Gwenpool
Gwenpool is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. A girl from the real world transported to the Marvel Universe, Marvel initially produced two stories featuring Gwenpool as a character, created by Christopher Hastings, Heather Antos and Jordan D. White: first appearing as a backup story in Howard the Duck, and a one-shot Gwenpool Holiday Special, illustrated by Gurihiru. Following the publication of the one-shot, an ongoing series titled The Unbelievable Gwenpool by the same creative team was announced, illustrated by Gurihiru, which started in April 2016 and concluded in April 2018. The Unbelievable Gwenpool #0, collecting Gwen's appearances from Howard the Duck and the first Gwenpool Holiday Special, was later released, as well as the limited series Gwenpool Strikes Back, Aromancing of Gwendolyn Poole, the final volume of Spider-Man/Deadpool, and Gwenpool. In West Coast Avengers, Gwen is depicted as the owner/mother of Jeff the Land Shark, appearing alongside him in the spin-off series It's Jeff! from its second season onwards. The nemesis of the supervillain MODOK, Gwen faces off against him in The Unbelievable Gwenpool, West Coast Avengers, and MODOK: Head Games.
The story arc Beyond the Fourth Wall introduces an evil future version of Gwen as the archenemy of Miles Morales, later featured as the main antagonist of the video game Marvel Duel, of which Gwen also serves as the protagonist, and as a playable character in Marvel Contest of Champions, Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2, and Fortnite.
Publication history
In June 2015, following the popularity of Spider-Gwen, all Marvel titles being published had alternate covers with Gwen Stacy reimagined as other characters, such as Doctor Strange, Groot and Wolverine. One of those was Wade Wilson, featured on Chris Bachalo's variant cover for Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars #2. After seeing how many fans were cosplaying as a character who was not even featured in any comic, Marvel editor Jordan White approached writer Christopher Hastings and editor Heather Antos with the task of creating a story around her, with the stipulation of the character being wholly unrelated in backstory to either Deadpool or Gwen. They would introduce the character with a three-issue backup story in the ongoing volume of Howard the Duck, titled "Ms. Poole if You're Nasty", and then a one-shot comic Gwenpool Special #1. After a meeting with White and Howard the Duck editor Will Moss, Hastings came out with the idea of a character aware of the fourth wall, "but it comes from this place of knowing she is in a comic book because she is from a world where the comic books actually exist", which would also initially lead to a cavalier attitude towards the world in which she inhabits "because she doesn't believe there any consequences to her actions", something Hastings summed as "she decides to use that knowledge like she's in Grand Theft Auto or something". A contrast would be that Gwenpool lacked any of the training or superpowers expected of Marvel characters.The Howard the Duck arc, from November 2015 to January 2016, was drawn by Brazilian artist Danilo Beyruth, and the holiday special, published in December 2015, had art by Japanese duo Gurihiru. Once Marvel decided to make a Gwenpool ongoing series, starting in April 2016, Hastings asked for Gurihiru's return to the artwork team, with the title being edited by Antos, The Unbelievable Gwenpool solo series ended at issue #25. also appearing in the specials Gwenpool Holiday Special: Merry Mix-Up #1 and Edge of Venomverse #2. Gwenpool then joined the Fresh Start incarnation of the West Coast Avengers in 2018. After that book ended, the character starred in the 2019 limited series Gwenpool Strikes Back, written by Leah Williams and drawn by Spanish artist David Baldeón, and appeared in the 2020–21 promotional limited series MODOK: Head Games by M.O.D.O.K. showrunners Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum as a supporting character. In 2022, she was added as a main character to the webtoon series It's Jeff!, written by Thompson and illustrated by Gurihiru, raising her "son" Jeff the Land Shark along with Kate Bishop. In 2023, Gwen starred in a five-issue storyline in the romance anthology series Love Unlimited entitled "Aromancing of Gwendolyn Poole", written by Jeremy Whitley, in which the citogenesis-induced interpretation of the character being aro-ace was made canon in the text. The same year, she appears in Alligator Loki attending a beach day with Jeff and Laura Kinney, illustrated with red hair and a blue beachwear version of her suit due to the series' colorist Pete Pantazis having decided to instead give her the red hair and blue color scheme of Gwen Tennyson from Ben 10 as an Easter egg. As part of the 2024 Venom War event, Gwen was featured in the one-shot Venom War: It's Jeff #1, again written by Thompson and illustrated by Gurihiru. In May 2025, Gwen returned in the solo series The All-New All-Deadly Gwenpool, following her as she and Kate team up with Peter Parker against a purple-clad impostor Gwenpool: Gwen Stacy, resurrected with Weapon X-like abilities as the hyper-violent X-31. After being rendered a ghost, Gwen then possesses Peter to face X-31 before being returned to life.
