Gwenpool

Gwendolyn "Gwen" Poole is a fictional character who appears in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, originating as an amalgam of Gwen Stacy and Deadpool on a variant cover of Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars #2, one of twenty variant covers published due to the popularity of Spider-Gwen from June 2015.

As a result of the character's popularity with fans, Marvel produced two stories featuring Gwenpool as a character, a backup story in the series Howard the Duck, and a one-shot Gwenpool Holiday Special. Despite the name "Gwenpool", the character has no relation to either Deadpool or Gwen Stacy. A retcon in the Howard the Duck #1 backup revealed her name to actually be "Gwen Poole". Following the publication of the one-shot, an ongoing series titled The Unbelievable Gwenpool by the same creative team was announced, which started in April 2016. The Unbelievable Gwenpool #0, collecting Poole's appearances from Howard the Duck & Gwenpool Holiday Special, was later released.

Publication history

Gwenpool on the cover of Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars #2

In June 2015, following the popularity of Spider-Gwen, all Marvel titles being published had alternate covers with Gwen Stacy reimagined as other characters, such as Doctor Strange, Groot and Wolverine.^[1] One of those was Deadpool, featured on Chris Bachalo's variant cover for Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars #2. The "Gwenpool" character turned out to be especially popular with the fans.^[2] After seeing how many fans were cosplaying as a character who was not even featured in any comic, Marvel editor Jordan White approached writer Christopher Hastings with the task of creating a story around her. Initially the plan was to do one-shot comic "Gwenpool Special #1" (December 2015), which was then followed by introducing the character prior to the special with a three-issue backup story in the ongoing volume of Howard the Duck (November 2015-January 2016).^[3][4] After a meeting with White and Howard the Duck editor Will Moss, Hastings came out with the idea of a fourth wall-breaking character similar to Deadpool, "but it comes from this place of knowing she is in a comic book because she is from a world where the comic books actually exist", which would also lead to a Deadpool-like cavalier attitude "because she doesn’t believe there is any consequences to her actions", something Hastings summed as "she decides to use that [comic book] knowledge like she’s in Grand Theft Auto or something". A contrast would be that Gwenpool lacked any of the training or superpowers Deadpool had.^[5][6]

The Howard the Duck arc, from November 2015 to January 2016, was drawn by Brazilian artist Danilo Beyruth, and the holiday special, published in December 2015, had art Japanese duo Gurihiru. Once Marvel decided to make a Gwenpool ongoing series, starting in April 2016, Hastings asked for Gurihiru's return to the artwork team.^[3]

Fictional character biography

Backstory

Through means yet to be revealed, Gwen Poole arrived to the Marvel Universe from what she claims to be "the real world." Unwilling to be an "extra," she went to a tailor for super-heroes and requested her own costume to stand out. The tailor (named Ronnie) complied, but misread Gwen's application form, and thought Gwen went by the alias of "Gwenpool", leading to a costume similar to Deadpool. Ronnie chose pink because of Gwen's pink highlights, but also wanted her costume to stand out and get rid of her excess pink fabric.^[7] So far she has yet to reveal the details of her old life, though she told Rocket Raccoon that in this comic universe she is not lactose intolerant. So there may have been some physical change between her old self and the new Marvel version, since superheroes are usually good looking as a rule. So far aside from being similar to the "real world" all we know is that she felt erasing herself from her old life and her parents' memories was "for the best".

Meeting Howard the Duck

Gwenpool's first appearance as a character was in Howard the Duck Vol 6 #1, when she was involved in stealing a humanity-destroying virus from Black Cat and selling it to Hydra to get money easily, believing that the Avengers would simply deal with any consequences. In order to prevent Black Cat's Gang from finding her, Gwenpool killed a corrupt member of the NYPD whom the Black Cat was going to ask for help. Believing (correctly) that Black Cat was going to resort to blackmailing Howard the Duck into helping her, Gwen broke into Howard's office and hid under his desk. Gwenpool then revealed herself after Hardy left, and attempted to assassinate Howard, reasoning that as Howard was a fictional character, he would most likely come back even from death. When she revealed the item she had stolen from Hardy and to whom she had sold it, Howard scolded her and informed her that the Avengers were not available to save the Earth from the virus. Guilt stricken, she then set out with Howard to retrieve the virus from a Hydra base. Gwenpool and Howard assaulted the Hydra base storing the virus and made their way to a laboratory where an agent was testing on it, with sights on releasing the virus. Gwenpool took the virus' container and drank it all, mistakenly believing it was the mumps, a virus she had been vaccinated from in her home reality. The virus started to mutate Gwenpool, and the Hydra agent gave her the cure to prevent her from infecting the base. When Howard met up with Hardy to return the box that supposedly contained the virus, Gwen appeared dressed up as one of the members of the organization that had sold the virus to the Black Cat, pretending to desire the box back. Using the money obtained from the transaction with Hydra, Gwen bought the box from Hardy, preventing her from discovering it was empty.^[8]

