Spider-Man has always been a thing. I remember being younger and singing “Does Whatever A Spider Can” while swinging on the swings back in elementary school.
At some point last year, I started hearing about ‘Spider Gwen’ and seeing her pop up around the internet. The first thing that really got me was her costume, created by Jason LaTour, Robbi Rodriguez and Rico Renzi. The design was very creative and bright compared to all of the other Spider-Spin-offs I’ve seen. Not to mention, it’s Gwen Stacy, same girl (SPOILER ALERT) who was suppose to be dead.
Now, I was not a huge Spider-Man fan. I liked the character, but didn’t necessarily follow along in the comics. I very much enjoyed watching The Amazing Spider-Man movie with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, and thanks to the internet, was spoiled about Gwen Stacy’s demise after looking into the series. Gotta love the internet.
So other then watching both movies, I didn’t get a whole lot into the Spider-Man universe until I found out Spider-Gwen was getting her own series. I went out and bought Spider-Gwen Issue #1 when it was released. Read through, loved the art, but wasn’t instantly drawn in by the story line. It felt a little slow to me… Still decided to give it a shot and collected the next two when they came out.
Glad I did.
Gwen Stacy’s sarcastic-humor is a nice touch to her character as well as the add-in of Spider-Pig in the second issue (thank you The Simpsons). Like I said before, the first villain, the Vulture didn’t seem like much of a threat at first, but I liked how the progressively built his character and pitted him against Gwen.
Gwen’s character design is also interesting enough as well. The fact they decided to give her shorter hair than her original counterpart was a nice touch, and the fact that they give her moments of mourning for her universe’s Peter Parker is a good swing in the right direction in character development. I look forward to seeing what happens to her guilt for Peter Parker’s demise in future issues. Not to mention she was a drummer for The Mary-Janes.
P.S. – I wasn’t much of a fan of Mary-Jane in the first place, but Spider-Gwen’s version of Mary-Jane really makes me not like her. Can’t understand why Gwen stuck around with her for so long.
Looking forward to seeing where Latour, Rodriguez and Renzi take Spider-Gwen next (as well as really wanting some cool Spider-Gwen gear).