Gwen Stacy
Gwendolyne Maxine "Gwen" Stacy is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, usually as a supporting character in those featuring Spider-Man. A college student and the daughter of George and Helen Stacy, Gwen was the first romantic interest for Peter following his high school graduation before she was murdered by the Green Goblin. Her death has haunted Peter ever since, and stories published long afterwards indicate she still holds a special place in his heart.
Gwen was posthumously subjected to numerous cloning experiments by her former professor Miles Warren, Peter's clone Ben Reilly, and an A.I. of Harry Osborn, the latter resulting in the creation of the Kindreds, and Ben briefly resurrecting Gwen in "Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy", with the embodiment of Death herself confirming in Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider that all clones Ben created of deceased people had their souls intact on being brought back, while clones of living people had unique souls of their own. A flashback solo miniseries, Gwen Stacy: Beyond Amazing, was written by Christos Gage. In The All-New, All-Deadly Gwenpool, she is again resurrected with Weapon X-like abilities under the designation X-31, teaming up with Peter, isekai protagonist Gwen Poole, and archer Kate Bishop against "The Great Architect". In the alternate universes of Ultimate Marvel, Spider-Gwen, and Ultimate Spider-Man, a still-living Gwen becomes their respective realities' versions of Carnage, Spider-Woman, and Mysterio.
The character was portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard in Spider-Man 3 and by Emma Stone in The Amazing Spider-Man film series and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. A multiverse Spider-Gwen is voiced by Hailee Steinfeld in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and its sequels Across the Spider-Verse, Beyond the Spider-Verse, and Spider-Woman.
Publication history
Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, Gwen Stacy first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #31 as the primary love interest of Peter Parker. In the story arc "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" written by Gerry Conway, published in The Amazing Spider-Man #121–122, Gwen is killed off on being murdered by the Green Goblin Norman Osborn; the then-Mexican publisher of Marvel Comics, La Prensa, did not think the Latin American readership would accept this, and so diverged El Sorprendente Hombre-Araña into its own continuity with brand new stories in which Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy were still a couple, and Stacy was still alive, for another 60 issues and 45 stories, ending in 1974 when another publisher picked up the Marvel rights.The 2016–2017 crossover event "Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy" written by Dan Slott and Christos Gage features Gwen Stacy reanimated by Ben Reilly before seemingly dying again, an action repeated in the 2022 event A.X.E.: Judgment Day written by Kieron Gillen. A flashback solo miniseries following the character, Gwen Stacy, written by Gage and illustrated by Todd Nauck, was published in 2020, concluded with Giant-Size Gwen Stacy in 2022, and collected as Gwen Stacy: Beyond Amazing in 2024.
She first appears as Weapon X-31 in The All-New, All-Deadly Gwenpool #1 by Cavan Scott and Stefano Nesi, facing off against Gwen Poole, Kate Bishop, and Peter before teaming up with them against her boss "The Great Architect", who grew a new immortal body for her reanimated head, recovered after the events of "Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy".
Fictional character biography
Early history
In her initial appearances, Peter Parker met Gwen while both are studying as undergraduates at Empire State University, but with Aunt May in the hospital, Peter was troubled and ignores her advances. She dated both Flash Thompson and Harry Osborn to make Peter jealous. Gradually, however, a romance develops; Gwen, a science major, appreciated Peter's intellect. Their relationship began almost immediately after Peter stops going out with Mary Jane Watson, whom he begins to see as shallow and self-absorbed.Later issues introduced Gwen's father, NYPD Captain George Stacy, as well as her mother Helen Stacy and her uncle Arthur Stacy. Though her father was both fond of Peter and supportive of his alter-ego Spider-Man, his death strained Peter's relationship with Gwen after he is killed by falling debris during a battle involving Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. Gwen blamed Spider-Man for his death, and left for Europe to cope with her loss. She wanted Peter to ask her to marry him and convince her to stay, but his guilt stopped him from proposing. Gwen's feelings for Peter eventually prompted her to return to New York, and their relationship is rekindled.
According to Lee, who scripted all of the stories featuring Gwen Stacy up to this point, the original intent was for Gwen Stacy to be Spider-Man's central love interest. However, Mary Jane Watson's unexpected popularity with readers after her debut changed the course of the plan as fans liked Mary Jane more and demanded she be Peter Parker's main love interest instead, and that "no matter how we wrote it, Mary Jane always seemed more interesting!"
Death
and Roy Thomas succeeded Stan Lee as writer and editor, respectively, of The Amazing Spider-Man. Together with inker John Romita, Sr., they came to the decision to have Gwen Stacy killed. It was Romita who first suggested the idea, during a plotting session with Conway when Romita was still penciller on The Amazing Spider-Man. Conway later said his contribution to the decision was motivated by a desire to bring Mary Jane Watson to the forefront, as he shared Lee's feeling that she was a more interesting character than Gwen Stacy: " hadn't lost the edge that made her an interesting character. Gwen didn't have an edge. She was just a nice person".In The Amazing Spider-Man #121, the Green Goblin kidnaps Gwen Stacy and throws her off a bridge. Spider-Man shoots a web strand at Gwen's legs and catches her, but her neck is broken by the whiplash from her sudden stop.
