The comic book writer Gerry Conway, who has died aged 73, made his biggest impact on the industry when, at only 19 years old, he took over from Stan Lee as writer of The Amazing Spider-Man. A year later, in 1972, he wrote the classic two-issue story The Night Gwen Stacy Died, drawn by Gil Kane and John Romita, in which Peter (Spider-Man) Parker’s girlfriend is killed by his archrival, the Green Goblin.
It began a transition from the so-called “silver age” of comics, which had produced Marvel’s popularity boom in the 60s, into a darker era. Only eight months later, also in Spider-Man, Conway introduced the Punisher, drawn by Ross Andru and Romita, a henchman of another Spider-Man villain, the Jackal.
