"He's our father, and he abandoned us. Deserted our mother and caused her death. And he's going to pay for that, Sarah."
Sins Past is a 2004 Spider-Man storyline written by J. Michael Straczynski with art by Mike Deodato Jr.. It spans from The Amazing Spider-Man (1999) #509-514.
A mysterious mistake of Gwen Stacy's returns to haunt Peter Parker as two mysterious assassins set their sights on Spider-Man. However, when Spider-Man unmasks one of them, he is shocked to see the face of Gwen Stacy staring back at him. Forced to uncover why a doppelganger of Gwen is trying to kill him, Spider-Man will learn of a hidden secret that will shake the foundations of everything he knew about Gwen.
This storyline is infamous for revealing that Norman Osborn had an affair with Gwen Stacy while both were in emotional turmoil, resulting in Gwen giving birth to twins that aged faster than normal due to a mutation in the DNA they'd inherited from Norman. After killing Gwen, Norman found the twins, raised them as assassins, and poisoned their minds against Spider-Man making them believe he'd killed their mother.
Sins Past provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Sarah Stacy is a good pistol shot and has excellent strength and reflexes due to her Goblin genes.
- Age-Gap Romance: The forty-something Norman Osborn with the fresh out of high school Gwen Stacy.
- Arc Welding: The storyline infamously Retcons that Gwen Stacy secretly had twins with Norman Osborn, though it doesn't try to explain how.
Fandom VIP J.R. "Madgoblin" Fettinger, having pored over back issues, posted his theory online of when it could have happened: a certain period when she was on the outs with Peter but after Norman had recently saved her father's life. Maybe she went over to thank him and One Thing Led to Another? He conceded that this wasn't a perfect theory (for example, Gwen doesn't look pregnant when she logically should), but it made more sense than anything else, so the writers made it canon.note - Awful Truth: Gwen Stacy had an affair with Peter Parker's nemesis Norman Osborn (the Green Goblin) and gave birth to twins before her death. It's this revelation that hurts Peter.
- Bastard Bastard: Gabriel's the son of Norman Osborn and Gwen Stacy, and bitter about being disregarded by his father in favor of Harry.
- Betty and Veronica: Peter was this to Norman Osborn's Veronica over Gwen Stacy's Archie.
- Cain and Abel: When they learn the truth about their mother's death, Gabriel- having been driven insane by a second dose of the Goblin Formula- keeps on blaming Peter and becomes a supervillain. Sarah denounces Norman and (after a period of trying to shelter and help him) becomes an Interpol agent to bring her brother to justice.
- Chastity Couple: Peter is attacked by two people claiming to be his and Gwen Stacy's children. One of the reasons this doesn't make sense is, as Peter points out, that he and Gwen never had sex.
- Color Character: Gabriel becomes the Grey Goblin.
- Daddy DNA Test: Peter knows he's not the father of twins Gabriel and Sarah Stacy but tests his blood sample with the twin's blood sample to find out for sure. Justified, since he and Gwen haven't even slept together before the twin's conception and this leads to him discovering that Gwen cheated on him and Mary Jane confirming his worst.
- A Deadly Affair: Gwen Stacy had an affair with Norman Osborn, Peter's worst nemesis. She regretted it, gave birth to twins, and planned on raising the twins with Peter. It was this that caused the Green Goblin to snap and kill her.
- Fan Disservice: The love scene flashback with Gwen Stacy and Norman Osborn. Especially when he morphs into the Green Goblin right in the middle of the act.
- Generation Xerox: Sarah Stacy is physically identical to her mother, which gave Spidey a major shock when he unmasked her.
- Half Identical Twin: Sarah and Gabriel Stacy are mostly identical, except for their hair length and the fact that Gabe's a guy.
- Happily Adopted: Gwen Stacy was hoping to raise her twins with Peter, knowing that he'll be a good adoptive father to them and better than Norman. This motivation gets her killed by Norman Osborn.
- Heel–Face Turn: When Sarah learns about the truth of her mother's death, she turns against Norman and her increasingly insane brother.
- Heinousness Retcon: Norman Osborn killing Gwen Stacy just to hurt Spider-Man was bad enough but Sins Past retcons the reason behind this action to being even more heinous. It is revealed that Norman had an affair with Gwen Stacy while both were in emotional turmoil - Gwen due to her father's death and Norman because of Harry nearly dying from a drug overdose. This affair resulted in Gwen giving birth to twins which aged faster than normal due to a mutation in the DNA they'd inherited from Norman. After killing Gwen, Norman found the twins, raised them as assassins, and poisoned their minds against Spider-Man making them believe he'd killed their mother.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Sarah loathes Norman for lying to and using her and her brother.
