Spider-Woman (Gwen Stacy)

• 1. Introduction

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  Spider-Woman, better known as Spider-Gwen, first appeared in Marvel Comics on the 17th of September 2014, in Edge of Spider-Verse issue 2. Her co-creator, writer Jason Latour, has said the idea began with an uncomfortable realization. He knew Gwen Stacy only as a "fridged" character, a woman killed to give a male hero a reason to suffer.

  Marvel's original Gwen had been dead for more than 40 years. Her death was one of the best-known turning points in Spider-Man's history. So why bring her back at all, even on another Earth? And what changes when the woman once defined by her death gets a mask, a spider's powers and a whole multiverse to roam? The answers start with a conversation about a costume.

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• 2. A Face Under the Mask

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  Longtime Spider-Man writer Dan Slott was the first to float the idea, during planning for the Spider-Verse story. He suggested "Gwen Stacy as a Spider-Woman" to Spider-Man editor Nick Lowe. Lowe then asked Jason Latour to write a series about her. Latour hesitated. Gwen's death had carried real consequences in the comics, and he worried about undoing it, even in an alternate world. He eventually agreed and brought in artist Robbi Rodriguez to design her.

  Latour gave Rodriguez one instruction about the look. She "should feel like anyone could be under that mask." The costume's colors were chosen as a tribute to the Charlotte Hornets, a nod to Latour's hometown. Slott had pictured something different. His version drew on the clothes Gwen wore in the 1973 story "The Night Gwen Stacy Died," in red and blue, with web patterns, a half mask and a red trench coat. Slott ultimately approved Rodriguez's design.

  Latour also had a larger motive. He said he grew up in an era when white men dominated superhero comics, and he saw Gwen as a chance to represent women better. In his words, "The fact that it's a woman does change the meaning and subtext of everything that's going on."

  Readers responded quickly. At New York Comic Con in October 2014, Lowe announced that demand had earned her an ongoing series. The first issue of Spider-Gwen became the third best-selling comic of February 2015, with sales above 250,000 copies. That first volume lasted only five issues before the character was swept into Marvel's Secret Wars event.

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• 3. The Cost of Being Special

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  On Earth-65, Gwen Stacy attends Midtown High School and plays drums in a band called the Mary Janes. Her bandmates are Mary Jane Watson, Betty Brant and Glory Grant, and their rivals are Felicia Hardy's band, the Black Cats. A bite from a radioactive spider turns Gwen into Spider-Woman.

  Her best friend, Peter Parker, takes a very different path. This Peter is never bitten by a spider. Bullies torment him, and he develops an inferiority complex. He becomes fixated on Spider-Woman and wants to be "special" like her. He injects himself with a serum that turns him into this world's version of the Lizard.

  Gwen does not know who is inside the reptilian figure. She fights him, and her blows combine with the strain of the serum to injure him fatally. Peter changes back to human form and dies in her arms. His last words are that he wanted to be like her.

  The reasons behind her heroism are less noble than they first seem. A summary in the second volume's first issue says she originally used her powers to get attention. Her father, NYPD chief George Stacy, advised her that Spider-Woman could do real good. That advice pushed her toward stopping bullying, the very thing Peter had suffered.

  The public blames her for Peter's death, and J. Jonah Jameson leads the condemnation. Gwen is devastated and treats the rest of her career as atonement. Reviewer Jesse Schedeen called Peter "both Gwen's first major villain and the defining, Uncle-Ben-style tragedy in her life."

  George Stacy hunts Spider-Woman, not knowing she is his daughter. When they finally face each other, Gwen shows him her true identity. He is shocked and tells her to run. He later chooses his daughter over his job, which led one critic to call him a capable mentor even if he is no Uncle Ben. Peter's death would eventually cost Gwen a year of her freedom.

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• 4. Spider-Verse and Web Warriors

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  In the Spider-Verse story, Gwen of Earth-65 is one of many Spider-Totems recruited to fight the vampiric Morlun and his family, the Inheritors. Several Spider-Women appear in the story, but she is the only one who is also Gwen Stacy. That is how she earned the nickname Spider-Gwen.

  She soon learns that most of her counterparts in other universes are dead. One of them is the Earth-616 Gwen Stacy, the first love of Peter Parker, who leads the resistance. Gwen tells him she also failed to save her own version of him. The two agree to look out for each other.

  She meets other Spiders again on Battleworld in Secret Wars. She then joins the Web Warriors, a group armed with dimensional-travel devices. They defend worlds that have lost their own Spider. The name was coined by the Peter Parker of the Ultimate Spider-Man television series.