In Superior Spider-Man #3, Peter briefly reunites with Gwen and her father in the afterlife, along with all his other lost loved ones, while in Doctor Octopus's failing body. Peter apologizes to them both for failing them but neither hold Peter accountable with Gwen even saying that “it worked out” because they were “together” and kissed him on the cheek.
Both the decision to kill Gwen and the method in which Marvel implemented it remain controversial among fans because some believe that Peter himself was the one who caused her death. The death became a pivotal point in both Spider-Man's history and in American comic books in general. Many point to Gwen's death as the end of the Silver Age of Comics. Before her death, except possibly as part of an origin story, superheroes did not fail so catastrophically, nor did the hero's loved ones die so suddenly and without warning.
A note on the letters page of The Amazing Spider-Man #125 states: "It saddens us to say that the whiplash effect she underwent when Spidey's webbing stopped her so suddenly was, in fact, what killed her". The comic book Civil War: Casualties of War: Captain America/Iron Man concurred that the proximate cause of death was the sudden stop during a high-speed fall. An issue of Peter Parker/Spider-Man revisits the issue, and further confirms Gwen died of a broken neck due to the use of the webbing. On the other hand, in the 1987 edition of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Gwen's death is attributed to the fall, not to Spider-Man's webbing, though the listed cause of death is still technically true – if she hadn't fallen from the bridge, the event that caused her death couldn't have happened. In his book The Physics of Superheroes, physicist James Kakalios confirms that, consistent with Newton's laws of motion, the sudden stop would have killed Gwen Stacy.
Within the Marvel Comics, Gwen Stacy's death has enormous repercussions. Mary Jane Watson feels the loss of Gwen deeply and becomes a more mature, compassionate person. Gwen's death also draws Peter and Mary Jane into a closer friendship, and eventually to romance. Miles Warren, one of Gwen's professors, was secretly in love with her. Following her death, Warren goes insane and adopts the persona of the Jackal. In the fourth and final issue of the miniseries Marvels, photographer Phil Sheldon befriends Gwen Stacy, who has absolved Spider-Man of any blame for her father's death. Gwen's simple faith in heroes convinces Sheldon of the purpose of the "Marvels" —to protect innocents such as Gwen. He resolves to write a book to praise the heroes and what they should mean to humanity. When the Green Goblin kidnaps Gwen and holds her hostage to bait Spider-Man, Sheldon frantically follows the resulting chase in a taxi and witnesses her death. While it is reported that she died from the shock of the fall, Sheldon thinks it looks like something else. Sheldon's faith in the Marvels is shattered.
Clones
Following the publication of The Amazing Spider-Man #121, Stan Lee was frequently criticized by fans during his public appearances for killing off Gwen Stacy. Lee, who had also found the character's death objectionable, insisted that Conway write a story bringing her back. Conway strongly objected since he felt any sort of resurrection would break the plausibility of the stories, but ultimately gave in under the condition that after reviving Gwen, he could write her out of the book as soon as he wanted. He decided that cloning would be the best means to bring the character back.In the resulting story, written approximately two years after the story of Gwen Stacy's death, "Gwen" reappears, perfectly healthy but with no memory of the time since her death. This story, published in Amazing Spider-Man #144, initiated the original Clone Saga. At the end of that story, Gwen's clone, a creation of Spider-Man villain the Jackal, leaves to find a new life for herself, coming to accept that she is not really the same person who had a relationship with Peter Parker.
In the 1988 crossover "The Evolutionary War", the High Evolutionary, who had once been Miles Warren's teacher, captures Gwen's clone. He determines that Warren had actually not perfected the process, and instead injected a young woman with a genetic virus carrying Gwen's DNA, turning her into a copy of Gwen. After a subsequent altercation of Spider-Man and the Young Gods against the High Evolutionary's Purifiers, this woman is purged of the virus by the Young Goddess Daydreamer. This is later retconned, with the High Evolutionary stating that Warren had in fact succeeded in perfecting his own cloning technique, and Daydreamer had accidentally given the Gwen clone a false new life under the name of Joyce Delaney.
During the second "Clone Saga", Joyce, now married to a clone of Professor Warren named Warren Miles, sees a copy of Peter Parker's book of Spider-Man photos, Webs, and remembers her real history. She returns to New York City, but after helping Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider fight the Jackal, she again disappears from Spider-Man's life. She makes herself a new life in London, but before she is murdered by the Gwen Stacy clone known as Abby-L shows signs of clone degeneration.
Another Gwen clone appears in The Amazing Spider-Man #399. This clone believes she is the real Gwen. She dies from clone degeneration in Spider-Man #56, the next issue of the story arc.
A further Gwen clone appears in the "Sibling Rivalry" crossover storyline between Superior Spider-Man Team-Up and Scarlet Spider. She joins the Jackal in capturing Superior Spider-Man and Kaine. She is sympathetic towards "Peter" and Kaine, but at the same time utterly loyal to the Jackal. When the Spiders break free, Superior Spider-Man disarms and attempts to kill her, but is stopped by Kaine. When the Jackal's lab is engulfed in flames, Kaine offers to save her, but she refuses, and is seemingly consumed by the fire.