Marvel Explained: This Spider Has Webbed Her Way Across the Multiverse –Who is Spider-Gwen?
From Marvel’s most memorable ‘fridging to a reality-hopping spider-hero, Spider-Gwen’s journey through the comics has been a wild ride.
She’s the Spider-Woman, Gwenom, and now the Ghost-Spider. But Marvel fans will always know her as Spider-Gwen. This is the Gwen that Lived, and Earth-65’s wall-crawling protector. But how did Gwen go from your friendly neighborhood Spider-Woman to the multiverse-hopping phenomenon we met in Sony’s Into the Spider-Verse? Well, hold on to your lunch, because we’re about to swing through a lot of dimensions.
Creators: Jason Latour & Robbi Rodriguez
First appearance: Edge of the Spider-Verse #2 (2014)
Who is Gwen Stacy?
In the main 616 universe, Gwen Stacy is the star of one of Marvel’s most iconic and tragic scenes. This Gwen Stacy wasn’t much for the character development, but her death became a driving force in the Spider-Man mythos. Along with Uncle Ben, her death at the hands of the Goblin would shape Peter Parker into the Spider-Man whose quips serve as a defense mechanism for some major trauma.
Amazing Spider-Man #121, courtesy of Marvel Comics
Her death was such a monumental event for the comic book community that it’s said to be the marking point between the Silver Age and the darker, more grim Bronze Age of comics. Prior to this point, loved ones of major characters didn’t befall such fates unless it was a part of their origin story.
So How Does This Alternate Gwen Become Spider-Woman?
In this alternate universe, Gwen is the kid who gets bit by a radioactive spider. But before that fateful field trip, Gwen lived alone with her father George, captain of the NYPD. Gwen was a rebellious kid. She liked to defy her father’s stringent rules and loved playing the drums with her band The Mary Janes. Alongside her were two of her close friends, MJ Watson and Harry Osborn. She was also friends with a kid named Peter Parker, but we’ll more get into Gwen’s friendships later.
But first, along came a spider. When Gwen realized she’d gained super powers, the media dubbed her the Spider-Woman. At first, her powers were used for some general showboating. But when her father pointed out that Spider-Woman could effect real change in the city, she took up a life of fighting crime.
Edge of the Spider-Verse #2, courtesy of Marvel Comics
The Death of Peter Parker
Gwen is a character surrounded by friends. But over the years, those friends find themselves in danger – and that’s before she starts hopping multiverses and meeting alternate versions of her crew.
Gwen’s big battle was against one of her closest friends, and it ended in tragedy. Peter Parker, who was frequently bullied at school, came to admire the rebellious Spider-Woman. Using his immense skill in science and technology, he created this Earth’s version of the lizard serum. Losing his mind to The Lizard, Peter crashes the senior prom, forcing Gwen to fight the unknown lizard monster. It was only after the fight that Peter transforms back to his human form, but the injuries he sustained during their fight resulted in his death.
As he lay dying, he told Spider-Woman that he had taken the serum in an effort to be more like her. Realizing her role in her friend’s death, Gwen fled the scene – which lead everyone to think that Spider-Woman had killed poor Peter Parker.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
George Stacy & Goblin Harry Osborn
After Peter’s death, Harry Osborn disappeared. Some time later, he came back donning a Goblin-inspired costume, meaning Gwen once again had to fight one of her friends. As the two fought, Harry told her about the training he had acquired in an effort to avenge his friend’s death. But when he knocked her out and unmasked her, the shock of finding Gwen Stacy under the mast caused him to lose control of the lizard mutagen he had injected himself with.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
To make matters more complicated, her own father was tasked with finding the identity of the vigilante-turned-villain known as Spider-Woman. Her father was now unknowingly at odds with her, and all of New York thought she was a murderer. Some, apparently, didn’t think that was a bad thing.
