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this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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I didn't think it was ambiguous at all. The word "snap" is printed at her neck when it happens.
If you read my comment, I said it's ambiguous if she was already dead when her neck was snapped, not that her neck was in fact snapped.
I'm disagreeing. The ambiguity was retconned later because Marvel didn't want to commit to Spider-Man "causing" her death.
In the original comic, she is alive and looks like she's in a state of shock according to Peter. Goblin even threatens to kill her, further confirming she is alive. She gets pushed over the edge of the bridge, and he neck is snapped when the web stops her fall. The clear intent in the story telling is that she is alive until the snap. You even quote Roy Thomas stating as such in print a few episodes later.
OK, now I understand what you're getting at and I don't disagree actually. I also think that the original intent was that she died of a broken neck but the ambiguity is there, whether by design or accident, which makes other theories and later retconning possible. I personally suspect they made it a bit ambiguous to give themselves a bit of a back door in case the public would react too harshly to Spidey accidentally kiling his girlfriend. One has to remember how unexpected and grim this was at the time, it was a huge risk to take for the writers (Stan Lee even said later that he was tricked into OKing it while he was packing for a trip...not sure I believe that though).
It would have been easy to make her perhaps say something or make a sound when she's lying on the edge of the bridge, or make Peter feel her pulse to confirm she was alive before the fall. As the scene unfolds now, and the way she is drawn when lying on the edge (she looks dead), I feel its unlikely that wasn't intentional. But this is ultimately a matter of interpretation.