Amazing Spider-Man #512
Sins Past Part Four
After learning that Gwen Stacy secretly gave birth to two children years ago and that these children — somehow adults — are now back hunting for him, Peter Parker has come to tell Mary Jane everything he knows.[1] However, much to his surprise, Mary Jane already knows and more, she knows exactly who the father of Gwen’s children is. Peter almost can’t believe it and either she figured it out recently, or has known from the beginning and has been keeping it a secret from him. Brought to tears, Mary Jane reveals that she has known all this time and has been keeping it a secret. This deeply hurts Peter, but she explains that people always confide their secrets in her and when Gwen came to her all those years ago, she pleaded with Mary Jane to never tell Peter and she gave her word to never speak a word of it. She reminds Peter how true she is to her word when it comes to secrets as she has kept his for years.[2] She also invokes the name of his Uncle Ben, how he made a vow to use his powers responsibly in his name, and that she made a similar vow to Gwen.[3] She then tells him that she never brought it up in all the years after Gwen’s death because she didn’t want to spoil Peter’s memory of the first woman he truly loved.[4] Peter then asks her to tell him everything.
Mary Jane says she learned the truth shortly after Gwen came back from her trip to Europe. At the time, Harry Osborn was recovering from a drug relapse and his father, Norman, was covering it up to spare the family any humiliation.[5] On the day they all went to visit Harry, Mary Jane and Gwen were caring for Harry who was in bad shape after taking some bad LSD.[6] When Norman came home, Gwen told Mary Jane to let her deal with Harry’s father about getting Harry proper medical help. Harry eventually calmed down and Mary Jane realized that Gwen had been gone for a while. Checking on her, Mary Jane heard Gwen and Norman arguing in his office. It was then she overheard Gwen telling Norman that he’ll never see their children and she threatens to expose his improprieties to his board of directors if he doesn’t get Harry the proper help he needs. Norman refuses to be threatened, telling her that those children are his. He demands to have the children, so he can raise them to be strong heirs worthy of the Osborn name, offering to adopt them even. Gwen tells him that she’d give him her children over her dead body and that the only one who will help her raise them will be Peter Parker. She then asks Norman if he knows anything about why the children were born months early and fully developed. All Norman will say is that the children have Osborn blood running through their veins and they will grow up to be strong. Gwen writes Norman off as insane and storms out of his office. That’s when she discovered that Mary Jane had heard the whole thing. Gwen then told her everything, saying that she went to visit Norman Osborn seven months earlier on other business and sat him upset, sad, and broken. She felt sorry for him at the time and one thing leads to another and she soon discovered that her moment of indiscretion resulted in her getting pregnant. It was then that Gwen had Mary Jane sworn to secrecy. That was on the same day that Peter also came to visit Harry and suggested he talk to Norman, and Gwen told him not to.[7] When Mary Jane went back inside to get her purse she actually went up to confront Norman and slapped him across the face.[8]
Hearing all of this starts making Norman’s movements make a lot more sense. It makes sense why he would go after Gwen to begin with, he wanted to punish both Spider-Man and Gwen, killing two birds with one stone. He recalls that Norman Osborn’s Goblin Formula allowed him to heal from getting impaled by his own goblin glider.[9] This also explains how Gwen’s children were born premature but fully developed and how they could be adults even though Gwen only died a few years earlier.[10] This also explains why Norman Osborn would have fled to Europe and led everyone to believe he had been dead for years.[11] Going to Europe to raise Gwen’s kids now makes the perfect explanation for Norman’s prolonged absence. Peter theorizes that Norman probably found some of Gwen’s old papers, including the letter she didn’t end up mailing and wonders if Norman raised them to hate Peter under the mistaken assumption that he was their father banking on them both coming after Peter later in life. It also all explains why Norman Osborn has been obsessed with Peter, even going so far as trying to make him into the son that he never had.[12] When Peter tries to ask who initiated the affair, he can’t keep the image of Gwen in an intimate situation with Norman Osborn and can’t finish his question before erupting into a rage. Mary Jane stops Peter from trashing their apartment and calms him down.
After having a moment to calm down, Peter tells Mary Jane that he doesn’t hate her for keeping this all a secret, that it’s just all very hard to process. However, now that he knows the truth he also knows that Gwen’s children are going to keep prematurely aging until they die and can’t leave them to that fate. He decides that he can’t leave them to that fate any more than he can let them go on thinking that he is murdered their mother and abandoned them. The only challenge now is accomplishing all this without the Stacy children killing him first.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Mary Jane Watson, (in flashback) Gabriel, Sarah and Gwen Stacy, Harry and Norman Osborn
Continuity Notes
So the Gwen Stacy affair saga goes like this: Gwen had secretly had an affair with Norman Osborn circa Amazing Spider-Man #61. Discovering that she was pregnant, she went to Europe to give birth to the twins around Amazing Spider-Man #119 and kept it a secret. She was murdered soon after by Norman Osborn — as the Green Goblin — in Amazing Spider-Man #121.
Mary Jane has known Peter was secretly Spider-Man since he first got his powers as we learned in Marvel Graphic Novel #46. She kept this knowledge a secret, even from Peter, until she told him she knew in Amazing Spider-Man #257. She has maintained Peter’s secret from others for years.
Do I need to tell you that the murder of Uncle Ben in Amazing Fantasy #15 taught Peter a harsh lesson about using his powers responsibly?
Per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616, Gwen Stacy has been dead for about eight years at the time of this story.
Harry got addicted to drugs and suffered an overdose in Amazing Spider-Man #96-98. He had a relapse in Amazing Spider-Man #120.
Mary Jane suspected that the LSD must have been laced with strychnine, a powerful poison that is virtually undetectable. This was an urban legend about LSD that was perpetuated in the 1990s by anti-drug advocates and has been thoroughly debunked. Further, one can’t really overdose on LSD in the sense that taking too much can kill you (like other drugs such as cocaine and heroin) The harm from taking too much LSD comes from the hallucinations which can lead on to cause themselves harm or get themselves killed through misadventure.
This part of the flashback was seen from Peter’s perspective in Amazing Spider-Man #510.
Mary Jane mentions that at the time Norman Osborn seemed normal and then suddenly snapped. This is because Norman Osborn’s mental stability has been varied over the years after his exposure to the Goblin Formula compounded by Norman getting selective amnesia following his battle with Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #39-40. This resulted with Norman Osborn becoming more unhinged as his Goblin persona (and his selectively forgotten memories) returned. At the point in this flashback, Norman’s last relapse into his Goblin persona was in Amazing Spider-Man #96-98.
Norman Osborn seemingly perished when he was impaled by his glider in Amazing Spider-Man #122.
This theory of Peter’s is confirmed in Amazing Spider-Man #514.
Norman Osborn’s survival and subsequent sabbatical in Europe were detailed in Spider-Man: The Osborn Journal #1. Norman later returned to America in Amazing Spider-Man #412, revealing his survival to Peter Parker in Spider-Man #75.
Norman had only recently been trying to groom Peter into being his “son” as seen in Spider-Man: Revenge of the Green Goblin #1-3, and Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #25/Peter Parker: Spider-Man #25.
