Welcome to Earth-616, Gwen!
The new Spider-Gwen ongoing starts today!
The first issue of Spider-Gwen #1 is finally out today!
When I first started writing for Marvel, someone online fan-cast me as the writer for a Gwen ongoing series. I love Gwen, so I definitely wasn’t disappointed by that vote of confidence from Twitter users, but I was pretty quickly consumed by other Marvel projects and kind of forgot about that idea… until I got a call from someone at Marvel asking me how I felt about Gwen, the Ghost-Spider.
And I feel positively… very positively.
I was given a pretty open canvas to play with regarding Gwen’s storyline, with one very tiny little detail: Gwen is moving to Earth-616… for good. Now, without turning this post into some long-winded discussion of mutiverses, the main thing you need to know is that the Gwen Stacy who was bitten by a radioactive spider came from an alternate Earth - a different one from Peter Parker’s Spider-Man. While Gwen often moved through multiple Earths and interacted with the other spider people, she was still firmly planted in Earth-65, her home Earth.
Thanks to help from the TVA (Time Variance Authority), Gwen is under a kind of witness protection program without a way to contact her old life on Earth-65. Gwen can’t tell anyone why she’s hiding on Earth-616 and she has been warned that resuming her actions as the superhero known as the Ghost-Spider could have dire consequences for herself and the people she loves.
But we all know Gwen… there’s a reason she put the costume on in the first and giving up when people need help is not really not her thing… neither is being told what to do. But, the risks might just outweigh the heroic rewards this time. *ominous music*
This story has classic Spidey characters, new characters, some unexpected faces, romance, and lots of web-shooting action. It has been so incredibly fun to write, and it’s a series that will reward you for sticking with us. There are lots of mysteries to solve, like why Gwen needed the protection of the TVA in the first place. And, if you read our prologue in WEB OF SPIDER-MAN #1 that came out in March, you’ll see that we’ve already started to give you clues.
The answers are all there… see if you can find them.
“Dangit, I’m a fashionably clad woman with super-human-arachnid abilities, not a detective!”
What can you look forward to?
Well, the first thing is Mark Brooks’ covers every month. I look forward to them, you should too. They’re all fantastic.
There are also some cool Gwen-themed goodies hitting stores, like this short box with Mark’s issue 1 artwork on it.
And a Skottie Young variant cover to issue #2!
Issue #3 will also be a larger issue that houses a back-up story from another artist who will be joining us starting with issue #4, and it’s someone I’ve worked with before and can’t wait to resume the collaboration.
Thank you to everyone who has already subscribed to the Spider-Gwen series. If there are questions about Gwen that I can answer in a later post (no spoilers!), please drop them in the comments and I’ll make sure I address them before issue #2.
ALSO OUT TODAY…
GRIM #17, a special Eddie-focused issue that explores his backstory…
And BLACK WIDOW & HAWKEYE #3!
Thanks so much to everyone reading and subscribing to these titles. I’ll be at Coliseum of Comics in Tampa, FL this Saturday from 1-3:30pm signing all these comics!
-Stephanie
Hi Steph, loved the first issue!
Can we expect Gwen to team up with heroes outside of the 616 spiders?
And secondly, have you thought of using Gwen’s full Venom suit ,which is an excellent design, as a visual indicator she’s angry or the symbiote’s taking more control?