Warning: Contains a preview for Spider-Gwen: Gwenverse #1
A preview for Spider-Gwen: Gwenverse #1 - by Tim Seeley, Jodi Nishijima, and Federico Blee - shows that Marvel Comics is still not going to forgive Spider-Man for his biggest mistake and his darkest moment: the death of Gwen Stacy.
Spider-Gwen is a version of Gwen Stacy from Earth-65. In her universe, Gwen was the one bitten by a radioactive spider and became a hero, while her boyfriend Peter Parker died tragically. In Marvel's main continuity, Earth-616, Gwen was still Peter's girlfriend, but she is the one who died in one of Spider-Man's most memorable, and darkest, stories, "The Night Gwen Stacy Died." In Amazing Spider-Man #121 and #122 - by Gerry Conway, Gil Kane, John Romita Sr., and Dave Hunt - the Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) recovers from the amnesia that made him forget Spider-Man's secret identity and kidnaps Gwen to lure Peter into a fight. During a brutal confrontation on top of the George Washington Bridge, Gwen falls off and Peter catches her with his web, but the sudden stop in momentum snaps her neck. This is one of the most debated moments among Spider-Man's fans, and certainly a defining one in the character's history.
In Spider-Gwen's new miniseries, Gwenverse, the heroine is dealing with a Multiversal crisis. While trying to travel from her own dimension to another using her Ticket to the Multiverse, a tool that allows interdimensional travel, Gwen is struck by something and as a result she is left falling in the void between dimensions. She is rescued by Spider-Zero, another Multiverse-themed hero who is the Master Weaver of the Web of Life and Destiny, the construct that regulates travel between realities. When she catches Spider-Gwen with her web, Spider-Zero says "I've been in enough universes to know falling and Gwen Stacy are always a bad combination."
The original Gwen Stacy's death is considered one of the best Spider-Man stories of all time, and also the final story of Marvel's Silver Age because it was unthinkable at that time to kill the love interest of a hero. The story broke many barriers and helped push superhero comics into a new, more mature direction. Amazing Spider-Man #121 was voted by readers at number 6 as the greatest issue of all time for Marvel's 100 Greatest series. This incredible success, however, means that Spider-Man is never allowed to forget about that tragic night. Gwen Stacy is one of the few Marvel characters who will not be resurrected because it would tarnish the legacy of that story. For this reason, Spider-Gwen allows Marvel to keep developing a beloved character without undoing one of the most important stories in Spider-Man's history.
Spider-Zero's line in the preview is a callback to Gwen Stacy's rich character legacy in Spider-Man comics, even if this new version of Gwen will continue evolving in her own way. To see how Spider-Gwen will deal with this Multiverse crisis and with a whole bunch of alternate versions of herself, readers should pick up Spider-Gwen: Gwenverse when it is released on March 9.