WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Spider-Gwen: Gwen-Verse #1, available now from Marvel.
Ghost-Spider, better known as Spider-Gwen, has been a fan-favorite ever since she broke through the Spider-Verse. With her dynamic costume and intriguingly different take a Spider-hero's origin story, she quickly established herself as more than just an amusing gimmick.
While no stranger to inter-dimensional travel, her most recent foray into alternate realities has nonetheless upended her life. Besides the simple inconvenience of being universes away from your own life, this multiverse tripping journey seems to aim at making Gwen confront her personal demons. As far as demons go, it appears there's none worse than the latest God of Thunder.
Gwen Stacy's superhero career as Ghost-Spider might be easier than most considering her reality's lack of credible threats, but her personal life continues to be anything but simple. Her closest friendship only barely survived the events of King in Black, and the pressure hasn't stopped. As seen in Spider-Gwen: Gwen-Verse #1 (by Tim Seeley, Jodi Nishijima, Federico Blee, and VC's Ariana Maher), twin issues of Gwen's unreliability and desire for attention continues to drive a wedge between the two best friends. Unfortunately, before Gwen can address it with much depth with MJ, superhero shenanigans once again dominate her attention.
Ghost Spider finds herself entangled in a plot from the villainous Finale, seemingly by accident. It isn't long before Gwen finds herself in a universe with yet another heroic Gwen. This one, the terrific Thorgwen, seems even more in search of the spotlight than the book's point of view Gwen. A vain, preening glory hog, Thorgwen gets under Ghost Spider's skin immediately. The question is, though, what bothers Gwen more. How different her web-slinging version of Stacy is from Thorgwen or how similar.
Unfortunately, Ghost Spider's personality flaws do not begin and end with attention-seeking. This suggests that Thorgwen will not be the only multiversal variant likely to show up. It seems that each will require her to confront another aspect of herself and wrestle with what embarrasses, annoys, or upsets her about herself. The next flaw likely to be personified by another Gwen would seem to be stubbornness. While that headstrong nature has undoubtedly saved Gwen on several occasions, it is causing ruptures in her relationship with her father. How will another Gwen who's as stubborn as Thorgwen is attention-seeking change Gwen's self-concept?
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It's the kind of journey that can transform a person for better or worse. Will she come out of it a more integrated individual, better able to take a self-assessment and tweak her choices to be better for both herself and those that she loves? Will it leave her so disgusted with herself, she ends up crippled with fears of inadequacy? Or, perhaps worst of all, she feels hopeless to change in light of her doppelgangers and instead decides to simply indulge her worst qualities without evaluating how they change her or hurt others around her.
With any luck, that won't be her route. After all, this isn't the first time she's had her eyes opened or disposition changed by a trip through the multiverse. The last one proved life-changing for her thanks to her encounter with other Spider colleagues. Though uncomfortable, this one might also end up on a similar note of inspiration and support. Gwen, like her readers, will only know at the end of the journey.
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