WARNING: SPOILERS!!
On December 14th, 2018 the "Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse" was released in theatres. It was extremely well received by audiences, even scoring a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. The story follows Brooklyn teen, Miles Morales, as he finds himself in the middle of a nefarious plot, orchestrated by a villain known as King Pin. King Pin plans to bring his wife and son "back to life" by finding versions of them in alternate dimensions and bringing them to his own. The only problem is, the machine he's using to do it, also known as a "collider," threatens to create a black hole under New York City that may kill everyone.
Miles finds himself in too deep when he witnesses King Pin killing Spider-man aka Peter Parker. Having been bit by a radioactive spider, as well, the task of stopping King Pin gets left up to Miles. However, Miles isn't alone. The collider has opened up some holes in the universe, and Spider-people from a variety of alternate dimensions have been dragged into Miles' dimension to help him and return home. Among this Spider-people is the clever and beautiful, Gwen Stacy. Of all of Miles' inter-dimensional guests. She is by far the coolest for a slew of reasons.
1. She's in a band.
In Gwen's universe, she's in a band called "The Mary Jane's" for which she is the drummer.
2. She saves her own father.
Gwen's father is the NYPD police chief and has an assassin sent after him. Gwen rescues him even though the NYPD is against her and blames her for the death of her classmate, Peter Parker.
3. She learned how to fight from watching movies.
In the comics Gwen is not trained in fighting, she is said to have picked up her skills from watching Kung Fu films.
4. Her best crime-fighting tool is that she’s clever.
Since Gwen's father is a detective, she learns a lot about the law and crime fighting from him. She's smart and creative and knows her way around a crime scene almost as well as the chief of police does.
5. She's tough physically and emotionally.
In Gwen's universe, her "uncle Ben" moment or defining moment in her backstory is the death of her best friend, Peter Parker. Not only does he die, but she is forced to fight him as her first super villain as spider-woman. In the "into the Spider-Verse film," she is then forced to relive a second death of Peter Parker, as she is the first of the spider people to make landfall in Brooklyn.
She is then faced with Peter B. Parker showing up afterward and ends up having to work closely with him for the duration of the film's plot. It probably wasn't easy for her to have to work alongside a constant reminder of the worst thing to ever happen to her, but it never shows. She is consistently cool and bold, never wavering and always getting back up.
A lot of the characters in "Into the Spider-verse" are really cool. Miles does street art and Peni has a robot. It's hard to get cooler than having a robot, but somehow Gwen wins. She's real, and she's flawed, but she's also tough in more ways than one and admirable as a hero. She is bound to be a quick fan favorite of the film, and I can't wait to see where her character goes next.
