There’s a point in Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider Modern Era Epic Collection: Weapon of Choice (whew) where congenial everyboy Miles Morales refers to Earth-65 as a ‘karaoke universe’. That’s such a funny, fitting term for Gwen’s reality, which has the energy of a rambunctious night out with friends, none of whom can remember the right lyrics to ”Don’t Stop Believin’” but are gamefully belting it into a microphone.
It’s a roughshod, joyous universe, one unafraid to wing it when aligning to the “lyrics” of the universe it means to mirror. It might not hit the vocal high notes, but it definitely knows the chorus.
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Under the creative teams who launched Gwen’s universe, there is a sort of musical rhythm to Spider-Gwen; action sequences are so bombastic that they might as well have a backbeat; sound effects crackle as if run through a distorting guitar effects pedal. Concerts by superhero-themed bands (and, of course, Gwen’s band The Mary Janes) make compelling backdrops for Gwen’s increasingly dramatic life.
There is a supervillain who is straight-up Prince.
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It’s impossible not to get swept up in the beat of the book, and its impossible not to love how catchy Gwen is herself.
The book is singing along to songs originally played by Peter Parker (and, to an extent, Miles), but it more often feels like a superior cover of those songs than a sloppy sing-along. Peter Parker has gone through extensive periods of moodiness and gloom, melodramatics which can make Amazing Spider-Man a slog to read through.
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Parker can occasionally be self-involved and unlikeable, and this is never a problem for Gwen. Even at her darkest points – as near the end of this Epic Collection – Gwen never becomes her drama; her character is never made out to be hangdog and beset by troubles, no matter how beset she actually is. She remains a sort of brightness even as her father is put into prison (for obstructing justice in the Spider-Woman investigation), or her friend Harry Osbourne is struggling with turning into a monster.
Even when possessed by a symbiote – every Spider-Person’s lowest point – Gwen reads visually fluid, keeping that interior musicality.
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This clean reading of the Spider narrative means that she stands tall even when, during a crossover with Miles’ Spider-Man, she is whisked away from her extensive troubles to help him at one of his dramatic low points.
Whenever a superhero like Captain America tells Peter that he’s ‘the best of us’ (or Jean or Emma read his mind and realize the extent of his sacrifice and kiss him on the cheek), the reader understands his innate goodness through their words and actions more than 60 years of his own; we read Gwen’s goodness in every panel of Weapon of Choice, even when – perhaps especially when – she struggles to prove that goodness to herself.
Spider-Gwen might suffer a few sour notes but it makes up for those narrative stumbles with sheer energy and sweetness. Weapon of Choice, alongside the first Epic Collection Edge of Spider-Verse, illustrates how a truly unique style can be applied to even the most familiar of stories.
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