Comic Book / The Unbelievable Gwenpool

"A while ago I left the real world. I successfully traveled to the very weird space between realities, and emerged here. The comic book land of super heroes! And it was fun! I killed a bunch of rando fictional characters and got paid well for it. I knew the only way to survive in a place like this was to become a main character myself."

— Gwen Poole

You like Spider-Gwen, you love Deadpool, so what could be better than these two together! No, not a team up, but as the same person (except not really)!

Meet Gwendolyn Poole. She's from another universe, one where superheroes and space aliens exist only in the pages of comic books. A lifelong fan of comics, but especially Marvel's larger-than-life heroes, she one day finds herself displaced from her own New York City to downtown Manhattan on Earth-616, staring in awe as characters she grew up reading about rush past her to battle evil.

Realizing that she's quite literally become a comic book character, Gwen quickly decides to become a superhero, since no one wants to be a Red Shirt extra. Dressed in a cheap, pantsless pink costume and armed with a pair of swords she bought on the internet, Gwen proceeds to sell her "skills" to the highest bidder as the rookie mercenary Gwenpool!

Starting life in a series of What If? variant covers with Gwen Stacy as various heroes^note (kicked off by the unexpected popularity of the aforementioned Spider-Gwen), Gwen dressed as Deadpool became so incredibly popular — especially among cosplayers — that she got a backup story in a Howard the Duck comic (later republished as Unbelievable Gwenpool #0). Then a Christmas special. And finally her own ongoing series in the All-New, All-Different Marvel lineup: The Unbelievable Gwenpool written by Christopher Hastings (The Adventures of Dr. McNinja), with art by the duo known as Gurihiru. This series served to give her a backstory which divorced her from her "Gwen Stacy Deadpool" origins and flesh her out into a proper character.

Alas, while the series had its dedicated fans, it ended on its twenty-fifth issue. The character herself went on to be part of the short-lived Marvel: A Fresh Start version of West Coast Avengers (2018 — 2019). This was then followed by a five-issue limited series called Gwenpool Strikes Back, wherein Gwen attempts to gain actual superpowers that can justify her continued existence in the Marvel universe. Spoiler alert, she succeeded, and has since made occasional appearances in other Marvel books and projects such as Love Unlimited (2022).

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Gwenpool provides examples of:

