Warning: spoilers for Amazing Spider-Man #55!
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Gwen is officially back, but despite her popularity, a Spider-Man villain just brought up an interesting point regarding the current iteration of the character which causes problems with how the alternate universes of the Spider-Verse are treated in the comics.
In Nick Spencer and Patrick Gleason's 'Last Remains' storyline, Peter Parker confronts the villain Kindred, who has captured his allies the Order of the Web, who hail from multiple different alternate dimensions. Kindred is Harry Osborn - Peter's former friends, and someone who had his own relationship with the former Gwen Stacy. In Amazing Spider-Man #55, Kindred's monologue blaming Spider-Man for inspiring these heroes to follow his example is interrupted by the now-conscious Gwen, who mocks his obsession. The annoyed Kindred fires back with, "You know, maybe it's my... unique perspective... But you actually don't remind me of her much at all".
Though Kindred's point initially seems like just a dig at the teenage Gwen, it raises some interesting questions, especially given his apparent memory of Spider-Man's pre-One More Day continuity. Introduced in 1965's The Amazing Spider-Man #31, Gwen was a product of her time, and her semi-permanent death has meant she hasn't been steadily updated to keep up with modern readers like the rest of Spider-Man's ing cast. She and Spider-Gwen were born and lived in different eras, had different lives, and even had different friends (and enemies). While Spider-Gwen was born Gwen Stacy, her similarities to the mainstream Gwen may just be in the name and appearance. From the day she was born, the Spider-Verse's Gwen Stacy has been a different person.
While Spider-Verse-centered stories have been clear that alternate-universe characters are unique individuals, the extent to which Spider-Gwen differs from her inspiration raises some hard questions. Stories like Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli's Spider-Men have played with the idea of alternate-universe Spider-Heroes offering "what if?" glimpses into paths not taken - a type of story some Marvel stories do tell - but the gulf between the Gwens shows that this is mostly wishful thinking. Spider-Gwen isn't a version of the original Gwen Stacy whose life diverged when she gained spider-powers instead of Peter Parker, but a wholly different person who old friends of the original don't even really recognize.
With her life and death fixing her indelibly in the '60s and '70s, the original Gwen never lived a moment in common with the Spider-Gwen conceived of and depicted in the '10s, begging the question of what "being Gwen Stacy" actually means. The idea that the alternate versions of these characters aren't truly linked in any meaningful way undercuts the emotional stakes of many stories about the Spider-Verse. By pointing out how the gap of time has fundamentally changed how Gwen is written, Kindred exposes that the evil future version of Miles Morales, the teen Ultimate Universe Peter Parker, and Spider-Gwen herself are functionally unrelated to their mainstream selves - the equivalent of strangers who happen to have the same name.
If there's no core to these characters that remains the same - if they don't possess the same "soul" or haven't lived the same lives up to a given point - then treating alternate versions of Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy as if they have anything more to say about each other than any other stranger is always going to be an illusion. The Spider-Verse often draws meaning from commonalities across realities, but without deeper connections, that meaning is illusory. "Anyone can wear the mask," is a great message - but a consequence of this truth is that most alternate-universe Spider-Heroes don't really have much to say about the characters on which they're based.