Gwenpool's Holiday Specials

Gwenpool's Holiday Special #1 (2015)

During the Gwenpool Holiday Special, Gwenpool is hired to kill Orto, a snake/human hybrid assassin. She encounters him in his building and then kills him with a bomb. Gwenpool then attends a Christmas party hosted by She-Hulk, where she's seen talking to Ms. Marvel. They later go to the karaoke machine.^[9]

Gwenpool's Holiday Special: Merry Mix-Up (2016)

A second Gwenpool Holiday Special made its debut in December 2016. After Gwenpool notices that the reality of the Marvel Universe has been altered, replacing several holidays (set during her time leading MODOK's former henchmen), she set out to find out what was wrong. Gwenpool discovers that Santa Claus is responsible for the changes, having erased himself from Christmas to have a vacation: Gwen was unaffected due to her being from another dimension. Gwen explains that as a side-effect of Santa's magic holidays, new holidays such as "Pantsgiving" and "Namor's Feast of Fish" have replaced the usual ones, with Christmas being replaced by "The Coming of Galactus, The Bringer of Gifts". Santa reveals that he was planning to restore the holidays after the New Year, but offers to restore them now instead. Although Gwen initially considers waiting until after New Year to have the holidays restored, as the new holidays would allow her to visit her family in her home dimension, she ultimately decides to restore Christmas, and returns to her headquarters to celebrate with her friends.^[10]

Solo series

Gwenpool unmasked

Following the events of Gwenpool Holiday Special #1, Gwenpool becomes a full-time mercenary, getting the news of different freelance jobs from her tailor, Ronnie.

After stopping a bank robbery by killing all of the robbers, she gets arrested along with the gang's hacker Cecil. The arresting officer spontaneously decides to retire, and Gwenpool enlists a reluctant Cecil as her sidekick. After a mission revolving around extraterrestrial arms dealers where she killed MODOK Superior's best agent, MODOK tracked Gwenpool down. He murdered Cecil in order to force her to become his henchman and an agent for his Mercenary Organization Dedicated Only to Killing.

MODOK Superior then sends Gwenpool with his elite squad, which also features Batroc the Leaper, the chemist Mega Tony, and the magician Terrible Eye, to find and kill the Seed of Pains, an evil Asgardian wizard who was under police custody. Upon getting the wizard away from the cops, they're ambushed by Thor, who needed him to save a dying elven colony from a rare root that infected them. Gwenpool distracts Thor and then kills the Seed of Pains with a bazooka. Mega Tony extracts the wizard's powers, places them in a spray bottle and gives it to Thor, who leaves to save the elves. While MODOK Superior and his squad celebrate, an upset Gwenpool is approached by Batroc, who threatens to expose her lack of powers and abilities to MODOK Superior, but accepts to give her a basic combat and firearms training.

Gwenpool then got Ronnie to set up a meeting between herself and Doctor Strange, in which she explained to him that she was from a reality where all Marvel characters are fictional characters in comic books. Doctor Strange agreed to transfer the data from Gwen's original world to create a fake background for her in the Marvel Universe, so that she could get her Social Security number, driver's license and other essential documents. However, MODOK Superior also discovers Gwen's background and swears to destroy Gwen. He sends the other mercenaries on a mission without her. When she questions him, MODOK Superior reveals that he knows who she is and attempts to kill her. Gwen and MODOK then engage in battle, with Gwen using the skills she learned from Batroc to gain the upper hand. Eventually MODOK Superior activates a rocket chair and sends a barrage of weapons against Gwen, but is defeated once Cecil's ghost hacks into MODOK Superior's defenses and sends him into space.

