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  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Peter Parker's characterization. Peter Parker, before his transformation, goes back to his Steve Ditko roots; an awkward, angry misanthrope who often made vague "I'll show them one day!" threats in his head. While some people like this take on Peter for how it explores what could have happened if he didn't get superpowers, others aren't fans of it and think his bitter and angry persona makes hard to believe he and Gwen were best friends.
    • Mary Jane Watson, who has a bossy, It's All About Me mentality before her character development. While some like the idea of a Mary Jane that's so different from the charismatic and gregarious version that is the norm for the character, others found her attitude to be a bit too abrasive and annoying to even serve as a good Hate Sink.
  • Broken Base:
    • The "Gwenom" story arc. Was it an interesting and refreshing variant on the usual symbiote storyline or a depressing series of events that too dark and angsty for its own good? The comic itself even lampshades this, with the Watcher of Earth-65 complaining that the story has gotten so dark that he no longer cares.
    • Seanan McGuire's run of the character, specifically the increased focus on Earth-616. Some fans found the idea of Gwen needing to juggle life in both her home dimension and the main Marvel Universe as a fun story concept that would allow the character to branch-out into more interesting storylines that would allow her to interact with other popular Marvel heroes. Others thought that Gwen's occasional jaunts to the mainline universe were more than enough; that part of what made her comics special was the vastly different What If?-nature of Earth-65, and the idea of her more regularly interacting with Spidey's usual rogues gallery defeats the point. And of course, both sides had plenty of people who were upset when the final issue of Ghost-Spider (2019) concluded on the unceremonious note of Gwen being exiled from Earth-65 by her versions of Sue and Johnny Storm.
  • Cant Unhear It: If you're reading the comics, you're probably hearing either Dove Cameron or Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • A lot of fanart tends to depict Gwen with longish-hair and wearing the classic Gwen Stacy headband, despite the canon depiction in her main series initially having short messy hair, as befitting her tomboyish nature. This even extends to her appearing like this in official team and event books, as well as subsequent volumes of her own series. As a result, a lot of people think she's just classic Gwen Stacy with spider-powers; to the point that when other media has variants that adhere more closely to the characterization of Earth-65 version of Gwen show up, such as in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, some are surprised by her being a sardonic, punk-styled character.
    • Following Gwenpool's creation, fan artists — and even some official Marvel productions, like Marvel Rising — got them mixed up and began depicting Spider-Gwen with partially pink-dyed hair like Gwenpool's.
    • Following the release of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, many fan-artists, and even official cover artists, began drawing Gwen wearing ballet shoes as part of her costume—changing over to sneakers after the release of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but the comic version of Gwen's costume just had blue feet and she's never displayed any interest in ballet.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Of Spider-Verse. Her introduction box tagging her as "Your new favorite" ended up being an understatement; not only did she receive her own standalone series, but she quickly came to seen as part of a "Spidey Trio" alongside Peter Parker and Miles Morales outside comics in shows and movies like Marvel's Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (the latter of which gained her a massive LGBT Fanbase). She also appeared as a main character under the name "Ghost Spider" in the Marvel Rising franchise. The popularity of this alternate version of Gwen Stacy also birthed a variant cover month featuring Gwen as various other Marvel heroes that resulted in another series called The Unbelievable Gwenpool, who herself became immensely popular.note  This all culminated in Marvel officially announcing in 2023 that this incarnation of Gwen will be made a permanent resident of Earth-616 similar to what happened with Miles Morales post-Secret Wars.
  • Evil Is Cool: This villainous version of Matt Murdock. Imagine the more optimistic Magnificent Bastard Matt from Mark Waid's Daredevil run, except instead of being a good guy, he's a remorseless crime lord who manages to get everyone into his pocket, and rubs their faces in it as he does so.
  • Fandom Rivalry: Spider-Gwen unfortunately garnered this with fans of other "Spider-Girls", specifically Mayday Parker and Anya Corazon. The character's immense popularity has been seen by fans of the other two as "stealing" the focus that could have gone to them. These feelings got exasperated in no small part due to Web Warriors, where writer Mike Costa didn't try and hide that Gwen was the character he really wanted to write over the latter two.
  • Fanfic Fuel:
    • Whatever kind of shenanigans this dimension's version of Captain America has gotten up to on her dimension-hopping adventures is definitely ripe for some stories about it.
    • The fact Gwen's universe is so drastically different from the main universe, with characters going down different paths or others fulfilling their usual role, the potential for some very creative reiterations is pretty prominent.
  • Fan Nickname: "Spider-Gwen", naturally, since just calling her Spider-Woman as is in-universe would get confusing really quick. This even became canonized as the name of her first few series. Some fans and cosplayers also called her "White Widow", before Marvel finally gave her a second codename in the form of "Ghost Spider."