General

• Alternate Company Equivalent: Funnily enough, she's this to Harley Quinn, who herself had become DC Comics' own answer to Marvel's Deadpool earlier in the 2010s as a comedic Meta Guy Anti-Hero. Both are blonde-with-dyed-highlights Genki Girls who are also Cute and Psycho and fill out the aforementioned Meta Guy Anti-Hero archetype.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • How current Gwen's outside knowledge of the Marvel universe actually is. During Unbelievable, it seemed to just be a vague mid-2010s.^{A boring attempt to decode this.} When we first see a glimpse of her world in Issue #3 of Unbelievable, we see that Doctor Strange (2016) was in theaters before she left: a movie which released in November 2016, 5 months after that issue came out, meaning Gwen was not only from our reality, but from the near future. Except, in Issue #16 (when she returns to "the real world"), we see Gwen picking up her pull list at a comic store and there is talk about Secret Wars (2015) being an ongoing event. The batch itself includes Issue #3 of the event, dating this as June 2015. The following issue occurs a week later, with her dad talking about getting tickets for New York Comic-Con, which occurs yearly in October and starts selling tickets in May/June. So maybe they silently retconned Gwen to have left our reality sometime in Summer 2015? Well, that same issue also has a guy who is watching Captain America: Civil War for the third time that day... a movie that wasn't out until Spring 2016. This is further discussed in the letter section of Unbelievable's 24th issue, where Gwen theorizes Ted's attempt to bring her back to the real world created a pocket dimension mimicking the time before she first entered the comic world, explaining away the inconsistencies. Later on, Gwenpool Strikes Back would have her reference concurrent events in other books, such as Immortal Hulk, which suggests the possibility that she has some sort of ongoing awareness and knowledge; whether this is part of her powerset or a case of Depending on the Writer is up in the air.
  • Gwen specifically never explains how she entered the Marvel universe. Additionally, it's occasionally implied that she may never have been from the "real world" to begin within, but rather another Marvel dimension that is incredibly similar to ours.
  • If the events of Gwenpool Strikes Back officially made her a mutant or not? It isn't made entirely clear if those within the Marvel universe merely consider her a mutant and she's able to play along with this misconception, or if her discussion with Kamala Khan actually resulted in her backstory actually being retconned to make her a reality warper native to 616.
• Animal Motif: Gwen has an affinity for sharks. She's frequently seen with a cute shark styled backpack, some of her weapons have little shark faces on either them or the ammunition (as seen on the page image), her brief time with the West Coast Avengers had her tame and keep a young landshark as a pet, and in Gwenpool Strikes Again she has a shark in her costume as an online avatar.
• Badass Normal: Gwen has no powers. She is from the "real" world after all, so she starts out with a mountain of Genre Savvy and little else. As time goes on, she does get combat training courtesy of Batroc, and shows a natural affinity for gunplay. Later subverted, as it turns out her being from the real world gives her the side effect of having some level of Reality Warping due to perceiving the universe as a comic book. Later series limited how well she could do this when she wasn't the main character, but by the end of Gwenpool Strikes Again, she has full-time access to this power due to being retconned in-universe to be a mutant.
• Born Lucky: Her taking advantage of tropes looks basically like supernatural luck to other characters.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: From the outside, and with extreme prejudice to boot.
• Canon Immigrant: In-Universe, Gwen originally hails from Real Life. Doctor Strange eventually helps "complete" her immigration, by way of "inserting" her life into the Marvel Universe.
• C-List Fodder: Referenced and defied as Civil War II has Gwen running to Georgia for feeling "a D-list superhero like me is the kind that dies in these crossovers!" But down in the Deep South, she ends up stumbling upon Rocket Raccoon and Groot (or in her words, Squirrel and Talking Tree).
• Clothing Damage: Once Gwenpool suffers this, her Meta Gal nature makes her lampshade it to hell and back.◊
• Comic Books Are Real: The whole premise of the book is a normal unremarkable girl that's a fan of Marvel comics suddenly finding herself living in the world she loves so much. Unfortunately for her, real or not, the characters of the Marvel Universe don't really seem to like a self-proclaimed hero that doesn't care about collateral damage or actually saving people.
• Comic-Book Limbo: In Unbelievable, Gwen is aware that the cancellation of her ongoing means this for her entire supporting cast. Meanwhile, her increased fear of this is the driving force of Strikes Back.
• Composite Character: In practice, despite her meta-origin being a variant cover of Gwen Stacy dressed as Deadpool, it would be far more accurate to describe her as Harley Quinn if she had the backstory of Superboy-Prime.
• Depending on the Writer: Discussed and played with extensively.
  • Knowing the cancellation of her ongoing series is imminent, Gwen becomes aware that her supporting cast will disappear into Comic-Book Limbo along with her. However, isn't the case with Batroc the Leaper — a very well established Captain America villain — who will just be written differently to fit whatever stories they will need him for. Gwen is painfully aware of that and can only say goodbye to her friend before he's "gone".
  • The final issue on her ongoing also discusses this, with Good Future Gwen noting that this will happen to them should they be brought back in the future by any new creative team that's interested in using her.
  • Lampshaded in Gwenpool Strikes Back #4, where the titular Gwen (who later indentifies herself as a "bridge" Gwen) calls her previous incarnations from different titles and all their personalities are varying levels of crazy and chaotic. Champions and Rocket & Groot Gwen are the quickest to resort to violence, with the later even earning a negative comparison to Harley Quinn. By contrast, the West Coast Avengers and Superior Spider-Man versions are more level-headed team players. And naturally, the one penned by Hastings is considered the sweet and adorable fan favorite and most likely to be recognized by general readers.^note The original one from the Deadpool alternate cover and the Howard the Duck version were too busy doing other things to help out.
• The Earth-Prime Theory: Supposedly comes from the real world, or at least from a world where all the rest of Marvel continuity is the stuff of comic books. Notably, when she believes she's been sent home, she discovers that she really hasn't, and it's actually just a comic book version of her real home. She then returns to the main Marvel Universe.
• Genre Savvy:
  • Gwen is a huge comic nerd so she knows how the world works and can exploit it to do pretty much whatever she wants. To the point of knowing that any fall from a great height will most likely not be fatal, so why bother with parachutes. However, this is deconstructed as Gwen only has a certain amount of knowledge in certain facts, and her knowledge is colored by her biases, as well as the limitations of her mind. It takes her time in a high-pressure situation to even remember Thor's secret identity, and she only thinks of M.O.D.O.K as the Memetic Loser that some Marvel fans view him as rather than the very serious and credible threat he is in-universe. She also doesn't read Deadpool. Apparently, his brand of humor's a little too "LOL Memes" for her tastes.
  • Her entire point of putting on a costume is because she's fully aware that anyone in this universe who isn't in colorful tights making a huge spectacle of themselves is more or less a Red Shirt. She also abuses this for her merc jobs since she knows the high paying ones that list some no-name are easy cash since they lack plot armor. Unfortunately for her, one contract messed up the details and instead of fighting some random vampire like she prepared for, she had to face a HALF-vampire. Gwen knew exactly who the contract was referring to once this clarification was noted, causing her to panic.
  • Future Gwen fully abuses the fact that editors and fans won't allow her bigger actions to stick without an instant Snap Back to the status quo to have as much fun as she wants without having to worry about consequences. She abuses it and other laws of the Marvel Universe to become the most effective supervillain, mostly for her own amusement.
• Incoming Ham: Gwenpool makes her first appearance to Black Cat (and the audience) by bursting through a door while on her motorcycle and shouting "HELLO WORLD!"◊
• No Fourth Wall: Gwen much like Deadpool knows and loves the fact that she is in a comic-book world. She frequently talks to and about the reader and she loves bringing up tropes. This is because she's from a world where the Marvel heroes are fictional. Doctor Strange eventually gets to see a glimpse of her world, and is mildly pleased that he's portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch. Though unlike Deadpool, Gwen can't "see" stuff like voice balloons or narration boxes, she is just aware that she now lives in a world she read about in comics. She does however see the world in the style of the artist on the book.
  Gwen: [After asking a guy about his name and job] Sorry, I had to ask. I'm used to you looking more Quinones^note Artist of Howard the Duck, and right now you're more Beyruth^note Artist of the Gwenpool backup stories...
  • In her cameo appearance in Rocket Raccoon & Groot, she responded to Kitty Pryde randomly showing up for a gratuitous cameo with:
    Gwen: Is ***ing Bendis writing this?!
  • This changes when she hits the "Beyond the Fourth Wall" arc in Unbelievable. From that point forward, not only does she begin to see all the comic book conventions around her, but they become Metafictional Devices that she can interact with like real world objects.
• Saving Christmas: What Gwen has to do in the Merry Mix-Up holiday special or Galactus will bring the presents, and pants will be given instead of thanks and so forth forever. Turns out Santa wanted to take a year off but overshot the magic which resulted in a whole lot of odd mixed-up holidays... and random cosmic horrors at the north pole.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Leaves the Champions when she realizes that they are dealing with relatable, real world issues instead of over the top super villainy.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Due to the fact Gwen used to be an ordinary comic book reader she knows all^note or at least most secret identities but most superheroes don't seem to know she even exists and she hasn't made any mention of it to the few she has met. This is deconstructed when Gwen meets Thor who nearly kills her just for calling her "Jane". And comes to aid her when Gwen goes to search for Cecil in Ghost Rider's high school (while blindfolding Hawkeye to ensure Robbie remains undercover).
• Variant Cover: Gwen owes her entire existence to this, Doylistically. A set of themed variant covers showing Spider-Gwen dressed up as the comics' protagonists included one of her in a pink version of Deadpool's costume, which became so popular with fan-artists and cosplayers that Marvel decided to introduce a version of the character to the actual comics.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Gwen has this with her Frenemy Deadpool. She claims she finds him annoying and never read his comics because they were too "LOL MEMES" for her taste. Despite this, they have teamed up several times in each other's books. In Gwenpool Strikes Back they apparently get along fairly well as fellow fourth-wall breakers and Gwen is even comfortable enough around him to call him "Wade".
• Wrong Genre Savvy:
  • In an issue of Champions (2016), she's convinced that a small town ran by a bigoted sheriff is actually being controlled by a hidden supervillain. The team comes close to beating her senseless over the fact that, sorry, people can be that evil without the aid of supervillains. She disappears at the end of the issue still convinced about hidden villains. In her defense, there have been many stories where it's revealed that a supervillain is behind a small town's populace acting shady. It's just that she didn't accept that The Champions is a book focused on real-world issues and subverts thus tropes like that.
    Gwen: If I wanted to navigate amoral shades of gray — Yuck — I would have stayed on my own Earth.
  • When fighting Deadpool in issue 13 of Unbelievable, Gwen realizes how badass he is, but assumes she'll be safe since this is her own book and she'll have Plot Armor. The moment she says that very thing out loud, Wade figures out what's going on and gives her a long "Reason You Suck" Speech regarding her reliance on plot armor when she is still effectively a D-lister trying to fight an extremely popular A-lister. The only way she gets out of this is by pointing out that if everything he said is true, why is he playing along with Arcade's game?
    Deadpool: I've had hundreds of issues. I don't know how many series. I guest appear everywhere. Comics, video games, TV shows, and let's not forget, the highest-grossing R-Rated film of all time. You however, first appeared as a back-up in Howard the Duck because they weren't sure if anyone would like you. You are the last person who can kill me.

