The Most Controversial Moments In Spider-Man's History!

[Minerboh]

He's probably the only character in comic book industry with so many controversial moments. I tried to list them as follows. If i have forgotten something, please add it!

1) The death of Gwen Stacy! Up until ASM 121, it was unthinkable for the main character to fail saving his/her romance interest! This was probably the most haunting failure (second only to the death of his uncle Ben) in our hero's troubled life. Unfortunately this event spawns another controversial moment but first things first!
2) Ben Reilly is revealed as the one true Spider Man and the Peter we have been reading for the last 15-18 years was a clone. This moment not only begun the downfall of the Clone Saga but it almost destroyed the Spider Man line itself.
3) Norman Osborn was revealed to be alive and well and he was the true mastermind behind the clone. In the historic Spider Man 75, Norman appears once again to bring chaos and torture in ways that truly impressed the reader. Sadly, controversial moment number 2 damaged the franchise so bad, that despite high sales for that particular issue, were not enough to bring the readers back. Marvel was forced to reduce the Spidey titles from four to two and still was not enough. Only Michael Starzinsky, best known for his suberb Babylon Five tv series, managed to start repairing the damage caused by all this. Unfortunately, even JMS managed to produced some questionable (at best) moments.
4) Spidey gets organic web shooters after being mutated into a giant spider. The spider apparently was impregnated with Peter himself and managed to rip his way open from the creature's stomach only to discover that hee had webbing coming out of his wrists.
5) Spider Man killed his beloved wife MJ with his radioactive...sperm. In Spider Man Reign, a four issue limited rip off of Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, a alternate future shows aged Peter Parker hagging the rotten corpse of Mary Jane and screaming for forgiveness for killing her with his.... you know what! It was also revealed that with the remains of MJ, Peter also buried the red and blue costume with her.
6) Strazinsky tells a story were Gwen,prior to the events of ASM 121, had an affair with Norman Osborn. They also shared a passionate one night stand! This night of passion however, left Gwen impregnated with twins (Gabriel and Sarah) which much later returned to take revenge from Peter Parker. Word has it that it was originally planned to make Peter the father of the Stacy wins but it was changed to Norman Osborn in the last minute. Word has also had it that JMS wanted to reconn the events of this story with the help of controversial moment number 7 but Marvel refused to let him. Gabriel Osborn recently returned some years ago with Amazing Spider Man presents American Son
7) Peter and Mary Jane make a deal with Mephisto so they can save the life of May Parker who suffered a bullet wound meant for MJ or Peter (see the results of Civil War). The price? Mephisto erases the wedding of Peter and MJ resulting into a massive alteration of previous events associating with the twenty year lifetime of the marriage. One of the most notorious changes were the reemerging of Harry Osborn.

Now lets prepare ourselves for ASM #700 which according to Dan Slott, it wiil be spawned a moment so controversial that he will be hiding for the following months!

[Randumbz]

You forgot when Harry Osborn used to do drugs and when Peter gave his marriage to mephisto

[Mister Mets]

I don't think Reign is as controversial as the others. Reviews are mixed, which arguably makes it more controversial since you'll have people who loved it arguing with those who hated it, but it hasn't had the impact of any of the other stories.

An early controversy would be the existence of Marvel Team-Up. Roy Thomas and others suggested that it marked a point at which the series lost something, as Spider-Man went from an outsider in the Marvel Universe, to having a team up every month.

In retrospect, Peter's graduation from high school is a subject of debate. One retelling of the series, Ultimate Spider-Man, featured a version of Peter who never became old enough to graduate college.

Then there is the original wedding.

And I'd also add the return of Aunt May in "The Final Chapter" to the list, considering all who wanted her to stay dead.

[E. Wilson]

Related to Mets' Marvel Team-Up point, Spider-Man joining the Avengers was a huge bone of contention for a lot of Spidey fans, and a lot of Avengers fans. Granted, the latter group might not have been as vocal if Spidey's membership hadn't come on the heels of a line-wide relaunch of the Avengers franchise, but it's still a sticky issue even today.

[DebkoX]

The recent issue was a huge shock.

[Minerboh]

You forgot when Harry Osborn used to do drugs and when Peter gave his marriage to mephisto

Ι do not consider the former as a controversial moment and as for the latter, did you bothered to read my post before replying? It's controversial moment number seven. Please read the post carefully before replying.

[Addams]

Yeah, let's talk about OMD some more.

Cause i totally feel that this topic hasn't been discussed enough.

[TheOther]

I was shocked when I read the Sins Past arc.

[Harbinger of Apocalypse]

Out of the lot, I think Norman with Gwen was just... ugh... just... just... ugh.... I rate that as being worse then OMD personally. Not so keen on OMD but it didn't butcher a character like what happened to poor sweet Gwen. And Osborn of all people...

[One More Day]

I was shocked when I read the Sins Past arc.

The Other:Evolve or Die was also a putrid storyline.

[ViewtifulJC]

Kraven blowing his damn head off with a shotgun was pretty head-turning at the time

[Scott Taylor]

The Other:Evolve or Die was also a putrid storyline.

It was a very uneven story, and it was hard to identify an over-arching purpose for it in the context of everything that was going on. In the end we got stingers. It just wasn't worth all the effort. What I mostly liked about it was the return of Morlun, but even that was really a wasted opportunity, since his main purpose was to show how badass Peter was with the Other powers.

I'll conceived, poorly planned, and a story we could have done without. But still I think it could have worked with better execution and more of a long-term plan. In other words, if they had scrapped the entire story and done something else. :p

Spider-Man versus Wolverine was a controversial story at the time. Peter had not killed prior to that, I don't think.

Also, stuff about his parents. Anything about his parents, practically. To me, I think its possibly a big mistake that the recent movie even touched any of that.

[Mister Mets]

It was a very uneven story, and it was hard to identify an over-arching purpose for it in the context of everything that was going on. In the end we got stingers. It just wasn't worth all the effort. What I mostly liked about it was the return of Morlun, but even that was really a wasted opportunity, since his main purpose was to show how badass Peter was with the Other powers.

I'll conceived, poorly planned, and a story we could have done without. But still I think it could have worked with better execution and more of a long-term plan. In other words, if they had scrapped the entire story and done something else. :p

Spider-Man versus Wolverine was a controversial story at the time. Peter had not killed prior to that, I don't think.

Also, stuff about his parents. Anything about his parents, practically. To me, I think its possibly a big mistake that the recent movie even touched any of that.

Good point with Spider-Man VS Wolverine. That is divisive.

And there is certainly disagreement about the parents. Although it may have been worth it for Untold Tales of Spider-Man #-1.

On a sidenote, it just occurred to me that Marvel missed an opportunity with Flashback month in the satellite titles to show events set while Peter was Spider-Man, before that title had began. For example, Spectacular Spider-Man #-1 could have featured the early 1970s status quo.

The Other:Evolve or Die was also a putrid storyline.

It's not particularly controversial, though. The consensus is that it sucks.

[Wayne 26]

Spider-man Reign is't that controversial. Neither is it a rip off, only a more emotional and darker take on the best Batman story of all time, and since Spidey's my favourite super hero, ( along with Batman being my 2rd fav ) I really, really Reign. Although, the TV scenes is somthing I can't argue with.

[TheOther]

The Other:Evolve or Die was also a putrid storyline.

I liked it.