She then heads to a meeting with MODOK Superior's mysterious client until she meets Miles Morales, the second Spider-Man, in the subway train. After an awkward introduction, Gwenpool follows Miles to his school until an explosion happens in one of the classrooms. Gwen and Spider-Man manage to rescue the students in time. Returning home, Miles finds Gwen in his house, who convinces him to investigate the explosion. They track it back to a classmate of Miles, who Gwen attempts to shoot. Spider-Man scolds Gwen for the murder attempt and, after a brief fight, webs her and leaves her for the police.

Gwen is busted out of jail by Batroc and reunited with the others, and sent to meet the client in his Brooklyn home. The client, named Vincent, asks Gwen to assume command of the MODOK organization and kill the alien arms dealers, known as Teuthidans. In the meantime, the Teuthidans, attack New York, discover Gwenpool's identity with the help of the NYPD and ask them to send their cops after Gwen. Gwen escapes the police by jumping on a moving subway train, and once back at the base, she forms a plan to defeat the Teuthidans: while the others distract the cops with a fake crime wave, Gwen will kill the Teuthidans.

Arriving at Times Square, Gwen tries to call the others until Vincent appears behind her. When Cecil arrives and tells Gwen that the others were captured by the Teuthidans, Vincent reveals that he told the aliens, believing that the MODOK mercenaries were the real problem with the world and is somehow obsessed to learn about Gwenpool's world. Gwen then grabs her gun and shoots him in the face, discovering that Vincent is a Doombot. Vincent reveals he survived a time travelling elderly Squirrel Girl's hobby of ruining Doctor Doom's plans, and turned against heroes and other weirdness when living with a younger Tinkerer, before attacking Gwenpool, who escapes with Cecil on their cop car.

Back to the mobile base, Gwenpool transports it to Vincent's house, where the Teuthidans are hiding with Gwen's team. Assisted by Vincent and MODOK's other agents, Gwenpool defeats the Teuthidans, but destroys the MODOK base in the process. After escaping, Batroc and the others decide to disband, despite Gwen's attempts to keep them together.

Gwen is then hired to kill a vampire in a small town, until she discovers that the mayor is a necromancer who was resurrecting the town's dead citizens and the one she was hired to kill was Blade. After a brief fight, Gwen manages to explain everything to Blade, who gives her his cellphone number and then leaves. She calls Blade when she discovers that the mayor is actually draining the life of the undead's descendants to keep them alive. Gwen reunites with the MODOK crew once Arcade puts them in a Murderworld shaped like a medieval dungeon, where they end up battling Deadpool. Gwen then helps Mega Tony get a job at Parker Industries and rescues Cecil, who was being chased by his frightened family members.

After rescuing Cecil they went to Terrible Eye's apartment to ask how to make Cecil corporeal if not actually alive. Terrible Eye discovers a mystical gem being held by dwarves that could help, and opened a portal to a "moving door" that would lead to it, that Gwen quickly jumped through, with Cecil going after. She emerged inside Ghost Rider's trunk in Los Angeles while he and Hawkeye were both trying to stop the dwarves from completing a mystical ritual. Cecil ended up trapped in the mystical gem, which Ghost Rider put in his trunk as he drove away hearing the police sirens arriving. The next day, Gwen and Hawkeye go to Robbie Reyes' high school to retrieve the gem, but it ends up grabbed by the dwarves. Gwen enlists Ghost Rider to rescue Cecil, and it culminates in a battle at the Port of Los Angeles. During the battle, the dwarves release a giant creature to defeat the heroes. Cecil convinces Gwen to place the crystal on the creature's head, enabling him to possess its body. Later, Gwen goes to visit the Earth-616 version of the Poole family despite MODOK's inability to find any records of Gwen existing before Doctor Strange's intervention, where she is greeted by her brother Teddy, who, for some unknown reason and with no real explanation, drags her back to her world (or a reasonably facsimile) before she can meet the Marvel version of her parents. She's then transported back to her universe, where she begins to live her normal life from the moment she left (2015) again with apparently no memory of her time in the Marvel Universe, which she hates. Gwen is drawn to a machine in a sleep study she volunteered for that could get her back to the Marvel Universe. Gwen is stopped from jumping into the vortex by her brother, who implies it's different to the way she originally entered the Marvel Universe, prompting her to reluctantly deactivate the machine and decide to go home. Then, while breaking the fourth wall and being confused by this, she sees a "The End" lying on the floor and picks it up before dropping and breaking it. It is then replaced by "to be continued" and a preview for #17, confusing Gwen.

