"But we never got to truly give Ock a second chance, and we don't want to make that same mistake with you."
-Gwen to Peter, Goblin War: Part Four
Gwendolyn "Gwen" Stacy is a major protagonist in Marvel's Spider-Man. She is a classmate and friends of Peter Parker at Horizon High, best friend of Anya Corazon, friends with Miles Morales, a former student of Doctor Otto Octavius, and niece of Professor Raymond Warren who is also the supervillain Jackal. When helping Spider-Man fight crime she went by the name Spider-Gwen, but as of the second season, she took on the name Ghost-Spider after her powers are restored by the blood gem.
Appearance
Physical appearance
Gwen is a Caucasian teenage girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. She usually keeps her hair in a bun or ponytail.
Civilian attire
Throughout season one Gwen wears a pink vest with a light blue shirt underneath. In season 2 Gwen wears a sky blue shirt and blue jeans. In season 3 Gwen wears a black jacket that his partially white on the sleeves and a white t-shirt. The inside of her jacket is pink, making her outfit reflect her Ghost-Spider costume.
As Ghost-Spider/Spider-Gwen

Gwen as "The Radioactive Ghost-Spider".
As Spider-Gwen, she wears a hooded spandex suit that's white from head to waist, black from the waist down. Inside the hoodie and under her arms is pink coloring with a green web pattern. She also keeps her hair in a ponytail.
Once becoming Ghost-Spider she wears a mask to go along with her outfit, and web-wings to help with her ability to glide at will.
In Goblin War: Part Three, Gwen admits that she takes naps in her Ghost-Spider outfit.
Personality
In complete contrast to Anya, Gwen is more outgoing and not too quick to judge others, such as not assuming Peter was a slacker despite hearing of him beforehand. She has also shown to not be afraid when a villain attacks (except for Venom during their first encounter).
As Spider-Gwen she has shown to brave. Despite having no experience in combat she attacked the Stealth Spider without fear and was not scared to fight Crossbones or H.Y.D.R.A. agents alongside Spider-Man and Black Widow.
History
Relationships
Raymond Warren

Gwen view her Uncle Raymond as her hero, having gotten her interested in genetics. When she discovered he was the Jackal she was hurt and never viewed her uncle the same again.
Raymond Warren is Gwen's uncle who inspired her to pursue science and genetics. Once she found out her uncle was the Jackal, it crushed her. From that day she realized her uncle was not the man she thought he was, even referring to him more as the Jackal than Uncle Raymond.
In Generations, when Peter and Gwen discovered Jackal's new secret lair, Gwen, as Ghost-Spider, tried to reason with Jackal that he needed to be with his family and that he needed help. However, Jackal stated that Raymond Warren was gone and that he has truly embraced being the Jackal.
It is later revealed that Jackal was cooperating with Norman Osborn and that he knew Gwen was Ghost-Spider. Jackal's reasons for allying himself with Norman were only to confront Gwen. He lured her to his old house and used a synthetic-symbiote to restrain her. Despite Gwen's pleas and explaining how their family felt about him being a supervillain, Jackal didn't care. He only wanted to turn Gwen into a Jackal like himself. This plan failed as Miles Morales showed up and knocked Jackal out with his electro-sting.
After Norman Osborn's defeat, Gwen revealed and was in relief that her uncle was finally in prison, for real this time.
Anya Corazon

Gwen and Anya have a sisterly bond that is only the peak of their friendship. The two have been there for each other masks on and off.
Anya is Gwen's best friend and the two have a sister-like friendship and bond. The two are seen together often and were building their Horizon High project for the open house together. They would have shared any of the profits made from it together. Gwen's lack of seriousness after regaining her powers from the blood gem did have Anya worried that being a superhero and having powers was just a game to her.
Peter Parker

