I know you all love Spider-Man and I can’t blame you. He’s pretty awesome. But have you considered Spider-Gwen? Because you definitely should.
Spider-Gwen is, as you guessed it, Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker’s girlfriend who died in the Earth-616 Marvel Universe (the main comics universe). She first appeared last fall in Edge of Spider-Verse #2.
In this alternate universe, Earth-65, Gwen is bitten by the radioactive spider and she starts going by the moniker Spider-Woman (not to be confused with the Spider-Woman from Earth-616, Jessica Drew). In this universe, Peter becomes the Lizard and dies. She’s also in a band with Mary-Jane Watson which is awesome.
After being recruited by Spider-UK, she teams up with other Spider heroes and is able to cross universes, including going to 616 where she meets the Peter Parker you all know and love. They promise to watch out for each other after not being able to save their Peter and Gwen from their respective universes.
These events all happened relatively recently. So why am bringing it up now?
Well, the first issue of Spider-Gwen came out yesterday and it’s awesome. She been part of the ongoing, over-arching Spider-Verse plot but now she gets her own solo-led comic book run.
Plus, the upcoming Secret Wars event will collide all of the Marvel comic universes and streamline them into one new universe (with some heroes and villains probably not making it). When that happens, Gwen could become a very big presence in Marvel Comics.
Spider-Gwen hasn’t been around for very long but she’s already a lot of fun and a popular character. She joins Marvel’s growing efforts to diversify their rosters, including a female Thor; Sam Wilson as Captain America; solo runs for characters like Carol Danvers, Jessica Drew, and Kamala Khan; and the upcoming all-female Avengers team called the A-Force.
You should definitely check out her first issue because she’s great and I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more of her. If you’ve read her issue already (or saw her when she was first introduced last year), what do you think?