Fictional character biography
Backstory
Gwendolyn "Gwen" Poole arrived to the Marvel Universe from what she claims to be "the real world". In her home reality, Gwen had been a comics superfan as an escape from her life as an unemployed 18- year-old high school dropout. Unwilling to be an "extra" in the Marvel world, she went to a tailor for superheroes and requested her own costume. The tailor complied, but misread Gwen's application form, and thought Gwen went by the alias of "Gwenpool", leading to a costume similar to Deadpool's. Upon gaining the ability to manipulate the borders of the fourth wall from an attempt to return her to reality, allowing her to travel in time, Gwen retcons the Marvel Universe into believing her to be a mutant after being given the idea by Kamala Khan, allowing her to enter the gates of Krakoa.Solo series
Gwenpool's first appearance as a character was in Howard the Duck Vol 6 #1, when she was involved in stealing a humanity-destroying virus from Black Cat and selling it to Hydra to get money easily, believing that the Avengers would simply deal with any consequences. When she revealed to Howard the Duck the item she had stolen from Hardy and to whom she had sold it, Howard scolded her and informed her that the Avengers were not available to save the Earth from the virus. Guilt stricken, she then set out with Howard to retrieve the virus from a Hydra base.In the 2015 Gwenpool Special, Gwenpool is hired on her first mercenary job, to kill a villain. After completing her mission, Gwenpool attends a Christmas party hosted by She-Hulk, where she is seen talking to Ms. Marvel.
Following the events of Gwenpool Holiday Special #1, Gwenpool becomes a full-time mercenary. While trying to deposit the money she made killing Orto, Gwen stops a bank robbery by killing all of the robbers, except for the gang's hacker Cecil, whom she enlists as a reluctant sidekick. After a mission revolving around extraterrestrial arms dealers where she killed MODOK Superior's best agent and took credit for his work, MODOK tracked Gwenpool down. He murdered Cecil to persuade her to become his henchman and an agent for his Mercenary Organization Dedicated Only to Killing. Gwenpool joins MODOK's elite squad, which also includes the alchemist Mega Tony, the magician Terrible Eye, and Batroc the Leaper, who gives Gwen basic combat and firearms training.
Gwenpool then arranged a meeting between herself and Doctor Strange, in which she explained to him that she was from a reality where all Marvel characters are fictional characters in comic books. Doctor Strange agreed to transfer her history from Gwen's original world to create a fake background for her in the Marvel Universe, so that she could get her Social Security number, driver's license and other essential documents. However, this allows MODOK Superior to discover Gwen's ordinary, powerless background, and he swears to destroy Gwen for lying to him and having no credentials to be a mercenary. Gwen and MODOK then engage in battle, and she defeats him with the hacking assistance of Cecil, who returns as a ghost.
Without MODOK, Gwen becomes the new leader of the MODOK organization, but learns she is wanted by the alien arms dealers, who are known as Teuthidans. Assisted by a rogue Doombot named Vincent Doonan and MODOK's other agents, Gwenpool's team defeats the Teuthidans, but destroys the MODOK base in the process. Without a base or funding, Batroc and the others decide to disband MODOK.
During the Civil War II storyline, Gwenpool appears in Georgia attempting to earn the bounty on an alien smuggler named Chammy, only to discover that Rocket Raccoon and Groot are also after him. The three end up fighting another alien named Reeve, who put the bounty on Chammy. After Reeve defeats them and escapes, Chammy tells Rocket, Groot and Gwen that Reeve is looking for a formula that could temporarily neutralize Captain Marvel's powers, allowing him to kill her. Gwen refuses to help at first, under the logic that Captain Marvel, being one of the most important "characters" in the current "story", would not be killed off in "a comic about a talking tree and raccoon". However, after coincidentally running into Kitty Pryde, Gwen falls under the mistaken impression that the comic she is currently in was being written by Brian Michael Bendis, a "big-deal comic book writer" with a fixation on Pryde who would have the authority to kill Captain Marvel. Convinced that Captain Marvel's life is actually in danger, Gwen accompanies Rocket and Groot to the Triskelion, where they and Chammy help defeat Reeve, and Gwen realizes that the real writer put Kitty Pryde on the street to trick her into helping.