The Unbelievable Gwenpool (2016-2018)

• '90s Anti-Hero: Gwen attempts to invoke this in Issue #6. After getting reprimanded by Miles for trying to kill one of his classmates, Gwen starts to wax poetic over how the two are destined to have a Let's You and Him Fight and Teeth-Clenched Teamwork dynamic for years to come.
• Alas, Poor Yorick: Done with Cecil's skull in Issue 2.
• Already Done for You: In the first issue, Gwen takes a job to deal with Teuthidans selling weapons to HYDRA, only to find that someone else had already dealt with it. She kills him and takes the credit for it. This gets her involved in M.O.D.O.K.'s business.
• Animesque: The first series courtesy of being drawn in Gurihiru's typical style.
• Approval of God: In-Universe. At one point, Dr. Strange takes a look into our universe and approves of Benedict Cumberbatch's casting as him in the 2016 movie.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  Gwen: [to Deadpool after his "Reason You Suck" Speech about Popularity Power] If you're so powerful... If you know all this... stuff... Then why are you trapped by Arcade? Why are you playing out this story?
• Arrested for Heroism: Gwenpool foils a bank robbery by killing the robbers with her guns and a grenade, which damages the building. She expects to be rewarded and showered with praise, but the citizens are understandably terrified of her and she gets arrested. Fortunately for her, the police officer driving the car decides to quit and releases her in exchange for all her money.
• Art Shift: Some issues have other artists alongside or in place of Gurihiru, such as Danilo Beyruth, Alti Firmansyah, or Irene Strychalski. There's also an Imagine Spot in issue #8 that's even more cartoonish than usual. In the case of issue #13, the art shift from Alti Firmansyah to Gurihiru happens in the middle of the story, and it's noticed by Gwen herself.
• Ascended Fangirl: She was a huge Marvel comic-book nerd in real life, and now she is living in the Marvel Universe.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!:
  • Batroc accuses Gwen of "Attention Deficit... Ooh, Superheroes!"
    Gwen: Tell him I—
    Batroc: Got excited to run off with Spider-Man and abandoned us?
  • In issue #16 Gwen is called out by her dad on her short attention span and never finishing what she started.
• Back from the Dead: Cecil gets resurrected by some mystic intervention from Doctor Strange in issue 4. He's a ghost for a couple of issues, before Gwen uses a magical gem to let his spirit inhabit the body of a mindless Asgardian beast.
  Cecil: I'm dead. I'm a ghost.
  Gwen: Yes, but we won! Victory hug!
• Badass Normal: Batroc the Leaper is the only actual combat specialist of M.O.D.O.K.'s crew, teaching Gwen how to fight and being capable of faring slightly better against Thor than others.
• Bad Future: Gwen at some point becomes a villain (complete with an Evil Costume Switch that includes pants) and more or less Marvel's greatest troll, leaking everyone's identities and secrets and maneuvering them against each other for her amusement while she avoids retribution by popping in and out of the void between panels. This world's versions of Miles Morales, Vinnie Doonan, and the Terrible Eye travel back in time to try and Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In order to keep her book going, Gwen decides to go take down one of the biggest, baddest villains in Marvel history, Doctor Doom. On top of her frustration upon finding out that he's trying to redeem himself by becoming Iron Man, she slices a gash in him that causes pages of his past and a fully-villainous classic version of Doom to come out.
• Big "WHAT?!": Cecil's death causes this reaction from Gwen.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • The ending of Issue 10. Gwen convinces Vincent to destroy the Teuthidans but now M.O.D.O.K base is destroyed, the M.O.D.O.K mooks are jailed, Gwen's friends decide to go their separate ways and Gwen tearfully declares she'll be going on the most insane and self-destructive mission she can get.
  • How the fourth arc ends; Gwen has successfully defeated her future self and resisted turning evil, in order to ensure that she'll never have to hurt the people she loves to stay relevant in the comics. But she acknowledges that this likely comes with the cost of hurting her comic and eventually fading into obscurity, likely dooming her to Cannon Fodder.
• Bland-Name Product: Car Crimes VII. Especially interesting that this isn't an Earth-616 example, but instead from (a pocket universe imitation of) Gwen's home reality.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Future Terrible Eye's other idea how to keep Gwen from becoming a villain. Which horrifies both her and Teddy, and prompts Vincent questioning how permanent this solution would be (as it turns out, not very).
• Breaking the Fellowship: After thwarting the Tuethidans and saving her friends, Batroc has to remind Gwen and the others that their base is destroyed, their henchmen are all arrested, they're completely broke, and their one steady customer will never work with them again. As they are all wanted criminals with no resources now, their best option is to part ways and lay low for a while.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Somewhat literally in the second part of the fourth arc. Gwen punches a hole in the panel boundary with a pen, with her seeing a form of Droste Image of her selves through the gap, due to the nature of the hole, before she literally falls right out of the page due to the irrecoverable damage her little experiment did.
• Brick Joke: Big Ronnie gives her a magic egg that will summon Doctor Strange for a consultation. Strange tells Gwen that he hopes Ronnie didn't charge her much for it, as it was a Christmas present. Next issue, Gwen has a charge on her account from Ronnie for half a million dollars.
• The Bus Came Back: After being absent for a while, Big Ronnie returns in issue 10.
• Call-Back:
  • During her first meeting with Batroc, Gwen proves her logic by pointing out that he can remember nothing prior to his debut appearance. In Issue 20, Bad Future Gwen pulls the same trick on her.
  • In Issue 21, Gwen decides that she'll become an Avenger, and it will work, "not like my stint with the Champions".
• Captain Obvious: Sadly necessary for other characters to be this to Gwen sometimes, especially in early issues.
  Gwen: *charges into situation*
  Howard: You have guns! They work from afar!
• Celebrity Paradox: If Gwen is in fact from a Marvel universe, she is from one where Marvel exists and publishes the same comics it publishes in our world.
• Character Development:
  • Lampshaded in Issue 13.
    Mega Tony: I really thought you were just some... force to ruin my life.
    Gwen: You probably weren't wrong! But you know... character arcs and stuff.
  • During Issue 20, Gwen finally hits the point where she no longer considers all the "fictional" characters expendable after a Heel Realization.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The Terrible Eye due to her mask. Without it she's a bubbly Perky Goth, with it she gains some form of cosmic knowledge but the breadth of information all at once makes her... quite strange.
• Combat Pragmatist: Gwen doesn't really care how she destroys her opponent as long it works (when in doubt EXPLOSIVES!), this is the other way she balances for her utter lack of training and abilities. And when Batroc assessed her abilities (apparently she has good affinity to guns and went from "cannot hit the side of the barn" to "almost perfect as long nothing moves erratically" in one day) he also included some advice about fighting dirty.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In issue 2 of Gwenpool, she brings up MODOK'S retirement at the end of Secret Avengers volume 3.
