Remember earlier this year when Marvel made a big deal out of Gwen Stacy (the real, original one) coming back from the dead? It was going to happen in a new, "Gwenpool," mini-series where Gwen Poole (she's kind of like Deadpool but even more prone to meta-antics) would confront a newly alive and suddenly evil Gwen Stacy. Well, after all the hubbub that caused online the fourth issue this week revealed that the Gwen Stacy we've been watching get up to no good is a clone...of a clone. Yes, really.
Gwen Poole was killed by Gwen Stacy earlier in the series but has managed to exist as a spirit, possessing folks. She goes into the mind of Gwen Stacy and we see how a different Stacy clone from a previous comic event called the, "Clone Conspiracy," (Poole knows she's a comic character and everyone else is too) had a clone made of that clone. Gwen Poole commenting on how absurd this is doesn't excuse how lame this is--pointing out your own lazy writing in a book does not make up for said lazy writing. If you kinda squint, it is a clever commentary on the lack of ideas in comics, but we got to that point through a lot of B.S.
Perhaps if Marvel hadn't promoted this as the, "Real," Gwen Stacy coming back from the dead, it would feel less like a bait-and-switch (which, again, the text itself admits). Saying from the start, "There is a mystery about this Gwen Stacy and her claims," would have made this less annoying than Marvel trumpeting, "The OG Gwen is coming back, guys/gals, totally for real!" I get that Gwen Poole's whole gimmick is being meta about comics and making fun of their tendency to do silly storylines, but this is a serious case of a comic wanting to have its cake and eat it too, as the weird old saying goes. I'm perturbed by this messy plotting and the bizarre way it was promoted, clearly.
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