It’s been 42 years since Spider-Man’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, died in the final pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #121 — a death that changed comic book history forever and was quite possibly Marvel’s first admission that superheroes can’t save everyone.
But what if she wasn’t dead? What if, in an alternate universe, Peter Parker died and Gwen Stacy became a badass superhero with all of Spider-Man’s powers and a heck of a lot more angst?
Behold: Spider-Gwen.
Spider-Gwen Exclusive Preview
Spider-Gwen #1 hit the shelves on Wednesday, satisfying a longtime demand for a spinoff that establishes Gwen as a superhero, Kotaku reports.
READ USA TODAY’S IN-DEPTH REPORT ON SPIDER-GWEN
“It’s a rare character that gets the public outcry that Spider-Gwen got,” senior editor Nick Lowe said before the book’s release. “From the sell-out of Gwen’s first appearance to the groundswell on Twitter we’re excited to bring more Spider-Gwen into the world with the creators who started it all!”
To be sure, the Internet has already fallen in love with the new heroine. Some are just happy to have a strong female lead in the Spider-verse. Kotaku and IGN give a lot of credit to the character design, focusing on her cool new duds:
“The enthusiastic reaction to Spider-Gwen is due in part to a great character design. Her costume — which brilliantly fuses negative space ideas, high-contrast coloring and could-actually-exist practicality — is one of the best riffs on the Spider-Man motif in decades.”
The first issue is certainly receiving good reviews, but its success remains to be seen. Is Spider-Man out? Is Spider-Gwen the new hotness? Will Emma Stone play her when the movie inevitably comes out?
Only time will tell.