Hi Traincat XiaoJie I have been thinking about Gwen and Flash. Both of them being children of law enforcement but having wildly different experiences causing them to potentially have different beliefs about it and to an extent Spider-Man. I wanted to see if that sort of thing ever gets touched on in Spider-Man or if anyone else thinks about it!
Yeah, I think Gwen and Flash's dynamic is always a really interesting part of the Spidey Fivesome, and I have to believe it -- retroactively -- figures into their whole deal.
I say retroactively because at the time of Gwen and Flash's original interactions, the ones that were written before her death, Flash's father was not established canon. Harrison Thompson wouldn't be mentioned until Amazing Spider-Man #372, where he was originally envisioned by David Michelinie as a bookish man who didn't understand his jock son. It was Kurt Busiek and G.L. Lawrence who reinvented Harrison as a cop in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #19, but he wouldn't be framed as an abusive father until J.M. DeMatteis, king of stories about abusive fathers in Spider-Man, got his hands on the narrative in Spectacular Spider-Man #-1.
So all this has to be applied retroactively, but I think it really does still work, because there's a couple of things at play here with not just Gwen and Flash but Gwen and the entire group, which is that Gwen has the most stable home life. None of the fivesome have a perfect homelife, granted -- Gwen and her father love each other and have a good relationship and are financially well off, but you can see how anxious and protective Gwen is over him, and her mother is dead. Harry is rich, but his father abusive, and his mother is also dead. Contrast that against MJ, who has no family money, whose mother is dead and whose father is abusive. There's Peter, who has no family money, who is an orphan -- but who has a very loving relationship with his remaining parental figure, his aunt, although, like Gwen, he's anxious about her health and very protective of her.
So then you have Flash, who, at the time the Spidey Fivesome is coming together, during their college years before Gwen's death, has living, married parents, who, at least compared to Peter, seems to have fewer financial woes (although we'll later see the Thompsons clearly have financial issues) -- but his father is an emotionally and physically abusive alcoholic who terrorizes his children.
I definitely think there does have to be, in light of that, this element of Flash looking at Gwen and seeing an alternative version of his life. George Stacy is a retired police captain, and Harrison Thompson is usually portrayed as a beat cop. So there is a status element here, too. I think there has to be this kind of undercurrent (again, retroactively, because none of this was established during Gwen and Flash's initial interactions) of Flash looking at Gwen and wondering how his life would be different if his father was different.
The one thing I always think about with Flash and Gwen's relationship in particular is that they're kind of portrayed as confidantes.
There's a sense that, within the group, they have their own separate relationship -- Gwen goes to Flash when she's unsure about Peter and wants advice, and she's the one who can also tell when he's upset. And you could lean into Flash having had a crush on her in college, but I think it's nice that Flash clearly values their friendship more than any potential romantic relationship with Gwen.
(ASM #114) "Oh, beans!" He's the cutest.
(ASM #112) "Parker's all right, I guess... though he's never gonna be Spider-Man!" Fast forward 688 issues to Flash just staring out at the horizon, having about thirty seconds to process all of this because their other friend's evil father has covered himself in homicidal space goo and is trying to blow up half of New York.
I think their different experiences potentially influencing their opinions on Spider-Man is an interesting thought. Spider-Man as a narrative doesn't love deeply examining its own relationship with law enforcement in universe outside of individual stories, and we could be here all day about that, but this is about Gwen and Flash. I think with Flash you could definitely view his absolute loyalty and devotion to Spider-Man as kind of replacing his mercurial, abusive father -- that Spider-Man is safe, that Spider-Man saves people, that Spider-Man always does the right thing. Whereas with Gwen, who has a good relationship with her father and who views him as a hero, and who, as a captain's daughter, is treated with a certain amount of respect, a vigilante like Spider-Man does not represent this pinnacle of safety and protection. Especially after the death of her father, where she originally blames Spider-Man, Spider-Man is a more of a threat than a protector. (Although in every version of canon where Gwen finds out Peter is Spider-Man, it's never been a huge issue for them as a couple. That's something she's able to overcome.) She doesn't need the idea of Spider-Man the way that Flash does. Which is a really interesting way to view not only their dynamic with each other but also how they individually relate to Spider-Man. And I think in certain ways how they relate to Peter, out of the costume, too, and what Peter represents in their lives. Gwen wants him to be more (publicly) fearless, questioning why he disappears when there's danger (to go be Spider-Man but she doesn't know that), and I think in a certain way comparing to him to her father, whereas Flash later comes to depend on Peter as this kind of pinnacle of stability in his life, to the point where when he has to go looking for his father later in their adult lives, Peter's the one he calls to go with him and search and Peter's the one he depends on. Everyone's in love with Peter Parker.
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