probably makes it even hotter for you.

In the first issue, Gabriel's face was drawn to resemble Peter more closely, this was changed from part 2 onwards.

Examining Silver Age superhero relationships by modern standards of sexual behaviour is difficult at best, though. Back then, the audience was largely younger, and the Comics Code restricted what could be said or shown, so there was seldom implications of sex between unmarried characters, and you could presume maybe they were waiting for marriage.

Now if it lasts more than 3-4 dates and they're not having sex, that's considered weird.

It really was the other way around. I'd even go as far as to say that there was more at play than just his seductiveness, but that's probably just wishful thinking.

This. In the issue where he reveals his identity, the flashbacks before the accident show him as absent, and afterwards he is verbally abusive prick.
He only becomes nice after his memory wipe which is why he buys Harry and Peter an apartment.

> At the time he had sex with Gwen, was he aware that Peter was Spider-man?
No, he was not
> What age was Gwen at the time? What age was Norman?
Gwen was 19, Norman was 32

> Did Norman know that Gwen was a virgin? Do you think she would have told him beforehand?
Gwen wasn’t a virgin for having slept around collage

> Do you think that Peter would have accepted her afterwards and helped raise the kids?
Probably, she would have lied to him and told him they were his so his sense of responsibility would have overridden any logic his brain would have formulated

> Why has Norman never taunted Peter about having sex with Gwen? Editorial reasons aside.
Because both Peter and Norman aren’t children who find sex to be an act of loyalty or betrayal

> Who do you think made the first move?
Gwen

> If the pregnancy wasn’t an issue, do you think Gwen regretted the sex itself?
Probably, he was older and she was desperate, in the future I’m sure she would have looked back on that in shame.

> Gwen wouldn’t let Norman near the twins because of how badly he treated Harry, but was she aware of this before she slept with him
Nope

You thinking that Norman was 32 during that time is somehow not the worst thing about this post.

>Examining Silver Age superhero relationships by modern standards of sexual behaviour is difficult at best, though. Back then, the audience was largely younger, and the Comics Code restricted what could be said or shown, so there was seldom implications of sex between unmarried characters
That's true, but I always thought that this page was such an implication.
>dinner at home
>I'm having you all to myself

Sins Past is still canon, remember the kids showed up post-OMD

So, what? Like 37, 38 then?

You can read that page as Gwen wanting to take things to the next level, but you can also easily interpret that page in a more all-ages-friendly way, as she just wants to spend time with him, in a location where it's much less likely for him to suddenly disappear on her for vague and unexplained reasons.