  • In issue 5, when she meets Miles Morales and needs to explain how she knew he was Spider-Man, instead of telling the truth, thinking he wouldn't believe her, she concocts a story about being bequeathed a lot of knowledge by a dying Watcher.
  • Issue 10 has Ronnie commenting that thanks to having used so much pink fabric to create the Poole Boys' uniforms, there won't be enough to make Gwen a pair of pants for her suit, something she had already complained about before.
• Conversational Troping: After Batroc takes Gwen under his wing and gets to entertain her worldview we get this bit of Fridge Horror laden bit (shortened) on the nature of superhero comics:
  Batroc: So you believe you're in a fictional world... some sort of Fairy Tale?
  Gwen: Sure.
  Batroc: Ah. But fairy tales mean happy endings. They do not exist here. I will tell you. I have known my share of defeat and disappointment.
  Gwen: Oh Batroc... that's because you're the bad guy in the stories.
  Batroc: Indeed? So, you would say I am just a villain in Captain America's ongoing tale? (...) He has fought for decades, with only ze illusion of meaningful victory. Ze world is no safer place because of him. He struggles for nothing. (...)
  • In Issue 21, Gwen says the snake charmer Master could do his monologues much faster if he didn't indulge in Sssssnake Talk.
• Crazy-Prepared: Subverted. M.O.D.O.K. gets the upper hand with his fight against Gwenpool because he has countless defense measures stored in him, but he's unprepared for her emergency summoning of Cecil's ghost.
  Security system: Warning! Cyber attack! Unknown origin!
  M.O.D.O.K.: It's a ghost! Activate ghost defense!
  Security system: That does not exist. Rocket compromised.
• Curbstomp Battle: In issue 6, Gwen tries to fight Miles Morales. He takes her out with one punch while explicitly holding back.
• Dark Is Not Evil: At one point, Gwen is hired by a town of peaceful undead monsters to protect them from Blade, who assumes they're evil. They have been stealing life force from their own children for decades, though.
• Death Amnesia: Cecil doesn't remember anything about an afterlife. This doesn't stop other characters from asking him about it and building their own theories around it.
• Deconstructive Parody: Seems to be one towards the ever popular Self-Insert Fic by showing what could happen when a regular comic reader gets stuck in the Marvel Universe. Gwen believes that since she's the main character and the world isn't real, she can do whatever she wants without consequence. The Marvel Universe intends to prove her wrong. Examples include:
  • While Deadpool's Breaking the Fourth Wall moments are quick, fleeting and leave everyone around him confused, Gwenpool goes into complete rants, leading to people asking if she's insane.
  • Being a girl from the real world, Gwen's essentially a Secret Secret-Keeper to the heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe. This proves to be a bad thing when she yells out the female Thor's identity and her response is to threaten to smash her head into the wall for saying so, forcing her to Verbal Backspace.
  • Issue #19 has a Future Miles Morales who actually wants to kill her over a terrible disaster she causes in the future. Said disaster is Gwenpool going mad with her Reality Warping powers and deciding to out the identities of all the superheroes, eventually creating a Crisis Crossover that results in many lives lost (including Miles' wife, child, parents) all because she thought it would be fun.
  • This ties to the fact that she is an absolute Cosmic Plaything never catching a break:
    • Wants to be a Deadpool lolsorandumb character? Fails at it and gets tortured by her own conscience.
    • Obtains reality breaking superpowers? She turns into a supervillain in the future that is hated by all the people she idolizes.
    • Defeats said supervillain? Only to trigger the countdown of her own demise.
• Delayed Narrator Introduction: In the first issue, she outright points out that she isn't in the truck that's shown in the panel, then points herself out in the background a few pages later (as a customer in the bank the occupants of the truck are about to rob).
• Destination Defenestration: When his accountant fails to find any records on Gwen, M.O.D.O.K. throws him out the window to his death.
• Deteriorates Into Gibberish: Gwen frequently when meeting her favourite supers (non sequitur babbling being the best case). Which made some people question if this is her fangirlism, or is she crushing on everybody? Given this is a Deadpool derivative book both are reasonable alternatives.
• Deus ex Machina: Part of the reason Gwenpool even has a shot of surviving is because events keep conspiring to constantly save her. Lampshaded in issue 4.
  Gwen: Well, you see, I'm pretty sure this is a fictional world, and I might be the hero, so I kind of have a deus ex machina happening. Sometimes.
• Didn't Think This Through: Gwen's very first appearance had her stealing a horrible virus from Black Cat, and then selling it to Hydra because she needed money and was sure The Avengers would solve it. Howard The Duck then convinces her this will not be the case, forcing a team-up to take the virus back (the not Madam Hydra in charge even recognizes Gwen as the one who sold them the thing...).
• The Dragon: Gwen is forced to become M.O.D.O.K's top lieutenant after she kills his previous one.
• End-of-Series Awareness: The defeat of Evil!Gwenpool effectively foreshadowed the conclusion of this series, with Gwen guessing she's only got two more issues of her comic left when talking to Victor von Doom in issue #23. This was confirmed to be the case via press release shortly after.
• The End... Or Is It?: Issue 16 ends with Gwen literally finding The End◊, bordering on Postmodernism.
• Expy: Ronnie is pretty clearly inspired by Edna Mode, what with her chosen profession and strong aversion of an article of clothing.
• Exact Time to Failure: A non-lethal version, but in the final issue Gwen is given an amulet that signifies the remaining page count until the issue, and by extension her series, ends.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The agents of M.O.D.O.K. are meant to be the classic D&D fighter, thief, mage, and healer group. Which is even pointed out and lampshaded several times. So the thief is Batroc, the mage is Sarah, the healer is Tony, the fighter... was the nameless guy Gwen killed at the beginning of the series, which made her his replacement, unfortunately she is useless as the team tank.
• Flanderisation: When Gwen tries her hand at villainy to stay relevant, her future self becomes so evil it travels back in time and tries to kill her.
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: After the first in issue #16, Gwen took over the letters page.
• Freudian Excuse: Vincent's backstory in issue #9. He is an experimental Doombot with advanced AI, who was activated exactly when old woman Squirrel Girl attacked Doom's base so his very first memory is Doom being Doom and superpeople fighting. He runs away and gets taken in by a kindly man named Phineas, who fixed his glitches and helped him to blend in better. Unfortunately Phineas shared many prejudices and grievances that plague the Marvel civilians which ultimately pushed him to the path of super villainy and he became the Tinkerer, while Vincent could do nothing to help his only friend. So he left and swore to rid the world of superpeople.
