Gwen Stacy's Never Coming Back

In 1965 Gwen Stacy died. She was held captive by the Green Goblin on top of the Washington Bridge. During a fight between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, Gwen was knocked off the top of the bridge. In his attempt to save her, Spider-Man slung one of his webs, catching her quickly. The abrupt stop snapped her neck. She died. Her death greatly affected Spider-Man, Mary Jane and so many others.

Over the years, Gwen Stacy clones have come and gone. In magical mythical cross overs and what if's she's appeared. In alternate realities she's been alive but soon after leaves. In effect, she is dead and is never coming back.

This is strange because many Marvel Universe characters always come back. The mutant Cypher with the passive power of translation was killed in 1989's epic saga The Fall of the Mutants. And he came back almost 20 years later.

So what does this have to do with Spiritual Musclehead? Well, it's Spiritual Sci-Fi Friday.

One of the interesting things about the Marvel Universe is that it has its own rules and ways of doing things. It operates certain set standards. In many ways, in order to understand the Marvel Universe and interpret it, you must use the Marvel Universe. In order to understand the importance of Gwen Stacy's death, you have to read comics in the Marvel Universe to understand the importance of it.

The same is true with another book called the Bible. Many people call it false, they say that it contradicts itself many times. And I will be honest, yes, if you just look at small areas, you see contradictions. But the same can be said of Wolverine where there are many, many contradictions. Take for example his claws. In the Captain America, Black Widow and Wolverine comic, Wolverine in the 1940's has no claws yet years later when Magento pulls out Wolverine's adamantium skeleton, he has bone claws. Total contradiction right? Yet reading the whole of the Marvel Universe, you understand the complexities that show why this happened and the reason behind it.

If you need to do this with the Marvel Universe, why can't it be done with the Bible. Even if you just see it as literature and not the inspired Word of God, you still have to use the in universe of the Bible to interpret the Bible. To do otherwise is unfaithful.

There is much more I could write about this, but that's for another Spiritual Sci-Fi Friday.

In the end, what's important is that we shouldn't discount something just because we think there are contradictions or problems in it. There are many problems with Gwen Stacy's death. Some have said that her abrupt death ended the Silver age of comics. Comics themselves were never again the same. They were allowed to deal with darker issues. Over the years, many people have asked, cried out, that they bring Gwen Stacy back. But to do so would break the rules of the Marvel Universe. She's never coming back.

The Bible is an in universe book made up of 66 smaller books and two divisions of Old and New or the Tahnak and the Gospels, History and Letters. To read one without being in Universe is to not fully understand it. Everything else is just fan fiction.