- Legacy Character: Zig-Zagged. At the end of the story, Gabriel takes on the Goblin moniker, except instead of green he's grey.
- Love Father, Love Son: Gwen Stacy narrates how she used to date her old boyfriend Harry Osborn. Then, she had an affair with his father Norman Osborn, with whom she secretly had a pair of twins.
- Peter was in love with the late Gwen Stacy, then starts to develop feelings for her look-alike daughter Sarah.
- Love Triangle: Peter/Gwen/Norman in Sins Past.
- Mary Jane/Peter/Sarah in Sins Remembered.
- May–December Romance: Sarah puts the moves on Peter
◊ after he saved her life, made a little disturbing due to her looking identical to her mother, the extreme age difference between them, and that until recently, she'd believed him to be her father. It was made even worse when Mary Jane walked in on Sarah kissing Peter. - Ms. Fanservice: Sarah Stacy is drawn in either halter tops or other revealing clothing.
- My Secret Pregnancy: The infamous storyline that retconned in Gwen Stacy becoming pregnant with and giving birth to twins (albeit in appreciably less than nine months) without Peter or anyone else noticing into the continuity of early 1970s The Amazing Spider-Man (1963).
- Never Speak Ill of the Dead: One way to really piss Peter off is to besmirch Gwen Stacy. Ironically, Sins Past intended to correct her posthumous adulation by painting Gwen as someone who cheated on Peter with an older man, and Peter's reaction on learning of this was one of rage and disbelief though he ultimately did get over it, especially since MJ, Gwen's close friend who never once brought this up even if it was to her advantage, still loved and missed Gwen. Of course in other stories, such as "Web of Romance", Peter is okay with being critical of Gwen such as her dependency and the stress she put him during their relationship.
- Obliviously Evil: Sarah and Gabriel snuck out of the house Norman had them at and made friends with some local punks who got them to serve as couriers for packages. The twins saw it as a game before realizing that they were moving drugs.
- Palette Swap: Gabriel's Grey Goblin costume was more or less literally the Green Goblin's costume dipped in grey paint.
- Professional Killer: Sarah and Gabriel Stacy were trained as assassins by Norman.
- Rapid Aging: The Goblin Formula Sarah and Gabriel Stacy inherited from their father caused them to grow from infants to young adults in a few years' time.
- Rescue Romance: Sarah falls for Peter after he saves her life and helps her apprehend her brother.
- Retcon: The story establishes that Norman Osborn and Gwen Stacy had a son and daughter, Gabriel Stacy and Sarah Stacy.
- Spotting the Thread: Despite being raised to see Peter as her villainous father all her life, Sarah Stacy realises that this can't be true when he goes to the trouble of getting a DNA sample from Gwen's grave to compare it to samples he retrieved from the twins, and yet never ran his own DNA at the same time. As Sarah explains to Gabriel, Peter would never have gone to that much trouble without testing his own samples as well unless he knew that she and Gabriel couldn't be his children.
- Stacy's Mom: Norman Osborn was this to Gwen Stacy. Fits with Love Father, Love Son, as she also dated Harry Osborn for a time.
- Superpowerful Genetics: The Goblin Formula in their father granted Sarah and Gabriel Stacy superhuman abilities and aged them to adulthood in a few years' time.
- Surprise Pregnancy: Gwen Stacy discovers she's pregnant from her affair with Norman Osborn and gives birth to twins 4 months early.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Sarah is more or less Gwen Stacy 2.0 with assassin training and superpowers.
- Troubled, but Cute: Gwen Stacy narrates how she fell for Norman Osborn and had an affair with him because she felt there was another side to him that was broken and troubled and she felt sorry for him.
- True Blue Femininity: Sarah has a certain innocence to her in some ways, such as coming to believe Peter sooner than her brother, and wears a blue T-shirt for most of Sins Remembered.
- Vapor Wear: Sarah's pretty evidently not wearing a bra under her shirts in most of her appearances (particularly the second half of Sins Remembered).
- Younger Than They Look: Sarah and Gabriel Stacy are only a few years old (having been born before the Jackal created his first clones, which has been established as having taken place over five years ago) but looks like they're in their late teens or early twenties.