• Funny Background Event: The baby pig Gwen dresses up like her to trick the Teuthidans after her is shown to have been kept captive by them still for some reason after they've realized it's not her in issues 9 and 10. It pretty much exists in these issues to take up a little bit of space of the page to look cute and funny.
• Grandfather Paradox: Future!Sarah argues that they can't have already changed the past, seeing as they're still there.
• Grand Finale: Issue 25 is a compressed version of tying up a whole lot of plot threads from resurrecting Cecil for real this time to saving Teddy from hell. Interspersed are conversations about the series ending from Future Gwenpool.
• How Do I Shot Web?: A significant chunk of issue #17 is spent with Gwen trying learn how to be a Ninja Prop. Her success was... questionable. People will look at you funny if you claim you got in their faces because you were trying to touch the panel border, or will jump to all sorts of conclusions when you fall out of a window because you overnarrated.
• I Know Mortal Kombat:
  • Gwen is able to defeat a Sentinel after she realizes that they use the same attack patterns as the ones in the arcade game.
  • How Gwen's party almost defeats Deadpool. She basically goes into gamer think (mental chessboard/Tactical RPG movement grid included). Unfortunately, she then has to gloat which gives Deadpool the idea to make this a meta-off (literally flipping the mental chess board).
• I Resemble That Remark!:
  Gwen: Also, you were kind of created to be a big goofy French stereotype.
  Batroc: Quoi?
• Ignored Epiphany: After Dr. Strange resurrects Cecil as an Astral Spirit, Gwen goes back to disregarding her previous realization to not treat her surroundings like a comic book story.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Gwen is never even scratched by enemy fire in the many shootouts she takes part in — the only time she's actually hit, the world runs on tabletop RPG rules and she's quickly healed. This is eventually explained as her Reality Warping powers making everyone trying to shoot her suddenly have an awful aim, regardless of actual skills.
• Intangibility: The bane of Cecil's ghostly existence. From Gwen falling through him to the inability to open a book.
• Irony: Despite her behavior as a Sociopathic Hero, her status as a huge comic nerd, and her decision to stick with the costume theme that was chosen for her, Gwen knows almost nothing about Deadpool. She notes that she never read his books since she considered the character too obnoxious and "lol memes" for her back when she read comics.
• It Amused Me: That Bad Future that the Terrible Eye, Miles and Vincent Doonan are trying to prevent happens because Gwen uses her meta knowledge to reveal all kinds of terrible secrets leading to a cataclysmic superhero war and for what reason? Because she thought it'd be fun to watch.
• It's All About Me: As a result of her genre savviness, Gwen is incredibly self-absorbed, seeing herself as an infallible protagonist with Plot Armor and other characters as simply plot devices varying in importance.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Batroc isn't a nice person to put it mildly, but he isn't wrong when he called Gwen a "fraud" and points out all her lacking fighting skills.
  • He is also right to point out that just because the "heroes" win, that doesn't mean they are necessarily better off than the villains. If Batroc is destined to always lose, then so is Captain America because no matter how many fights he wins, he still never gets his Happily Ever After.
• Karma Houdini: Gwen assumes this is her power at first. And… she's not wrong.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Issue 16 debuts the letters page... only for Gwen, who thought she was back in her original world, to get weirded out by the dialogue, and notice both "THE END" and "TO BE CONTINUED". The next issue goes one step beyond, with Gwen managing to touch the panel edges and the thought balloon.
• Leotard of Power: Albeit one with long sleeves. In the words of Ronnie, "Big boots! No pants!"
• Let's You and Him Fight:
  • Averted. When Gwen and Miles Morales meet they don't fight until later when Gwen tries to murder one of his classmates at which point she says they should've fought in the beginning over a silly misunderstanding before eventually teaming up.
• The Mentor: Baltroc the Leaper becomes this for Gwen, teaching her how to fight and properly shoot.
• Mistaken for Racist:
  • Exploited by Gwen in issue 11 who, while travelling by train, wears multiple religious symbols along with a bunch of wooden stakes and hammer on her person to draw away from the fact that she also brought a backpack full of guns. The guy in charge is too afraid of being seen as a bigot to tell her to get off the train.
  • After having dealt with a group of talking frogs, Gwen is freaked out when she hears Batroc utter her name and assumes he's another frog. Half-jokingly, Batroc tells her to stop throwing slurs at him.
• Mistaken Identity:
  • Her tailor mistook her for one of Deadpool's associates due to her last name. Her costume was made as a feminine match to his because of the confusion.
  • Deadpool acknowledges the fact that this exists for Gwen on the meta level.
    Deadpool: You said your name is Gwen? I guarantee anyone who doesn't follow this series will think you're Gwen Stacy.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Gwen learning that she has Plot Armor due to being the title character. That Plot Armor didn't extend to her sidekick Cecil.
  • The second part of her team up with Miles Morales. Everything about the team up initially points towards Hilarity Ensues until Gwen tries to kill one of Miles' classmates, rationalizing it as him just being a villainous bit player in the comic book story. Miles is most definitely not ok with that and he ties her up and leaves her to get arrested.
• Mythology Gag:
  • When Gwen tries to recall Thor's name she first remembers that Natalie Portman played her.
  • Doctor Strange gets to see a fictional version of himself in Gwen's home universe. He seems to approve the decision of casting Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role.
  • In her crossover with Miles Morales, after having dealt with a bombing in Miles' school, Gwen references the first thing Mary Jane told Peter Parker, the original Spider-Man, "Face it, tiger... You just hit the jackpot!"
    Gwen: Face it, tiger! You just got a study buddy!
  • In issue #1, Gwen briefly wonders if her suit was supposed to be a bathing suit likely a reference to the variant cover◊ she originated from.
• Ninja Prop: Gwen learns how to move out of the borders of the panels onto a featureless void (which she calls "The Gutter", after the technical name of the space between columns\pages), and even uses it drop Paste-Pot Pete.
• Nominal Importance: Invoked by Gwen when she asks a random cop for her name, and states that by doing so she's granting her more importance in the story and making her more likely to be a recurring character.
