Gwen Stacy's death had a major and traumatic impact in the Spiderman comics most readers know, but her life was a bit different in the Mexican comic books. Fans worldwide were devastated by the death of Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man #121, but the Latin American community was particularly heartbroken. But artist Jose Luis Duran's love for the character gave her extra time before her inevitable death.
Duran was working for La Prensa at the time Gwen's end occurred. La Prensa was the company tasked by Marvel Comics to reprint their titles in Spanish, printing Marvel comics for Latin American communities in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, California, and Miami from the 1960s through the late 70s. The Amazing Spider-Man, or El Sorprendente Hombre Arana, was immensely popular to the Latin crowd, so much so that means to create ways to get Spidey on shelves quicker were explored.
Once La Prensa decided to publish Spiderman bi-weekly instead of monthly, they began to repurpose and sell other titles under the Hombre Arana name, with Ant-Man being one of the comic books that La Prensa reprinted as Spider-Man. The printing company continued with this method for a while, but soon they began making original Spider-Man comics. The notion of creating their own books came about when the popularity of the Wall Crawler skyrocketed with John Romita Sr's run of the comic. The demand for Romita's Spiderman within the Latin American community pushed La Prensa to take prints weekly.
Marvel permitted La Prensa to make their own issues of Spider-Man. Jose Luis Duran was appointed the head artist for the new comics by Marvel and the books were meant to accompany the main continuity of Spider-Man in Marvel comics. The first La Prensa original of El Sorpendente Hombre Arana was a three-part story with a villain called Iron Man (not that Iron Man). The problem with this was that Duran's stories were to be in the same narrative as Romita's, and sometimes that really complicated things. Duran noticeably adored Gwen Stacy, especially Romita's depiction, putting her as the focal point in many of his stories. In one, Duran even went as far as giving fans the fantasy wedding between Gwen and Peter. Unfortunately it was just in a dream Peter had.
It was situations like this that proved difficult for the new arrangement. Peter and Gwen couldn't really get married because that didn't line up with the Marvel continuity. So ultimately Gwen still died but she had more adventures in the Mexican comics produced by La Prensa and Duran. There were 45 original La Prensa Spider-Man comics published in total. La Prensa continued to print for Marvel until 1973 when OEPISA took over with Duran as the editorial director of art.
Gwen Stacy's death, to this day, is still regarded as one of the most impactful and traumatic arcs in Spider-Man's history, even leaving Stan Lee himself upset over her demise. But at least she got to live a slightly fuller life south of the border.
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