  In 2016, a crossover called Sitting in a Tree showed her an alternate reality where she becomes romantically involved with Miles Morales. In the main story, they stay friends. During Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy, she impersonates the reanimated Earth-616 Gwen Stacy. This helps Peter and Kaine Parker stop a threat tied to Jackal's Carrion Virus.

  In the Spider-Women crossover, she teams with Earth-616's Jessica Drew and Cindy Moon against S.I.L.K. on her own Earth. Soon afterward she loses her powers, and the Earth-65 Cindy Moon is the one responsible.

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• 5. Gwenom

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  Spider-Woman's powers began with the spider bite. She has superhuman speed and agility, enough strength to lift about 10 tons, and the ability to stick to walls. A precognitive "Spider-Sense" warns her of danger. Her web-shooters were built by retired crime fighter and billionaire Janet van Dyne. They pull moisture from the air to make adhesive web-fluid, so they never need refilling while moisture is present.

  Her gear includes a wristwatch-like device that carries her across the multiverse. She also uses her smartphone as superhero equipment. As the daughter of a police captain, she has picked up detective skills and analytical thinking. She has no formal fighting training, but she has absorbed moves from kung-fu films.

  When the Earth-65 Cindy Moon takes her powers, Gwen turns to Matt Murdock and scientist Elsa Brock. Murdock is her world's corrupt version of the Kingpin, and he uses Wilson Fisk as his proxy. Brock's work shows that the mutagenic Lizard serum, combined with isotopes, can form a version of the Venom symbiote. They call it "Gwenom." When Gwen bonds with Elsa Brock's symbiote, her abilities return.

  The symbiote has a cost. It feeds on the nutrients in her body, and her powers turn unstable if it does not get the right ones. She eats extra food, and kale chips became a regular part of her diet because the symbiote responds well to cellulose.

  When Murdock puts out a hit on her father, Gwen gives in to the symbiote's baser influence and nearly kills him. She stops herself and spares his life. Murdock then reveals the whole episode was a test. He wanted to know whether she, like him, would be corrupted by power.

  After defeating Murdock, Gwen takes full control of the symbiote and reveals her identity to the public. She turns herself in. Captain America offers her black-ops work in exchange for a reduced sentence, and she refuses. She is convicted of the manslaughter of Peter Parker and other offenses, and she serves one year in a maximum security S.H.I.E.L.D. prison. She returns as a public-identity Spider-Woman who also calls herself Spider-Gwen.

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• 6. Ghost-Spider

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  When the Inheritors return in Spider-Geddon, Gwen rejoins the fight. The others believe an explosion has killed her. Instead she is stranded on Earth-3109 with a damaged dimensional device. The Gwen of that world fights crime as a heroic Green Goblin, and she builds a replacement device. During the final battle, Miles Morales sees her lost in an explosion and wonders aloud whether she is a ghost. That remark gives her the nickname "Ghost-Spider."

  Gwen also travels to Earth-90214 after the death of Spider-Man Noir. She goes dressed as an airline pilot to consult his loved ones.

  Back on Earth-65, her life is harder without a secret identity. She drums with the Mary Janes and tries to rebuild her friendship with Harry Osborn and her bond with her father. The public judges her, and criminals such as the Man-Wolf attack her regularly. Meanwhile, her symbiote causes massive headaches and sheds pieces of itself as "gummy spiders." Elsa Brock has vanished from public life, so Gwen crosses to Earth-616 to find the counterpart of Eddie Brock.

  There, the Earth-616 Peter Parker, now a teacher at Empire State University, offers to analyze the symbiote. They stop the villain Swarm together. Someone then asks who she is, and she realizes this universe already has a Spider-Woman. Noting that so many of her counterparts are dead, as if "Death loves Gwen Stacy," she adopts Ghost-Spider as her official alias.

  Her identity is intact on Earth-616, so she decides to attend college there. With Peter vouching for her, she enrolls at Empire State University and gets a scholarship meant for visitors from other worlds. She commutes between Earths and fights menaces on both. One is Miles Warren, whose obsession with the Earth-616 Gwen Stacy turned him into the villain Jackal.

  The publishing record is less smooth. Seanan McGuire wrote Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider, with pencils by Rosi Kämpe and later Takeshi Miyazawa. After 10 issues it was relaunched as Ghost-Spider, which was cancelled after 10 more because sales had dropped. The collected volume is called Spider-Gwen: Into the Unknown.

  In 2022, Tim Seeley and Jodi Nishijima's Gwen-Verse sent her through time alongside versions of herself modeled on other Marvel heroes. In July 2024, Marvel announced a limited series called TVA. After the events of Deadpool & Wolverine, the Time Variance Authority places her in temporary "witness protection" on Earth-616. The ongoing series was relaunched in 2025 as All-New Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider.

