One of Marvel’s bestselling new-ish comic book heroes, Spider-Gwen, will make her animated debut on Ultimate Spider-Man. Spider-Gwen, an alternate-universe version of Gwen Stacy (played most recently by Emma Stone in The Amazing Spider-Man 2) takes up web-slinging and vigilantism when her universe’s Peter Parker is killed.
Gwen Stacy originally appeared as a minor character in the Spider-Verse storyline, and she’s been enjoying a popular spin-off comic series ever since. That comic has introduced other alternate-reality versions of heroes Marvel fans know well, including a black female Captain America named Samantha Wilson. Samantha is Earth-65’s gender-flipped version of Sam Wilson, whom Marvel fans know as Falcon, and later as a replacement Captain America.
Spider-Gwen will appear as part of Ultimate Spider-Man’s fourth season, during which the show has been exploring the Spider-Verse storyline, placing Peter Parker’s Spider-Man alongside Miles Morales’s Spider-Man, as they experience run-ins with several other Spider-People.
Although the animated universe doesn’t connect to the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe it’s still fun to see the writers porting comic book characters onscreen. And so far, Spider-Man has been one of the company’s bestselling franchises, so exploring more spider-centric storylines can’t be a bad thing. Spider-Gwen’s debut episode will air September 18 on Disney XD.
