


Young Love Gwen and Peter: The Early DaysĬonsidering the way that the films and animated series have depicted either Mary Jane or Gwen as Peter’s first love (or at least as a longtime school friend), it may be somewhat surprising to casual fans that, in the source material, neither of them actually knew Peter while he was in high school. With Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse here, we’re taking a look back at how Gwen Stacy went from one of the comic book industry’s most famous corpses to one of its most beloved heroines. Now, thanks to Spider-Gwen’s starring role in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and its sequels, she’s become even more iconic.

And in recent years, in an odd quirk of fate, Spider-Gwen, a heroic variant from Earth-65, has proven to be far more popular than the original Gwen ever was. Although the original Gwen we first knew has actually stayed dead for decades - a comics rarity - she has rarely been entirely gone from Peter’s life for very long, either as a clone or a doppelganger from an alternate world.