Gwen continues her life; by 2016 she is working at a cinema screening Captain America: Civil War. Aware that she is in a comic book, yet unaware of her time in the Marvel Universe, Gwen sees a giant title appears behind her and realising that she can see her thoughts in pink boxes. After some experimenting she thinks so much that her thought-box actually pushes her out of her bedroom window, making her "parents" think she tried to kill herself. After waking up in the hospital it becomes clear that she's being recommended for "observation". She mentions to her brother that she thinks she is in a comic book and questions him on what he knows. Nervous, he gives Gwen her notebook, who notices that the pages of her notebook where she drew MODOK and Batroc have been removed. Gwen then begins experimenting with the fourth wall again and successfully erases the walls between panels, leaving her with various versions of herself for company. Hearing a voice outside her door, Gwen climbs out of the panels, finding herself looking in on her life.^[11]

Watching the past from outside the borders Gwen sees that her brother Teddy was also sucked into Marvel Universe only to have a far worse time than Gwen, even working for the snake swordsman she defeated on her first Christmas. Only when he saw her slaughter people just before trying to reconnect with her he freaked out. A moment later versions of Spider-man, The Terrible Eye, and the Doombot Vincent Doonan appeared claiming to be from a future where Gwen becomes a huge threat and destroys their lives. They offer him the chance to "return home" with his sister and fix things. Thinking Gwen Psychotic and having had a terrible time, he readily agrees. On finding this out Gwen, with her memory and costume restored and not really caring what alternate future people (real or not) might say about her, confronts Teddy for trying to undo the past and steal her dream of living in a comic, and shows him that their parents aren't real and they never even left the comic.

Crossovers

Rocket Raccoon and Groot: Civil War II (2016)

During the Civil War II storyline, Gwenpool appears in Georgia attempting to catch an alien smuggler named Chammy, who was living in a rural neighborhood under the name Chandler and was trying to leave Earth, only to discover that Rocket Raccoon and Groot are also after him. After an intense fight between them, they manage to catch up to him and end up fighting Reeve, an alien that can absorb memories out of heads, who put the bounty on Chammy. After Reeve defeats them and escapes, Chammy tells Rocket, Groot and Gwen that Reeve is looking for a formula that could temporarily neutralize Captain Marvel's powers, allowing him to kill her. Gwen refuses to help at first, under the logic that Captain Marvel, being one of most important “characters” in the current “story”, would not be killed off in “a comic about a talking tree and raccoon”. However, after coincidentally running into Kitty Pryde, Gwen falls under the mistaken impression that the comic she is currently in was being written by Brian Michael Bendis, a “big-deal comic book writer” with a fixation on Pryde who would have the authority to kill Captain Marvel. Convinced Captain Marvel’s life to actually be in danger, Gwen accompanies Rocket & Groot to the Triskelion, where they manage to catch up to Reeve but he knocks them down. Just when he's about to kill Captain Marvel, Reeve is defeated by Chammy. While Chammy returns home with his human girlfriend Ruth, Rocket, Groot and Gwen part ways, as Gwen realizes that the real writer put Kitty Pryde on the street to trick her into helping.^[12]

Champions (2016)

Gwen appears in Champions Vol. 2 #5 along with Ms. Marvel, (whom she met and befriended at She-Hulk's Christmas party in "Gwenpool's Holiday Special #1") and every Champion minus Spider-Man, whom Gwenpool says (and whom Gwenpool assumes is absent due to their conflict in her solo series) hates her. She claims she's joining the Champions, attacking the police officers (and blowing up their cars) who were ignoring hate crimes in the area due to their sheriff being responsible. Gwen assumes that these dirty cops will turn out to be super villains, as that is usually the case in comics like these. Her attempts to use comic book logic run up against the other's realistic expectations of non-super villain racism and bigotry being the cause, going to try and find "mesmero or some other villain" behind it all (she believes that all evil is caused by super villains). They demand proof that the dirty cops are controlling people's minds, only to be provided with "the air of fear" as an explanation by Viv Vision. Gwenpool and the Champions eventually convince the sheriff's deputy to expose him.^[13]

Secret Empire: Brand New World #1 (2017)

Edge of Venomverse #2 (2017)

After nearly being killed Gwen merges with the Venom (Marvel Comics) Symbiote.

