Despite the fact that everyone knows her best as “Spider-Gwen” when she’s slinging webs of her own and saving the day, Gwen Stacy’s, ahem, “brand” has been in an interesting state of flux for the past year or so as she’s taken on larger roles in animated series like Marvel Rising: Initiated and films like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Sometimes she’s “Spider-Gwen,” sometimes she’s “Spider-Woman,” and most recently, she’s begun going by “Ghost-Spider,” a name that hasn’t really caught on despite the fact that it’s rather fitting when you consider how in the larger Spider-Man mythos spread across dimensions, Gwen’s usually dead.
Part of the reason “Ghost-Spider” hasn’t quite taken off is that there hasn’t quite been a great story in any of the comics, video games, or films that gave the name a proper origin, and one imagines that Marvel figures the reason for the name change is kinda obvious.
Superheroes… can’t go around using their first names unless they’re down with the world knowing who they are. It’s a rather big part of the whole great responsibility that comes with great power thing, and it’s something that this exclusive clip of Lego Marvel Spider-Man: Vexed By Venom illustrates excellently with a simple phone call.
It’s one thing when Marvel’s Spider-team-ups feature a cast of heroes from different dimensions and their needs to keep their identities secret are a bit less intense, but the more that the spider-powered Gwen Stacy is in the spotlight, especially in bigger budget productions, the classic constraints of superhero life are likely to become a more core part of her identity.