Peter and Gwen reminding Miles that they're not only friends and a team, but like a family too.
Peter and Gwen are good friends. After it was revealed that her uncle was the Jackal, Peter was the one to comfort her and tell her the story of his uncle when she was curious about the formula on his backpack.
As Spider-Man, Gwen's attitude toward him was similar to Anya's towards Peter, if less harsh. Over the course of time and after fighting alongside him Gwen would respect Spider-Man as a hero.
After Peter regained his body from Doc-Ock, Gwen and Anya were not speaking to Peter because of how Ock treated them while in Peter's body. In Goblin War: Part Four, both Gwen and Anya make amends with Peter after he apologizes for his (Ock's) behavior over the school year.
In Spider-Man Unmasked, Gwen and Anya discover that Peter is Spider-Man. Initially, they are hurt by the fact that Peter shared his secret identity with Miles and Max, but not them despite being his best friends as well. During the fight in the Underground Monster League the girls made up with Peter as both sides only wanted to protect each other in the end.
Miles Morales
Despite being annoyed by his antics at times, Miles is another of Gwen's best friends. Gwen has known Miles just as long she has known Anya, the three enrolling into Horizon during the same time frame. When Miles revealed his powers to her and Anya, Gwen was interested in how Miles suddenly developed the abilities and enthusiastic about the possibility of herself and Anya developing powers. Nevertheless, she and Anya would develop powers later on.
During Spider-Man's mysterious absence, Miles trained Gwen alongside Anya when he was the only veteran Spider-Man to do so. It's possible that Miles' training influenced her to wear a mask with her new identity as Ghost-Spider.
Harry Osborn
Gwen and Harry are good friends. During Spider-Island Part One, Gwen telling Harry that his hatred of Spider-Man blinded him from seeing how hard he was trying to save his father helped Harry fix his relationship with Peter.
Grady Scraps
Gwen met Grady some time after returning from her College tours. After saving him from being trampled by a Human-Rhino in Spider-Man Unmasked, Grady developed a crush on Gwen, admiring her bravery.
In Maximum Venom, Grady realized he does have a crush on Gwen when setting up banners for the dance committee as a favor for her. Around the time of the dance, Grady asks Gwen to be his date by sending her a letter with his helper robot due to his shyness. Gwen accepts his invitation with a coy smile.
May Parker
At some point, Gwen met Aunt May and the two have gotten along well. May has even called Gwen a good friend for bringing Peter his schoolwork after leaving Horizon to get some rest.
Max Modell
Gwen has a lot of respect for Max, him being the founder of Horizon and one of her instructors.
Otto Octavius
Out of the other students at Horizon, Gwen believed Otto to be a good man and a great teacher. Even after he became Doc-Ock and claimed to have rehabilitated, she claimed everyone was being too hard on them. After Doc-Ock used her, Miles, and Anya as guinea pigs for his experiment on the neuro-cortex, her opinion of him has changed.
At the end of the Goblin Wars, Gwen was among the people to show up to Otto's funeral, saying that she was proud of him being able to turn his life around.
Abilities
Genius-level Intellect
Spider Physiology