Powers and abilities

Gwenpool has no real superpowers, but has vast knowledge of the Marvel Universe from comic books in her universe, such as every secret identity of heroes and villains. She has used this information to take down Black Cat's criminal empire^[7] and to stop Thor from attacking her.^[14] She is able to exploit her fourth-wall knowledge to her advantage, understanding when comic-book tropes will allow her to avoid unpleasant or life-threatening consequences. Gwen has repeatedly demonstrated that she can't be arrested for long due to her superhero status and has also, on several occasions, survived falls that should have killed her. In fact she specifically told Howard the Duck that one of her favorite things was leaping from tall things and not dying. Things that should injure her sometimes have no effect, and when she is injured she heals quickly.

She was trained by various super villains in weapons, hand to hand techniques including French martial arts, and vampire hunting. Though she lacks superpowers, she uses the earnings from her mercenary work to purchase weapons and gear, including a personal force field.

Doctor Strange has stated that as evidenced by her pink voice bubbles, Gwen still resonates with her home universe while being subject to the rules of the Marvel Universe. For example, when Santa Claus tried to get a vacation by changing reality she was fully aware that things were not right as Christmas was replaced by other holidays such as Pants-giving.

Gwen is a brilliant tactician, outsmarting a giant snake sword master (first by killing his minions/body guards easily and then abandoning swordplay in favor of explosives), MODOK, Thor, the police, Arcade, and an Artificially Intelligent Doombot just for starters and for all her goofing off has yet to fail in any mission she has set out to do. Whether she gets paid for her hard work is another matter.

Gwenpool's knowledge of the Marvel Universe and its unique, fictional nature makes her reckless and irresponsibly violent. Thus, she prefers to use large guns and other extreme weaponry. For example, she has used rocket launchers and katanas in the past.

Gwen's ability to manipulate the fourth wall has evolved over time. In the beginning she merely assumed people were reading her comic, mostly because she recognized the Marvel characters from reading comics and then used to comics rules to do things she should not have been able to or recognize when the author and artists were using convenient plot points. She would talk to thin air, but aside from the recap page at the beginning she could not actually see or interact with it the way that She-hulk and Deadpool can and instead just assuming someone was reading what she said. Later, when she fought with Deadpool she intentionally created a mental game board to help her organize her friends to fight him and after he realized what she was doing Deadpool recognized her as a fellow fourth wall breaker and was able to interact with it and even know things about her that he could not, like the fact that she started out in a backup of Howard the Duck and thus was not established enough to actually kill him. After her "return home" in which she seems to have forgotten she's in a comic though, she was able to break the fourth wall and even accidentally see and accidentally break "The End" at the end of Volume 3 of her comic and see when it was replaced with a "to be continued..." Since then she has been experimenting and has physically manifested her pink thought boxes, seen various credits and titles appear around her, and even managed to erase the borders between panels to allow her to talk with multiple versions of herself. According to what a band of people who may or may not be from her future told her brother she eventually gains nearly god-like or at least cartoon-like ability to manipulate the comic book reality.

However Gwen is restricted by the comic rules too. For example she cannot publicly reveal a hero's secret identity without risking severe repercussions, such as Thor almost taking off her head when she almost revealed her as Jane. Other possible effects seen before are amnesia, rewriting reality to fix it, being kidnapped by villains who want the information, and other negative results. Or people coming back in time to stop her.

In other media

The Unbelievable Gwenpool Promotional Art for Marvel Future Fight

• Gwenpool appears as a playable character in Marvel Future Fight.
• Gwenpool is featured in Marvel Puzzle Quest.
• Gwenpool appears as a playable character in Marvel Contest of Champions.
• Gwenpool will appear in Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2.

Collected Editions

The series has been collected into trade paperbacks:

See also

• Cosplay
• Gwen Stacy
• Deadpool
• Howard the Duck

References