• Not So Invincible After All: When Batroc kicks the female Thor in the gut, it makes her cry out in pain and stagger back. He concludes that in spite of her godly powers, she is not unbeatable. Gwen would have likely killed or at least hurt her if her bullets hadn't missed.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Issue 10 has Gwen take up a vampire-killing job in a town that turns out to be nearly all walking skeletons and zombies brought back by a necromancer. Aside from how they look, they're entirely nice and sentient fellows that just want to be left alone because they're, well, walking skeletons and zombies which most people wouldn't stomach... unfortunately though, said necromancer keeps them raised by draining off from their offspring that he keeps shackled.
• Painting the Medium: Would she be a ~pool without oddly colored speech balloons and narration boxes? Of course not, so hers are pink. She did do normal white ones once for disguise reasons but that's apparently hard on her throat. According to Doctor Strange, it's "a sort of cosmic accent" product of her coming from another universe. This got confirmed when some issues were set in that world and everybody had pink speech balloons there.
• Parrying Bullets: The female Thor does this with Mjolnir when Gwen tries to shoot her.
• Passing the Torch: Gwen is horrified by the thought that a NY policeman... or in her words, a random extra could do this to her. Referencing the trope by name and yelling about how she rejects said torch.
• Perky Goth: The Terrible Eye, or Sarah, when she isn't wearing her mask, looks and dresses like a Victorian vampire, but is very friendly.
• Pet the Dog: After the team briefly reunites, Gwen says that she's come to really think of them as her friends, so she tries to make things right with them by getting Tony a job working for Peter Parker, who is absolutely thrilled by his medical tech and finds Cecil with the intention of bringing him back to life.
• Place Worse Than Death: Deadpool thinks the Arcade's dungeon is preferable to Staten Island.
• Plot Armor: Gwen may not have superpowers, but because of her awareness that she's in a comic she knows the plot will usually always end up in her favor.
• Pocket Dimension: What the "real world" Gwen and Teddy supposedly return to actually is.
• Police Are Useless: Mercilessly lampshaded by Gwen in issue 8 when Batroc points out her plan of distracting the entire police force would be irresponsible.
  Gwen: Ha Ha, okay. Here's the thing with the cops here. They are just another plot device to further the existence of Super Heroes. I'm from a world without super heroes. I know how cops are supposed to be, okay? If you had a halfway competent CIA, you wouldn't need S.H.I.E.L.D. If your military could fight the Skrulls, you wouldn't need the Avengers. And if your joke cops could stop a single bank robbery, then you wouldn't need Spider-Man. Your world never needed the police. And it will survive for a few minutes while I shoot some aliens without those police.
• Popularity Power:
  • Invoked by Deadpool. When he learns that Gwen is another fourth-wall breaker character, he hands her and her team a Curb-Stomp Battle. He then explains that she can't kill him because he is one of the most popular Marvel characters, while she is just a minor character that causal readers confuse for another version of Gwen Stacy.
  • Invoked by Future Gwenpool. She kills a future version of Miles Morales explaining to a shocked Gwen that it's not a problem because she knows she's not allowed to do it. Indeed Miles wakes up in his bed thinking his death was just a dream.
• Post Modern Magick: In Issue 2, after killing the druid that Thor needs to deal with a magical weed, Mega Tony synthesizes a solution from his essence that functionally serves as a magical weed killer, even putting it in a spray bottle.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Discussed, invoked, and subverted, a significant amount of the story revolves around Gwen growing out of her "You're either somebody or you're an extra" mentality and treating people as, well, people, instead of according to their relative narrative importance.
• Punny Name: Gwen's dad is Ted Poole.
• Reality-Breaking Paradox: Future Gwenpool killing Future Miles Morales is so fundamentally wrong that reality itself—or most likely, the writers of the comic—tries to correct it by retconing it to be a dream. Apparently, "nobody important actually gets killed" is an actual rule of the universe.
• Remember the New Guy?: The fake memories variety. Since Gwen is from our universe (or, at least, one similar enough to our own) there are no records of her in the Marvel Universe. Doctor Strange uses his magic to make it seem like she was born in Earth-616 but this sadly involves messing around with her parents' memories back in her/our world. But then the Pooles from Earth-616 appear...
• Resurrection Sickness: Subverted with Cecil, who as soon as he gets back to a physical (monster) body, starts enjoying food and water like there's no tomorrow.
• Robotic Reveal: It turns out M.O.D.O.K.'s employer Vinnie was a doombot all along.
• Saved by the Awesome: After Gwen shoots down a Snake Master in the subway, Officer Grey tries to arrest her, but her superior decides to release her given she solved the situation without property damage or injuries. Gwen even lampshades how "police don't work like this. In real life".
• Shout-Out:
  • Since Gwen's "power" is her vast knowledge of pop culture, it's no surprise that she ends up making a ton.
  • Gwen's plan for getting the Poole Boys out of jail is tattooing the prison's map on someone and get them inside the facility.
  • In issue 11, the mayor of the city Gwen is helping says that, according to television, teenage girls are the best possible vampire slayers.
  • When trapped in Arcade's sword and sorcery Murderworld, Gwen refers to the item shop as Fantasy Costco and name drops The Elder Scrolls.
• So Proud of You: Post Heel–Face Turn Dr. Doom says this to Vinnie when they get reunited for the first time since Vinnie's activation.
• The Sociopath: Played With.
  • Despite now living in the world, Gwen doesn't see the Marvel people any different than the average comic-book reader would, so anyone with no name isn't worth caring about and their deaths are unimportant. She does take Cecil's death pretty hard, however. By Issue 2, however, not only does Gwen realize the world around her is all too real, she also realizes she is a complete, utter nobody because of it.
  • In issue 20 after witnessing how casually her evil future self killed off Spider-Man and her friend Sarah, simply because fans or editors wouldn't allow it to stick allowing her to do as she pleases with no real lasting consequences Gwen finally realizes just how much of a sociopath she used to be and swears off senseless killing of Red Shirts as well as her mercenary work forever.
• Speak of the Devil: Can be dangerous if you talk about someone with comic awareness and having flashbacks about said someone is just inviting trouble. How evil future Gwenpool gets in the comic. We can all blame Miles now.
• Spiritual Antithesis: A very direct antithesis to The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. Both are comedic Marvel titles about a young female superhero, with a writer who rose to success with humorous webcomics and "cartoony" artwork. However, Gwenpool is a very dark comedy with an (initially) incompetent, overconfident, and self-serving protagonist who kills people at the drop of the hat, while Squirrel Girl is an optimistic neo-Silver Age work with a totally moral protagonist who always wins and never kills her enemies. They're even physical opposites, with Doreen being a chubby and proudly curvy girl whose costumes cover her from head to foot, while Gwen is (usually) drawn as a skinny, undeveloped teen who wears a costume that, with a different art style, could be very revealing and sexual.
