Let's talk Spider-Gwen
I was hoping to put out a new post every Monday, but last week I was in NYC for a Marvel summit to talk about all kinds of new upcoming projects and stuff you already know about, like Gwen and Phoenix. It’s pretty exciting to hear about the other books happening around the Marvel universe and even more exciting that I get to be a small piece of that.
One of the things I got to talk with the team about was our Spider-Gwen series, which just wrapped its first arc in September. Issue 6 will be out this week (OCT 2) so it seems like a good moment to share some of my thoughts on Gwen and the story we’re telling.
First, my goal coming onto the Gwen series was to make something darker than we’ve seen for Gwen in the past. That meant in both tone, style, and plot. The first arc sees Gwen moving from Earth-65 to Earth-616, a pretty big leap for the character who is infamously a multiverse character with an established home and supporting cast. So, the first challenge was to find a way to facilitate the move.
Anyone keeping up with the series has been fed some clues about why Gwen has moved Earths. One of the biggest clues is the mysterious power that Gwen has been experiencing throughout the story. The powers intensify as Gwen becomes stressed (almost like her own super-powered panic attack). In arc 1, Gwen struggles with getting these powers under control as she faces off against Chameleon… and then tries to HELP Chameleon.
In arc 2, we’ll be focusing on Black Tarantula, a character established in arc 1 who is about to come into the spotlight even more. But, he’s a different Black Tarantula then we’ve seen before… a revamped iteration of the character some Spidey and Daredevil readers might already be familiar with. Series artist Paolo Villanelli worked up an INCREDIBLE new costume design for Black Tarantula that gives a modern look to what was already a cool costume.
Not only has the costume changed, but the person under the mask isn’t the person you might be expecting… tune in to find out.
This arc also does a deeper dive into our theme of “ghosts.” There are many different kinds of living ghosts, and Gwen will have to come to terms with the fact that there have been failures on the part of many of Earth’s greatest heroes to protect some of these ghosts. Black Tarantula will push Gwen to understand how to expand her role as a hero (and as a ghost herself) to better serve the people of New York City.
And it’s not ALL heavy… there’s some romance. Or… hatred? And romance? Hate-mance? Is that a thing? It should be. Black Tarantula and Gwen will be tangled in more than one way throughout this new story. Cover artist Mark Brooks did a great job of capturing the hate-mance on covers for this arc:
I’ll say one more thing about this series… the last page of issue #10 is something I don’t think anyone will see coming. It’s got a character on it that even I am surprised will be entering Gwen’s story… and entering in a BIG way.
October Release Schedule!
Oct. 2: Spider-Gwen #6
Oct. 9: Phoenix #4
Oct. 9: LIFE #2
Oct. 16: GRIM #20
Hope to see you all at NYCC. I’ll post my signing schedule and panels as we get a bit closer. For now, bye from us (me and Jean).
-Stephanie