Gwen possesses the proportionate powers of a spider, given to her after being exposed to a gas from the explosion of Raymond Warren's genetically-enhanced spider experiments, and then having her powers reawakened by the blood gem. As a result, she received off-shoot powers of Spider-Mans; with the addition of organic web-shooters and the lack of a spider-sense.
- Wall-Crawling: Gwen's exposure to the spider-virus induced a mutagenic, cerebellum-wide alteration of her engrams resulting in the ability to mentally control the flux of interatomic attraction (electrostatic force) between molecular boundary layers. This overcomes the outer electron shell's normal behavior of mutual repulsion with other outer electron shells and permits the tremendous potential for electron attraction to prevail. The mentally controlled sub-atomic particle responsible for this has yet to be identified. This ability to affect the attraction between surfaces is so far limited to Gwen's body (especially concentrated in her hands and feet) and another object, with an upper limit of several tons per finger.
- Superhuman Strength: Gwen possesses superhuman strength enabling her to press lift approximately ten tons.
- Superhuman Durability: Gwen's body is physically tougher and more resistant to some types of injury than the body of a normal human. Her body is more resistant to impact forces than anything else. She can withstand great impacts, such as being hit by a car thrown at her or being struck by an opponent with super-strength, that would severely injure or kill a normal human with little to no discomfort.
- Superhuman Agility: Gwen's agility, balance, and bodily coordination are all enhanced to levels that are far beyond the natural physical limits of the finest human athlete.
- Superhuman Equilibrium: Gwen possesses the ability to achieve a state of perfect equilibrium in any position imaginable. She seems able to adjust her position by instinct, which enables her to balance herself on virtually any object, no matter how small or narrow.
- Superhuman Reflexes: Gwen's reflexes are similarly enhanced and are possibly about 40 times greater than those of an ordinary human. In combination with her spider-sense, the speed of her reflexes allows her to dodge almost any attack even gun fire if far enough.
Organic Web-shooters
After gaining powers from the Spider-Island virus and regaining them from the blood gem, Gwen gained the ability to shoot her own webbing from spinneret glands on her wrist. She shares this trait with Anya.
Self-Propelled Gliding
After the blood gem reawakened her spider-powers, Gwen also gained the ability to glide through the air. As seen in Goblin War: Part Four, Gwen is capable of gliding even while carrying people as seen with how she carried Spider-Girl on her back and held Spider-Man by his wrist while trying to maneuver the Goblin Mech.
Equipment
Ghost-Spider/Spider-Gwen suit
Gallery
Trivia
- Gwen is fifteen years old in season one, and sixteen years old in seasons two and three.
- In season one, Gwen kept her hair tied up in a bun, in season two she changed her hairstyle to a ponytail and added a black hair clip.
- Many fans assume this was to show how she changed over the course of season one.
- She goes back to the style while attending Otto Octavius' funeral.
- Unlike most versions of Gwen that are featured alongside Peter Parker, the Gwen in this show is loosely based on the version from the Spider-Gwen comics (Earth-65).
- Gwen being into science and genetics may also be based on her counterpart from The Amazing Spider-Man film series and The Spectacular Spider-Man.
- Gwen' voice actor, Laura Bailey, would voice her again in the trailers for Marvel: Realm of Champions, but as a different version of her who goes by Madame Web.
- Gwen being related to Raymond Warren is a reference to the relationship her comic book counterpart has with his brother, Miles Warren, in the main Marvel Comics universe. In the comics, Warren was secretly in love with Gwen, who was one of his students at ESU, and her death is what drove him to become the Jackal.
- It's possible that Spider-Woman was to be Gwen's original hero name after dropping Spider-Gwen. Evidence for this comes from the unrelated series Marvel Rising being where the Ghost-Spider name originated from, and multiple sources having called her Spider-Woman before the latter half of season two aired.
- The short bio on her Spider-Gwen Marvel Minimates even alluded to this by saying, "...she will eventually become Spider-Woman."[2]
- Despite her character page on the Marvel HQ website being changed to Ghost-Spider after the premiere of The Day Without Spider-Man, Gwen's bio still refers to her as Spider-Woman.
- In the comics, Gwen was the longtime love interest and girlfriend of Spider-Man and is often considered to be his first true love. But their relationship came to a tragic end in the infamous storyline "The Night Gwen Stacy Died."
- Due to Anya and Gwen's strong friendship on the show, fans have created a ship (a pairing, usually romantic, between to fictional characters) called Gwenya.
- After regaining her powers from the Blood Gem, Gwen also gains the ability to glide at will. A species of spider called the Maratus Volans (peacock/gliding spider) is often mistaken for having this ability in real-life.
- Gliding is a technique of the first Spider-Woman from Marvel Comics, Jessica Drew. Unlike Drew, Gwen's ability to control her gliding ability has remained consistent, while with Drew it was either a mental power or her gliders depending on who was writing her comics at the time.
- In the 2021 comic book series King in Black: Gwenom vs Carnage Gwen's comic book counterpart would use her synthetic-symbiote to create web-wings for gliding.
- Fans of the show have said that unlike Miles and Harry, Gwen and Anya are not as close to, or know Peter that well, despite being friends.
- This was fueled by the two of them not speaking to Peter anymore after the events of the "Superior Spider-Man" Saga, and accusing him of being a member of the Goblin Nation in "Goblin War: Part One".
- She and Anya both make amends with Peter in Goblin War: Part Four.
- Gwen's symbiote form is based on her Gwenom appearance from her comics.
- The only difference from the comic book is that her symbiote now has a single spike on her feet.
- When Patrick Brown was designing venomized Ghost-Spider, he originally had the jagged edges of her hoodie be teeth but, changed it to the design featured in the comic books.[3]
- Due to her father only being mentioned twice, once during season one and season two, many fans were confused as to where Gwen was staying after her uncle Raymond was arrested and found out to be The Jackal.
- In Spider-Island Part Three and Venom Returns Gwen is shown to be living with her father.
- Gwen and Anya are the only two characters of the main cast to change outfits each season.
- Gwen is mistakenly shown with the spider-sense ability in Rhino's Rampage and her Venom Files video.
- In the case of Rhino's Rampage, the story was most likely written and published before the Spider-Island saga premiered and before Gwen's abilities was decided upon.
- It appears Gwen's original suit, as Spider-Gwen, may have been a jacket instead of spandex. During her time as Spider-Gwen, the suit has a visible line from the neck down while as Ghost-Spider the line is absent.
- According to her Venom File video, Gwen's strength-level is slightly lower than Peter's.
References