  • Friendly Fandoms: Radioactive Spider-Gwen was considered Marvel's answer to the popular 2014 retool of Batgirl. The fact that they have similar tones and have both been commercial successes had added to this. Babs Tarr, the artist of the Batgirl retool, even drew a variant cover for this series, which included Gwen carrying a tiny Batgirl keychain.
  • I Am Not Shazam: "Spider-Gwen" isn't the name of the character, it's just the name of her first three comic book runs. In-universe, Gwen naturally uses the name Spider-Woman when operating on her native Earth-65. Unlike most instances of this trope however, this doesn't double as a Fandom-Enraging Misconception, since "Spider-Gwen" is still used as a Fan Nickname to help distinguish the character from all the other Spider-Women, even after Marvel gave her the secondary alias of "Ghost Spider" (first in other media, then the comics themselves) for that exact purpose.
  • Les Yay:
    • Quite a few fans interpreted Gwen's relationship with Mary Jane in this manner prior to the reveal that MJ is dating Glory Grant, and even afterwards. It's understandable, considering both characters' love interest in Earth-616, Peter Parker, is deceased in Spider-Gwen's world, and MJ's interactions towards Gwen could be seen as Belligerent Sexual Tension on her part. Panels like this — actually an Alternate Universe Spider-Gwen, not the one from Earth-65 — seeing print also fueled the flames. Seanan McGuire's tenure as writer toned up the subtext between them: in an issue of Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider, Gwen wonders if the lyrics of one of MJ's songs are unsubtle hint that MJ has a crush on her, and their interactions in the King in Black tie-in involve the symbiote-possessed MJ acting like a jilted lover towards Gwen. Spider-Gwen: Smash dials it up to eleven, with everyone except Gwen—even the villain Dr. Bruce Banner—being able to see how badly Em Jay is pining over Gwen. While Em Jay finally confesses she loves Gwen in Giant-Size Spider-Woman, it's as she's leaving to join Natasha Romanoff's squad of superheroes; leaving Gwen with nothing to tie her to Earth-65.
    • MJ gets this a bit with Glory as well, since they are almost always together and are almost always arguing Like an Old Married Couple. Especially after an issue focused entirely on MJ, showcasing her attempts to keep Glory from quitting the band and her genuine affection for her friends. And then comes issue #32 where they're in bed together, with Word of God confirming that they are a couple. Unfortunately for MJ, Glory gets fed up with her pining over Gwen in Spider-Gwen: Smash and breaks up with her.
    • In the first arc of Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider, Gwen is trapped in another dimension where it is heavily implied that the Gwen and MJ of that world are a couple.
  • More Popular Replacement: Of the original Gwen Stacy. While most people accept that the original was a very important character due to her death, many don't like her inconsistent characterization over the years from a high maintenance woman to a pure ingĂ©nue. In contrast, many enjoy this version of Gwen for having more of a consistent characterization as an excitable tomboy drummer who is still shaken over her greatest failure, on top of being a Spider-person herself. As a result of this, most current adaptations featuring Gwen Stacy tend to lean towards the personality of this version of the character as opposed to her original incarnation.
  • Older Than They Think: This isn't the first story with an AU version of Mary Jane being attracted to women. Exiles had her as a lesbian, and also as the one with Spider powers.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Mary Jane does get better later on, sharing some heartfelt conversations with Gwen that don't revolve around how Gwen keeps flaking out on the band. Also, once she figures out that Gwen and Spider-Woman are the same person on her own ( and despite Gwen's attempts to deny it), MJ is supportive to the point of trying to both cover for her and discourage Spider-Woman hate.
  • The Scrappy: This version of Mary Jane, at least at first. While intentionally written as a Hate Sink, many people found her more annoying and one-dimensional, rather than enjoying her as a Love to Hate kind of character and even accuse her portrayal of being disrespectful towards 616 MJ. Fortunately, this faded once she got more focus, and later on she becomes something of an Ensemble Dark Horse.
  • Testosterone Brigade: Gwen herself isn't really a Ms. Fanservice in the stories themselves (in fact, she's explicitly flat-chested and wears tomboyish clothing), but she has attracted this kind of attention. Mostly because of the costume being skin-tight and often getting Fanservice Cover depictions that focus on her ass (which is generally depicted rather generously). Overall, she's become something of a sex icon among the Spider-Man fandom in a way that traditional Gwen Stacy never was.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The original run by Latour/Rodriguez/Renzi had a unique art style, which was lost after the book was relaunched with a different creative team, with the new art being seen as some as skewing too close to that of "standard" comic book art.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: A number of reader feel that it would have been more interesting to keep Peter Parker around instead of giving him Death by Origin Story, either as a supporting character or a recurring villain.
  • The Woobie: Gwen. Yeah, she may have survived in this universe, but her best friend was killed and she was held responsible. And things only get worst from there. She also has the existential dread of knowing that on most Earths, she's a Damsel in Distress who ultimately ends up dead.

Alternative Title(s): Ghost Spider 2019

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