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• 7. Rogues and Rivals

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  Matt Murdock is not the only familiar face twisted on Earth-65. Wilson Fisk was arrested by George Stacy years ago and remains in prison, yet he apparently still runs a criminal empire through his lawyer, Murdock. The truth is that Murdock is the real Kingpin and Fisk is his patsy. Murdock was trained by Stick and later by the Hand.

  Frank Castle is the captain of the NYPD's Special Crimes Task Force. He takes over the Spider-Woman investigation when Mayor Jameson relieves George Stacy of duty. Castle is cold and brutal, with a nihilistic streak. Aleksei Sytsevich, hired by the Kingpin to kill George, beats him up and later becomes the Rhino. Gwen wants revenge, but Castle gets there first and kills the Rhino.

  Harry Osborn watched his best friend Peter Parker die, and he blames Spider-Woman. Guilt drives him to join and then betray S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to kill her. He attacks with a super suit and glider, and he later injects himself with the Lizard formula. He then discovers that Spider-Woman is Gwen Stacy, and anger consumes him.

  The spider that bit Gwen can be traced to Cindy Moon. In this world a newspaper kills the spider that nearly bites her, and she becomes a billionaire who heads S.I.L.K. S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited her, and she began researching spiders. After a fight with Captain America, one of her engineered spiders escaped into the wild. It found its way to Gwen Stacy.

  Susan and Johnny Storm are former child stars turned influencer sitcom leads, modeled on Cersei and Jaime Lannister as portrayed in Game of Thrones. They manipulate the ruler of Latveria, Victor Von Doom, for five years into granting them superpowers. Susan then murders him and takes his place as Doctor Doom. When the siblings return to New York, they kill their own mother and blackmail Gwen into leaving her home reality.

  The cast also leans into comedy. The Bodega Bandit is a petty crook whose dog Bandito was eaten by a Lizard. Gwen made it up to him with a hamster named Pine Cone. The Koala Kommander is a masked menace who weaponizes koalas. Latour based M.O.D.A.A.K. on Donald Trump, then a U.S. presidential candidate.

  During the King in Black storyline, Knull infects Mary Jane Watson, who is stranded on Earth-616 with Gwen, and she becomes Carnage. In the 2023 limited series Shadow Clones, Dr. Layla Bennett turns on Gwen after her husband Lee dies in a fight with the Sinister Six. She builds clones of Gwen themed after Gwen's rogues gallery. Mary Jane returns as Carnage in the 2023-24 series Smash, and she confesses her love to Gwen.

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• 8. Reception and Reach

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  Critics cheered the design before they praised the stories. A reviewer at Kotaku called the costume one of the best riffs on the Spider-Man motifs in decades. The creative director of Marvel Games, Bill Rosemann, described it as "one of the greatest modern superhero designs." The look became a popular choice for cosplay and fan art. Another reviewer said Gwen should have stayed dead, yet the costume made him want her back.

  The writing earned its own praise. Jesse Schedeen, reviewing the first issue, said she never felt like a female copy of Peter Parker. Aja Romano of The Daily Dot saw a fresh answer to the trope of women dying to fuel men's angst. Joshua Rivera of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Spider-Gwen is not a superficial inversion but an examination of what makes Spider-Man matter. Newsarama placed her seventh on its list of the best Spider-Men.

  On screen, Dove Cameron voiced her in the Ultimate Spider-Man episode "Return to the Spider-Verse," and again as Ghost-Spider in Marvel Rising. That version has partly dyed pink hair, because a character designer searching Google Images for Gwen Poole mistakenly pulled up an image of Gwen Stacy. Laura Bailey voiced a Horizon High classmate of Peter Parker in Marvel's Spider-Man. Lily Sanfelippo and Audrey Bennett have also played her in Spidey and His Amazing Friends.

  Hailee Steinfeld has voiced Gwen Stacy since 2018 in the Spider-Verse films: Into the Spider-Verse, Across the Spider-Verse in 2023, and Beyond the Spider-Verse, planned for 2027. A female-centered spin-off, Spider-Woman, is also in development. She is also an unlockable playable character in Marvel Contest of Champions, Marvel Future Fight and other games, and a Fortnite outfit.

  Her comics legacy includes 20 Marvel variant covers that reimagined her as other heroes, plus one for Image Comics' Invincible. One of those hybrids inspired the character Gwen Poole. The rock band Married With Sea Monsters wrote the song "Face It Tiger" based on a song sung by Gwen's fictional band. Funko made bobblehead figures, and in Australia Harley Davidson teamed with Marvel on a custom motorcycle design based on her.

  Other worlds hold other Gwens. On Earth-8 she is married to Miles Morales, and their children Charlotte and Max Morales-Stacy have spider powers. In Spider-Ham's universe, she is a penguin named Guin Stacy the Spider-Guin.

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