• Stable Time Loop: The final issue ends with Goodfuture!Gwenpool heading back to the final page of the previous issue to speak with Present!Gwenpool in order to kickstart the events of the final issue.
• Status Quo Is God: The reason why Future Gwen started doing what she did. She discovered that the writers and editors of Marvel would never let her do anything permanent to the Marvel Universe, like killing off a character or causing world-altering damage to something, so she decided to exploit that fact to do whatever she wanted, as there would never be any consequences for her, since whatever she would do could easily get retconned into never happening. In other words, she took Gwen's existing sociopathy regarding the fact that she is real and everyone else is fictional to its logical extreme by turning the Marvel Universe into her own personal playground, as the damage she might do would be treated as an alternate continuity or not happening for one reason or another.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Gwen Poole is the character's actual name, which makes Ronnie assume she's a Deadpool associate.
• The Stinger: Occurs in issue #16. She's back in her home universe thanks to her brother Teddy, and it seems like they've retconned out the event that dropped her in the Marvel universe to begin with, bringing her story to a conclusion. But go past the letters page and all of a sudden she notices the "The End" tag in the corner of the page and picks it up. Then drops it when she sees another one reading "To Be Continued..."
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Gwen is pretty sure she is safe no matter what, it's her book after all, but laughing at M.O.D.O.K.'s face was not the best idea. His name is an acronym for Mental Organism Designed Only For Killing. Really, she's lucky that all he decides to do is vaporize her sidekick Cecil; he is quite capable of doing far worse.
  • Issue 2 also gives several moments of ensuing reality, as M.O.D.O.K. calls Gwen out on her wanton destruction, we see that it's actually pretty dangerous for Gwen to be a Secret Secret-Keeper, reliance on plot armor doesn't work so well on people with equal or greater amounts of it, and most of all, Gwen doesn't even have the basic combat skills that allow Badass Normal people to be heroes.
  • Issue 4 has Gwen strapped for cash after buying a large amount of weapons.
    Gwen: I see banks work the same here as they do in the real world.
  • In Issue 6, Gwen tries to kill one of Miles' classmates, who was responsible for setting off an explosive at his school. She tries to justify this by saying she's an Anti-Hero. Miles response is to apprehend her and she gets arrested.
  • Issue 17 has Gwen making a speech bubble so big that it pushes her out a window, the resulting fall leaving her in the hospital. Since the true explanation of her fall is completely ludicrous and there is no evidence of an accident, everyone believes Gwen tried to commit suicide and they don't leave her alone in a room just in case she tries to do so again.
  • EVERYTHING about Teddy. He goes into the comic book world with nothing but the clothes on his back? He's effectively an illegal citizen, with no home, records, or job. His comic book parents? Don't recognize him at all, since he's not actually from there.
• Talkative Loon: Enough to give Deadpool a run for his money. Miss Marvel even invites her to a holiday karaoke just so she can stop talking weird stuff by singing.
• Thanking the Viewer: Gwen does this in the final issue after doing all she could do and preparing to start the loop of the final issue again.
• Third-Person Person: Big Ronnie, custom spandex tailor and freelance violence job broker, has the habit of referring to herself like this. Oddly not always but nine times out of ten.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Gwen makes Batroc realize he has no memory of his life from before he first met Captain America. Gwen claims this is because he didn't exist before he was introduced in the comics. She is right for the wrong reason though, as Batroc reasonably should have been able to recall his backstory no matter when it was established compared to his first appearance, if any writer ever bothered to set up one. Which probably makes this sadder.
• Too Qualified to Apply: In the holiday special, a Deadpool imitation contest is done for charity. Deadpool enters, but Squirrel Girl says he can't win, as he is Deadpool
• Trapped in TV Land: What Gwen claims happened to her. Only with comic books. Other characters think she's crazy (With the exception of Dr. Strange), until she starts showing knowledge that she logically shouldn't know.
• Trigger-Happy: In just her first appearance, she makes a Dynamic Entry (breaking a roof door with a motorcycle!), steals a machine gun using a pen◊, and starts firing it at will - although she only kills someone the next day... shooting the cop who is Black Cat's contact in the NYPD in broad daylight.
• Underestimating Badassery: Gwen didn't think much of M.O.D.O.K. and laughed at his threats. That is until he kills her sidekick Cecil.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: When Gwen explains her big plan to take down the Teuthidans to the team, they wonder what she will do if it fails. She answers that she has several back up plans in mind but she can only reveal them during a dramatic moment or else they won't work.
• Visual Pun: Issue 19 ends with Future Gwenpool smacking Future Spider-Man off a cliff. In the next issue, Gwen is surprised to learn that the latter was never in real danger because it was just a cliffhanger, making her future version laugh because it literally was.
• Wall of Text: In the "Beyond the Fourth Wall" arc one of these is literally materialized and nearly kills Gwen by throwing her out of the window of her room.
• Wallet Moths: Referenced by Gwen when explaining why she needs the next job.
  Gwen: I tried to check my bank balance online, and instead it ran moth-escape.gif.
• Wham Shot: The Issue 16 letters page, as Gwen literally gains Medium Awareness in the last couple of pages of the issue, and promptly reveals it's Not the end...
• Wingding Eyes: Played with - once Ronnie shows how much the pay for the extraterrestrial arm dealers job is, Gwen draws dollar signs on her eye lenses ("Now Ronnie has to clean up mask again!").
• World of Weirdness: A few characters are explicitly tired of how New York is always under threat by the Monster of the Week. Many other extras, however, are simply exasperated by their appearances.
• You Can't Fight Fate: In issue 20, Gwen's future self points out, not only that she grows up to be a villain, but that the universe itself seemed to be actively pushing her down that path since she entered it. Gwen does manage to break free from this fate in the end, but at the cost of severely limiting the lifespan of her own series, forcing her to step up her own hero game to draw in more fans.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Apparently travel between Gwen's homeworld and the Marvel Universe is one way only. Attempted reversal resulted in the creation of a pocket universe based on the Poole siblings' memories.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: Turns out the guy that she killed and took the job of is actually M.O.D.O.K's Dragon. M.O.D.O.K himself soon after shows up and makes Gwen his replacement. Also after she defeats M.O.D.O.K. the others promptly volunteer her into his position.

