George R.R. Martin Sides With Marvel: Spider-Man Wins — And Lois Lane Is Why

George R.R. Martin has never been shy about two things: loving comics and murdering characters. And the more he talks about where that second habit came from, the more it points straight at Marvel, not DC. Spider-Man made him switch teams in high school, Gwen Stacy sealed the deal, and a one-issue Wonder Man story basically rewired his brain for how to build characters and break readers.

Why Martin drifted from Superman to Spider-Man

Martin grew up a Superman guy. Then he hit high school, found Stan Lee and Spider-Man, and realized Marvel was playing a different game. Peter Parker had problems he actually recognized, and the people around him weren’t invincible. The big one: Gwen Stacy’s death. That moment in The Amazing Spider-Man #121 changed Peter’s life and, apparently, Martin’s storytelling taste.

Martin’s take has been pretty consistent over the years, including at a 2019 Chicago Humanities Festival event: DC kept its icons untouchable. Lois Lane doesn’t die. Jimmy Olsen doesn’t die. So the status quo never truly breaks. With Marvel, he felt like anything could happen and no one was safe. That uncertainty is the hook.

The Gwen Stacy issue that shook everything

If you’re newer to the comics, we’re talking about The Amazing Spider-Man #121, better known as 'The Night Gwen Stacy Died' (written by Gerry Conway, published June–July 1973). It’s one of those watershed comics that actually changes the character going forward, not just for an arc. It pushed Peter into darker, more complicated places and made the world around him feel lethal.

Where he learned to kill your favorites

Martin has said a lot about why deaths stick in his books: he aims for emotion, not shock for shock’s sake. One of his reference points is hilariously specific: Avengers #9. In that single issue, Marvel introduced Wonder Man and then killed him off immediately. That whiplash made an impression.

'I look back now, and my whole career is based on Avengers #9.'

What he took from that: morally gray characters, split loyalties, and the sense that anyone can go at any time. Sound familiar?

His DC gripe, boiled down

Martin’s argument isn’t that DC has never killed anyone. They have. It’s that the deaths that do happen often get blunted by alternate timelines, resets, and cosmic mulligans. Lois Lane, specifically, almost never stays dead (if she dies at all), which keeps Clark’s world safely intact. The result, in his view: fewer lasting consequences, less character growth. And no, Batman’s parents don’t count.

• Martin first got into Spider-Man in high school, connecting with Peter Parker’s everyday messiness.
• The Amazing Spider-Man #121 ('The Night Gwen Stacy Died') landed in June–July 1973, written by Gerry Conway, and became a defining trauma for Peter Parker.
• At a 2019 Chicago Humanities Festival talk, Martin contrasted Marvel’s unpredictability with DC’s caution around killing core characters like Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen.
• He has cited Avengers #9 (Wonder Man is introduced and dies in the same issue) as a major influence on how he writes divided loyalties and sudden, meaningful deaths.
• He has also said readers remember deaths in his books because he aims for real emotional impact, not just body counts.

So should DC actually go there?

Martin’s case is simple: if no one can really die, the story never truly risks anything. DC has dabbled in big swings, but rarely without a safety net. Maybe it’s time to cut one loose and see what happens to Clark when the ground gives way under him.

Would you ever want to see DC permanently kill Lois Lane? Or is that a line they should never cross?