On this Earth, Matt Murdoch himself worked for the Kingpin of crime and the head of New York City’s underworld. In an attempt to make an ally of Spider-Woman, Murdoch tried to have George killed. But Gwen donned the suit and protected her father, foiling Murdoch’s plan.
Spider-Gwen in the Spider-Verse
Over the years, Spider-Gwen has been involved in several multiversal scuffles and tales. She was one of the first Spideys recruited to join a cross-dimensional Spidey-force to save all the dimensional Spider-Folks. Throughout the years, she’s met and teamed up with a wide-array of Spiders. And after the events of Secret Wars, the multiverse was reestablished and Gwen joined the Web-Warriors. During her many multiversal adventures, she also meets Miles Morales, and the two form a dimension-crossed romance.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
On one of these multiverse capers, she agrees to help return Jessica Drews and Silk to their home dimension on Earth-616. But she was lured into a trap and injected with a serum that removed her powers. This was a really difficult time for Gwen – made none the easier by officer Frank Castle (yeah, that Frank Castle) figuring out her secret identity and coming to put her out of business in a very unaliving kind of way.
She manages to survive thanks to her father’s intervention and a few spider isotopes that return her powers temporarily. But since George figured out Gwen’s identity and removed himself from the Peter Parker case, he felt compelled to turn himself in for aiding and abetting the Spider-Woman.
Spider-Woman Becomes Venom
As George Stacy’s court date approached, he insisted on using his trial to proclaim Spider-Woman’s innocence. But Gwen, fearing for her father’s fate, sought the help of Matt Murdoch to provide legal services. The master criminal offered to return her powers to her permanently. He also offered to help cure Harry of his lizard problem.
After a skirmish, the combination of spider-isotopes and lizard formula in Harry’s veins birthed venom, because I don’t know, comics. The symbiote bounced between a few people but settled in with Gwen. Gwen did her best to fight the symbiote, but she allowed it to take over when Matt Murdoch told her that he’d allowed the Rhino to beat her father into a coma. But once the Venom had taken over and Gwen took her revenge on the Rhino, it was revealed that this was all a ploy to frame her for murder.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Gwen’s subsequent battle to reach a sense of equilibrium with the symbiote turned out to be a blessing. The symbiote became a balanced part of her identity, even transforming into her suit when she needed to fight. It also came in the clutch when her best friend MJ was taken over by another symbiote that merged with Gwen’s and became Carnage. The connection allowed her to disrupt Carnage’s hold on MJ and bring her friend back to Earth-65.
Then Spider-Gwen Becomes… Everyone Else
During her multiversal travels, Spider-Gwen even met an alternate version of herself who had become the Green Goblin. After Gwen freed Other-Gwen from the Goblin influence, Other-Gwen created a device that Spider-Gwen could use to travel across the multiverse again. The device was called the Ticket to the Multiverse. Catchy, huh?
Once she and MJ returned to their home Earth, Gwen sat tinkering with the device and was hit with a blast of temporal energy. The blast divided her across five multiverses. In these universes, Gwen became her universe’s Thor, Captain America, Wolverine, Iron Man, and Captain Marvel. These days, comic book Spider-Gwen is trying to unify these parts of herself again.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Sony’s Spider-Verse Films
Into the Spider-Verse brought Spider-Gwen to theaters in 2018. Fans adored this animated jump from a regular Peter Parker retelling to a crowd of fresh-faced Spidey-people. The film also proved what the comics before had already indicated: that Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy would turn out fans in big numbers.
The upcoming two parts of Across the Spider-Verse will introduce us to even more multiversal Spideys. It will also bring back Miles Morales and the beloved Spider-Gwen. Maybe we’ll find out more about the theatrical version of her character in the next two installments. Even if Gwen’s backstory isn’t a focal point of the film, we’ve already seen her develop as a character. When she first meets Miles, she says she doesn’t do friendship. And now that you’ve read this, can you blame her? Still, at the end, she accepts Miles as a friend, ally, and… more?