Gwenpool Strikes Back (2019)

• Alliance of Alternates: Gwen recruits a bunch of different versions of herself in "Gwenpool Strikes Back #4". However, unlike most examples of this trope those aren't Alternate Universe counterparts, but past Gwens from her other comic appearances by different writers and artists, which might as well be different characters.
• Ambiguously Bi: Gwen's only objection to seducing Sue Storm is that she's married to Reed. Later at the swimsuit contest, she chokes on her drink after seeing Valkyrie (Jane Foster) walk by.
• Author Allusion: Atlas is in Issue 3 as a nod to Leah Williams' previous Marvel book, Giant-Man.
• Beach Episode: Issue 3 has her create a "Gwenpool Island" where superheroes in swimsuits are gathered to fight each other. While the remainder of the miniseries largely takes place here, Issue 3 is the only one that leans on this element.
• Big Bad: Marvel's editorial staff themselves technically counts as this. The entire point of the miniseries is to prove that the character still has an audience, and Gwen is more than aware of this, with her actively trying to impress both the editors and the reader in order to not end up forgotten.
• Big Good: Marvel edit, who would rather make her a mutant than let her go, or let her go on living with all the existential dread.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Downplayed. Gwen dumps Quentin by text to spare him from having a girlfriend who makes out with a cardboard Mr. Fantastic, which results in a flurry of texts that she ignores. He also doesn't look too choked up about it when seen later livestreaming Gwen's antics, and the final issue has him explain away her odd behavior as her just having a rough year, as well as Gwen still listing him as a love interest on her character reference sheet.
• Cloudcuckoolander: One of Gwen's endearing qualities, as discussed in Issue #5.
• Cosmic Retcon: Played With. Kamala may or may not have inadvertently rewritten Gwen's backstory to be than of a reality-warping mutant whose mind started interpreting the world as a comic book when her powers developed as a young teen due to being unable to control or accept her newly-awakened mutant abilities. Regardless, Gwen's "power" remains being aware that she lives in a comic book universe and being able to interact with it in that manner, and she continues to insist to the reader that her original backstory is still in play.
• Covers Always Lie: Averted with the first four issues, clearly to set up the fifth issue playing it the straightest it's ever been played.
• Creator Cameo: From previous writer Christopher Hastings in the fourth issue.
• Denser and Wackier: The original Unbelievable run was already loopy to begin with, but Strikes Again has unbelievable meta happenings (Gwen shoving Thor's severed arm into her own so she can wield Mjolnir! A trick - and an arm - she stole from a vintage issue of The Incredible Hulk) and Gwen spewing It Makes Sense in Context-nonsense left and right.
• Depending on the Writer: Gwen weaponizes it in the fourth issue, recruiting versions of herself from various past guest appearances, which are wildly different in both appearance and personality, some to the point of embarrassment.
• Didn't Think This Through: Despite all of the planning that went into her supervillain-esque scheme in the third issue, Gwen failed to realize that by shooting Bruce, she's made herself a player in the game, stuck in a 1v1 with the Hulk.
• Dumped via Text Message: After a chat history of cutesey messages to each other, Gwen suddenly decides to break up with Quentin over text.
• Fanservice Cover: Issue 3, with literal Self-Fanservice as when the Cover Drop happens, Gwen tells the cover artist: "Gimme a D-cup, Terry!"
• Groin Attack: An elaborate one to defeat the Immortal Hulk. She transports into Malekith's bedroom, where he's sleeping with Thor's severed arm. She steals it and wears the arm like a glove, so she's able to summon the Mjolnir and hurls it hard into a horrified Hulk's bulge.
• Hidden Depths: Gwen knows morse code. Even the punctuation.
  untranscribed message: s-o-r-r-y t-o t-h-i-s m-a-n
• I Hate Past Me: Zig-Zagged. When it comes to Gwen Prime, Gwen is in awe, though she's less impressed with some of the other versions.
• Lampshade Hanging: In Strikes Back, for Hastings' guest appearance, he hangs a lampshade on Easter Eggs from his run that he is unsure if anybody noticed.
• Let's You and Him Fight: In issue 3, Gwen sets up a bunch of superheroes to fight each other, so she can prove herself by fighting the winner.
• Made of Iron: Gwen. The Immortal Hulk grabs her and power slams her so hard, she crashes out of the comic panel. She survives mostly intact, though she does get a concussion that screws with her thinking.
• Metaphorically True: Gwen concinced the Make A Wish Foundation to let her make a wish by telling them she was a kid whose life was about to end. While on the face of it fraudulent, she is a kid (teenager) who can't "live on" if she doesn't get more books.
• Mind Screw: How could Hastings mention in his second panel that he only thought to ask Baldeon to draw him as a cloud after he finished writing his dialogue?
  • The end of #5. Gwen is able to rewrite reality to make her backstory of being a mutant true, complete with all the memories to go with it... meaning both living in the real world and Earth-616 are true.
• No More for Me: When Gwen scares David Baldeon, making him spill coffee on her pursuers, the Spanish artist says "Vale, cerramos el chiringuito por hoy." ("Well, no more drinking today.", though Gwen guesses "They don't pay me enough for this.")
• Odd Friendship: Despite their first meeting in her original series and Gwen's then-disdain for Deadpool and his series, by the end of #5 she has him listed as being a friend.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Kamala Khan immediately realizes this is the case with Gwen, being to to tell from past interactions that Gwen is being far more maniac than usual. She confronts her about this in the final issue, forcing her to have an honest conversation about what's troubling her.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gwen gives a rather threatening monologue in Issue #3 to the crowd of heroes, to drive home the point that's done playing around and wants to be taken seriously.
  Gwen: You don't believe me yet, that's fine. You all think I'm crazy. I know that too. I know it because you keep telling me I'm insane. It's okay. I forgive you. I know you just don't "get" me yet. Because if you had actually been paying attention to me instead of gaslighting me about being crazy — you would know better now. So... here we are. Don't be scared. This is all just a friendly demonstration. And this is the starting gun.
• Sex Sells: Gwen tries this in issue two of Gwenpool Strikes Back. Unusually for this particular trope, it backfires massively. So she tries it again in issue three. It also doesn't go well, but for reasons beyond her getting everyone in swimsuits.
• Ship Sinking: Gwen and Deadpool make it clear on no uncertain terms that in spite of the fact that some people ship them, they are not a couple and that any writer who makes them a couple in the future is "nasty".
• Shout-Out: To non-Marvel, non-Disney properties, as if to show them they can't control her.
  • DC property:
    Gwen: I'd let Dinah Lance kick me in the face and then I'd thank her for it.
  • IDW property:
    Gwen: "Have you met my newly adopted teenage mutant ninja daughter?"
  • Then at the end of issue #5 she walks out through a Looney Tunes tunnel.
• Standard Female Grab Area: A Speedo-wearing Captain America tries this to stop Gwen from enacting her Battle Royale plan. It only works temporarily, as Gwen actually found it a turn-on and she couldn't help noticing how pretty Steve is up close. Then she goes and starts the fight.
• Take That!: Gwenpool Strikes Back gives this to some previous writers' takes on Gwenpool, particularly Nick Kocher of Rocket Raccoon and Groot (whose Gwen is characterized as a "woke idiot" and "Harley Gwen"), and to a lesser extent Mark Waid of Champions (2016) (whose Gwen is portrayed as annoying and speaking in Totally Radical slang).
• Twist Ending: At the end of issue #5 of Strikes Back, Gwen seems ready to ready to face her ultimate fate of being forgotten and killed off when a Krakoan gate appears. Gwen decides to take the plunge and ends up on Krakoa, where she's accepted by everyone and welcomed in by Wolverine and Quentin. This effectively puts Gwenpool into the X-Men family and makes this title the stealth first entry of the Dawn of X initiative.

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