Amazing Spider-Man #511
Sins Past Part Three
After having a long lost letter from Gwen Stacy forensically examined, Peter Parker had as huge bombshell dropped on him. Gwen was trying to tell him she was pregnant and had twins named Gabriel and Sarah, the names of two adults who have recently been threatening Peter and his family. Trying to make sense of it all, Peter can’t understand how any of this can be possible and decides that he needs to make sense of this all.[1] When he returns home, Peter wakes up Mary Jane so she can get an early start on rehearsing for her play. When he offers to make her breakfast she knows that he’s planning on spending all day as Spider-Man and won’t be around and she also knows that there is something wrong. However, Peter won’t talk about it even after she reminds him that she still loves him no matter what. When Peter goes into the kitchen to start cooking, Mary Jane looks around their bedroom and discovers that Peter has webbed the letter from Gwen Stacy to the ceiling in their closet so she can’t read it and decides to respect his need for secrets for the time being, as she is good at keeping the secrets of others and wonders if she should keep one of her own secrets for much longer.
Later that day, Peter Parker returns to Gwen Stacy’s grave, not liking what he has to do but decides that he has no choice. He drives a metal pole straight through the ground into the grave below. This action is watched by Gabriel Stacy who reports back to his sister Sarah, saying that Peter is attempting to confirm his worst nightmare. While at that same moment, Mary Jane has just finished a rehearsal with the other cast of the play. When one of the other cast members invite her to a get-together, Mary Jane turns it down saying she has something on her mind that she needs to deal with. This isn’t received very well by one of the other cast members who start gossiping about her behind her back, judging her on her past career as a model and Hollywood actress. When he suggests that some actors need to be whapped on the head like a bad dog, his fellow cast members agree by rolling up their scripts and hitting this gossip over the head. By this time, Mary Jane has returned home and removed the letter from Gwen out of the webbing which is now starting to dissolve.
Elsewhere, Spider-Man has broken into a genetics testing lab with the DNA he hesitantly extracted from Gwen’s corpse, Peter is running a test on the DNA samples left behind by the person who licked the stamps and envelope seal on the letter that was mailed to him. He waits patiently for the DNA test to complete, unwilling to let himself come to conclusions. His thoughts are interrupted when Sarah Stacy enters the room with a gun drawn on him. She explains that while her brother wants to make Spider-Man suffer, she just wants to get things over with and has come to end his life. She goes on to say that after everything he’s done he should give his life up willingly. That’s when the machine matching the DNA gives off a notification that the it is done. The sound distracted Sarah long enough for Spider-Man to leap across the room and disarm her, although she manages to graze his arm with a bullet. In the struggle, Spider-Man pulls off Sarah’s mask and is shocked to see that Sarah looks almost identical to Gwen Stacy. That’s when his spider-sense kicks in allowing the wall-crawler to get out of the way as Gabriel shoots out the window, covering his sister’s escape. Getting the results from the DNA analysis, Peter learns that the DNA is a near-perfect match, confirming his worst fears. While on a nearby rooftop, Gabriel learns what his sister gleaned from her encounter with Spider-Man and is convinced that Peter Parker now knows he’s their father and he’s going to pay for abandoning them.
When Peter gets home, Mary Jane is waiting for him and she tells him that she read Gwen’s letter and knows who the two people who have been threatening his family are. Peter assures her that the children are not his because he and Gwen never had sex. Mary Jane already knows this and then tells him that she knows exactly who the father of Gwen Stacy’s children are.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Mary Jane Watson, Gabriel, and Sarah Stacy
Continuity Notes
There is a lot going on here so let’s break it all down:
The letter in question was received by Peter Parker two issues ago in Amazing Spider-Man #509. The letter was allegedly written while Gwen was in Europe circa Amazing Spider-Man #119. At the time, it was missing the second page and Peter did not know what it said. Peter had it run through forensics the last issue when it was discovered that there were impressions from something that was written on another sheet on top of the letter.
Next issue it is revealed that these children were the result of an affair between Gwen and Norman Osborn. The affair happened after Amazing Spider-Man #61.
Per the Sliding Timescale, Gwen’s children should be around eight years old. However, it’s later revealed in Amazing Spider-Man #514 that they are rapidly aging as a result of Norman Osborn passing on DNA, which had been altered by his Goblin Formula, on to his children.
