#gwen stacy 18157

[rappaccini]

additional meta:

regarding gwen's punk rock personality / aesthetic...

(references from here)

it isn't necessarily linked to getting superpowers. gwen 65a/8 was bitten by her radioactive spider while attending a protest against big oil company roxxon, but more often than not, gwen gets powers or becomes a vigilante through means that have nothing to do with activism, and she doesn't join a rock band or pick up an instrument either before or afterwards.

it isn't even linked to being queer. though most of the punk gwens have at least some queer-coding (though they do tend to date men), plenty of the preppy gwens do too.

the punk gwens appear 5/17 times. they're a minority who are far outnumbered by gwens who are preppy popular girls or unassuming nerds. this minority is growing quickly though, and it's probably going to eclipse the others in the future.

almost every time gwen goes counterculture, it isn't a phase; she never returns to being conventionally feminine or enforcing the status quo. the one exception is earth-8, the supposed future of earth-65 gwen, who surrenders her drumming passion and counterculture politics to become a fabulously wealthy and famous superhero and the silent, supportive wife to miles morales and mother of his kids. (... though, she does reveal a secret allegiance to other spider-gwens when she has gwen-617 work to protect gwen-65 from being forced to become her. protecting a young queer girl from being shoved into patriarchal comphet is very subversive. doing it in secret behind your husband's back is uh... not).

4/5 times, punk gwen's in a band as its drummer. the outlier is 1610, where gwen is a fan of punk and rock in general, but goes to concerts rather than putting them on herself. (she's also the only punk gwen who isn't a spider-gwen [she predates sg's existence], but IS the first gwen to gain a symbiote.) and gwen's tendency to channel her rage into her drumming was one of the ideas behind making her a drummer in the first place, so it doesn't seem coincidental that one of the most violent gwens to date lacks that outlet.

(1610 gwen's design feels largely motivated by the need to contrast her to that world's mj, who is an unassuming girl next door instead of a wild supermodel. thus, gwen also inverts from the preppy beauty queen to the punk.)

her punkness almost always appears as a response to some kind of trauma: either her mother abandoning her* (1610), or the death of her best friend (684, 65a, 65b).

and it always appears whenever her mother isn't in the picture. which implies that her mother would've shut that behavior down, whereas her dad (who seemed to be the less conservative parent) is willing to let gwen engage in a less respectable hobby/style/political mindset.

*which is why i'm extrapolating that 18157, the only punk gwen who never suffers the death of a loved one, but does have an absent mother (and first appears as a reckless, insensitive punk who's prickly with her teammates and has to mellow out), must have had her mother walk out instead of die.

(*very interesting to note then, that when gwen goes on her rebellious bender, the thing that can anchor her again isn't a love interest or friend-- it's getting superpowers. if her mother abandons her, and gwen doesn't get them, nothing can stop her from circling the drain. if she does get them, now she has something to believe in and be responsible for, and a way to control her life again. factor in her usual high-powered career choices, her typical romantic behavior, her tendency to back the status quo, and spider-gwen's rebellion against it, and you get the conclusion that gwen thinks she's motivated by love, but is really driven by access to power. it's how she uses the power that varies, but her hunger for it is constant.)

spiderverse gwen, in addition to having a mother who's absence occurs later in life than gwen 65a (but regardless of whether she left or died, still joined the band before peter's death), is coded as trans. therefore, she's dealing with the pressures of being a trans girl. so even if her mother didn't abandon her, she's far more likely to gravitate towards a subculture with politics and a language of physical expression that embrace her gender identity.

so it seems that as a default, gwen doesn't naturally gravitate towards a rocker aesthetic. without her mom or a female best friend to dress her, she'll just throw on bella swan chic. thanks to her parents' influence, she'll naturally trust authority, distrust vigilantes, want to conform to heteronormative ideals, and seek high-powered science-driven careers at shady megacorporations. but if something breaks that illusion for her-- like her mother, who enforced those ideals on her the most, inexplicably throwing them away and abandoning her (1610) / her father, who she adores and thought was an honorable police officer, manhunting her over a misunderstanding (684) or witnessing firsthand how brutal the tactics of his officers are (65a) / or realizing that her identity makes her the kind of person society will never accept (65b)-- she'll start to embrace alternative aesthetics as a response.

gwen's punk persona begins as a way to release herself from the image of the conventionally feminine, rule-following (heterosexual) girl people in her life (parents, boyfriends) are pressuring her to be. it's also a visual cry for attention, to dare the people in her life who failed her to notice, and come reassure her that she can quit rebelling and return to the status quo. it's only after she realizes that this won't happen that she commits to the ideology.

gwen is not an inherently punk character. even the gwens who commit to the aesthetic still struggle with white feminist, girlbossy behavior and the temptation to give in to comphet. after all, gwen's driven to seek power. it's what she was raised for, it's what she needs at her core. she's only drawn to the subculture seeking an outlet for her personal frustration, anger and disillusionment when she realizes the way things are cannot give it to her.

but she has the capacity to become a counterculture character, once she actually thinks about the bigger causes of her emotional distress. if she comes to the conclusion that structural change is needed to solve this, and especially if she develops empathy for others who are disaffected, she'll decide not to return to the status quo and commit to the politics of the movement.

and if she does, gwen's commitment to reinforcing the status quo flips on its head, and the counterculture gains a highly intelligent, highly driven ally.

[multiverse-of-marvels]

Earth-18157

Home to Peter Parker (Spider-Man), Miles Morales (Spider-Man), and Gwen Stacy (Ghost-Spider). All three exist in the same universe and were possibly even bit by the exact same radioactive spider.

First mentioned/appearance: Marvel Action: Spider-Man #1 (2018)