Gwen Stacy Resurrected: New Comic Series Gives Spidey Powers To Dead Girlfriend [Spoilers]
Spiderman’s dead girlfriend, Gwen Stacy — played by Emma Stone (shown above) in the recent movies — has come back to life thanks to a new series of comic books and an alternate Marvel universe. But there’s a twist: in this universe, Gwen was the one bitten by a radioactive spider, and old Peter Parker, he’s dead. In this new reality, she’s known as Spider-Gwen, and she plays drums.
According to MSN, Gwen Stacy died in 1973, killed in a battle between the Green Goblin and Spiderman. She stayed dead for 40 years, but that’s over now.
USA Today reports that Spider-Gwen exists in alternate universe, Earth-65 (the original Spiderman was on Earth-616). She has all the powers of the original Spiderman — and most importantly she’s the drummer for a band called the Mary Janes.
As for Peter Parker, he dies in the first issue. Peter was trying to become the Lizard — a vain attempt to share in Gwen’s superhero lifestyle — but fails.
Like Spiderman, Gwen also spends a fair amount of time avoiding the mud-slinging from J. Jonah Jameson and the Daily Bugle.
Head writer Jason Latour talked to USA Today about the release of the new comic series, explaining that the hype snowballed quickly.
“The response just seemed to balloon. People really liked the costume and they were really into the idea, and if you had your finger on the pulse of Tumblr — not that I do but if you just took a peek at it — it was insane before the book even came out with how much fan art and speculation there was about it.”
So what does it mean to center the Spiderman narrative around a woman, instead of man?
Nothing, according to Latour.
“The fact that it’s a woman does change the meaning and subtext of everything that’s going on. As a creator, that’s really enjoyable and it opens up the story to go in a lot of directions it wouldn’t have gone before.”
He later added, “there was a catharsis to, well, if this character could come back and escape death because of what superhero comics are best at doing, then the sky’s the limit.”
Naturally, some people are wondering what this will mean for the newest series of Spiderman movies. In that set of stories, Gwen Stacy just recently died.
Nevertheless, it’s probably too early to call up Emma Stone. Not only is the comic series in its infancy, but switching universes is pretty difficult to do. Especially in a feature-length movie. With Marvel’s schedule pretty much set for the next few years, there’s probably not much potential for Emma Stone to reprise the role of Gwen Stacy anytime soon.
[Images via wallpaperseries.com/Marvel]