After short team-ups with the Champions, Blade, Deadpool, and the duo of Ghost Rider and Kate Bishop, Gwen meets her brother Teddy, who drags her back to her world.
Here Gwen loses her memories of her time in the Marvel Universe and resumes an ordinary life, but she gradually becomes once again aware that she is in a comic book. Gwen then begins experimenting with the fourth wall again and learns to interact with the comic book medium by erasing the walls between panels and even climbing out of the panels, finding herself looking in on her life.
Watching the past from outside the borders, Gwen sees the "extra pages" of her Holiday Special, in which when her brother Teddy was sucked into the Marvel Universe, he ended up working for Orto the snake swordsman. Upon seeing her kill Orto's henchmen, Teddy runs into versions of Spider-Man, The Terrible Eye, and Vincent Doonan, who claim to be from a future where Gwen becomes a huge threat and destroys their lives. They offer him the chance to "return home" with his sister and fix things. Being concerned for Gwen's mental health, and having had a terrible time, he readily agrees. On finding this out Gwen, with her memory and costume restored, re-enters the borders, confronts Teddy for trying to undo the past and steal her dream of living in a comic, and shows him that their "parents" are not real, and they never even left the comic.
Terrible Eye explains that their attempts to send the Pooles to their home dimension created a pocket dimension from their memories that was almost identical to their real one. The three realize that trapping Gwen was what led to her gaining her powers over reality in the first place. When Spider-Man narrates a flashback sequence of the future evil Gwen's misdeeds, the evil Gwen herself travels through the flashback's panels to follow him to the present.
Future Gwen battles Spider-Man, Terrible Eye, and Doonan, while each side tries to convince the present Gwen to join their cause. Future Gwen turns out to be weakened by Present Gwen's doubt, but still effortlessly kills Doonan, Terrible Eye, and Spider-Man, horrifying Present Gwen, before explaining to her past self that she became a villain because she was tired of her good deeds being undone as the plot progressed, so she turned to committing evil that could always be undone on characters that "matter", demonstrated when Spider-Man's death is retconned a moment later because he is too important in the story to be killed. However, Present Gwen is disgusted at the idea of hurting the characters she has grown to love, and wipes her future self from existence. This comes at the cost of erasing all of the Evil Gwen stories and thus dramatically shortening Present Gwen's lifespan.
Learning that the universe is attempting to make her into a joke villain, Gwen wants to make sure her evil self never comes to be. To catch the attention of the Avengers she visits Latveria in an attempt to face off with Doctor Doom, thinking him to still be evil, as she has not read Infamous Iron Man. It is revealed that she and Cecil, now in his mystical monster body, share an apartment and since she has given up killing people because it's hacking to pay the bills. A short time later after rescuing Vincent Doonan from Paste Pot Pete and throwing him into the void between comic panels as a demonstration of her new superpower, Gwen asks Vincent where to find the real Doom so she can defeat him and prove herself to be a fameworthy hero. Vincent leads her to Doom, who explains he is reformed, but Gwen still attacks him, releasing an evil version of Doom from within him.
After a brief fight in which she realizes she cannot kill the Doom doppelganger, the real Doom comes to her aid and destroys his evil past self. He and Gwen have a chat about why she wanted to kill him, which turns out to be because since destroying her evil destiny self, her comic pages are running out and she believes she is doomed to be cancelled. With only a few pages left, once Doom is gone, she wonders if she has to become a super villain.
In the final chapter of Unbelievable Gwenpool, a Gwen from the future appears to her and explains that while her first comic series has ended, she is already in several other comics, toys, games, fan works, and so on. Even if her current book ends, she and her side characters will return in future stories. Meanwhile, in between these pages, Gwen enlists the help of Stephen Strange and her friends to restore Cecil to human form. She is given a watch that counts down the issue's remaining pages and she uses the rest, one page at a time, to see old friends, team up with new superheroes, rescue her brother from Hell, meet the Marvel Universe counterparts of her parents, and chase off M.O.D.O.K. one more time. Future Gwen then says goodbye to the audience and goes back to where the chapter started to talk to her past self, creating a loop.