We’ve seen other Spider-people in the Marvel Comics Spider-verse. A lot of them, in fact, just like in that movie. Several are even Peter Parkers. But are there other Spider-Gwens? Or [redacted]-Gwens? Or … what? Find out in Spider-Gwen: Gwen-Verse #1, written by Tim Seeley, drawn by Jodi Nishijima, colored by Federico Blee and lettered by Ariana Maher.
Gwen Stacy (Earth-65), aka Spider-Gwen, has typical Spider-problems: She lives with her dad, a well-meaning former cop who doesn’t appreciate her heroing. She’s wearing herself out trying to be a college student on Earth-616 while fighting bad guys closer to home. And she values the friendship, the good opinions and the boundless energy of her bandmate MJ Watson, who wishes Gwen would devote more time and attention to her role as drummer in the Mary Janes.
That’s not gonna happen, and Gwen’s torn up inside about it. “MJ wants us to go back to a past that I’m not even sure I can recreate,” she muses early on in Spider-Gwen: Gwen-Verse #1. “My dad isn’t happy about the future I seem to be marching towards. Which means I’m stuck in a present where all I manage to do is disappoint the people I love.” Gwen delivers the interior monologue while pouting, in a purple hoodie, in her family home, seated on her twin bed. No wonder she wants to visit other Earths, just as she has in other Spider-Gwen comics.
This one’s different, though: She travels — she has to travel — not just through alternate universes but back and forth through time, because she’ll have to catch up to a time-travel villain, a new one called Finale who wants attention above all else. Finale lives at the end of all recorded time, and she’ll stop at nothing to drain former eras, former Earths and former Gwens of their hipness and cultural capital, so she can bring them all into her show, becoming the “Living Meme” she’s always wanted to be. It’s like watching villains from Jem and the Holograms (the excellent Campbell/Thompson comic, not the TV or film) perform at Douglas Adams’ Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
And, so far, it’s bonkers and it’s kind of great: There’s something for everyone. Jodi Nishijima knows how to draw all the kinds of scenes this book needs, and Federico Blee knows how to make their colors pop: slightly cartoony teen soapiness on Gwen’s home planet and space opera, emphasis on the opera, once we leave her world. There’s also a talking cat, and a giant robot who looks like an off-brand Transformer and talks like a parody of Judge Dredd (“YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR VIOLATING THE MARVEL LAWS”). The first third of the comic also features a lesson (in Gwen’s interior monologue) about superhero theory, distinguishing “low-super” worlds like Gwen’s own — where a handful of heroes fight small-time crime — from “high-super” worlds like Earth-616 or Earth-1610 (RIP), where costumed goodies and baddies are thick underfoot. And the last third — which comes with its own distinctively cheerful style — gives us, let’s say, a Gwen who has become another famous superhero, in another era before our own. A superhero who also likes attention, and whose appetites are divine. (No spoilers, right?)
Future issues, I suspect (and hope), will give us more alterna-Gwens on more alternate Earths, along with more out-there space-operatic villains on the order of the magnificent Dr. Cephalopod (one of Finale’s henchcreatures). We may also end up with a fix-the-timestream plot familiar to viewers of Loki, the TV show. And if we’re lucky we’ll get more Superhero Theory, and advice on how to read hero comics in general, which Gwen dispenses almost as readily as her otherwise unrelated namesake ending in -pool.
I’m still put out by the abrupt cancellation of Seanan McGuire’s Spider-Gwen ongoing, with its scheming baddies on Gwen’s native Earth-65, its simmering post-teen angst and its short-circuited long game. McGuire kept her focus tight: a movie version of her comic could have been made on an indie budget, with a limited color palette, as a quirky romantic comedy. Seeley, Nishijima and Blee get Gwen’s angst right, but they’re going for splashy, wide-angle, big-budget science fiction. In fact, they’re going for something like the Into the Spider-Verse animated film, whose upcoming sequel no doubt inspired Marvel to greenlight a new Spider-Gwen series with a new creative team. So far it all seems like a splendid idea.
Stephanie Burt is Professor of English at Harvard. Her podcast about superhero role playing games is Team-Up Moves, with Fiona Hopkins; her latest book of poems is We Are Mermaids. Her nose still hurts from that thing with the gate.
