#616 Electro | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rappaccini · 2 months

Text

giant-size spider-gwen thoughts

ok so the release dates for this and smash 4 are fucked. tbh i'm kinda ok with that because at least we know it'll end with gwen making up with the janes, and em won't be responsible for kicking gwen out of her own world, which was my fear.

it might end on a cliffhanger too, given how giant-size opens with em gooping out on gwen in the middle of soundcheck.

also this isn't even a giant-size. it's just a fifth issue of smash with an old reprint of a latour run comic added to puff it up. i would've easily read another 25 pages of this and it doesn't even have a real ending, so that sucks.

so... how does smash end?

em's symbiote stays awake and remains a problem gwen has to continuously beat down.

but em seems to have gotten some amount of control over it because it's capable of working with gwen temporarily

the girls either fix their shit or it's unresolved but they're stable enough that gwen stays in the band

gwen isn't talking about 'not belonging on earth-65' anymore so hopefully she finds it in smash 4

em and glory are still a couple.

em still loves gwen. but i can't tell if she's still IN love with her, or if they agreed to stay friends with a queer vibe.

gwen doesn't seem to have confessed any feelings to em, so i guess there's no I Loved You All Along revelation. so gwenjay's still onesided but canon.

natasha was a real ally to gwen and not a twist villain.

is it orlando then? him being the money behind banner's experiments and wanting to possess em jay seems to imply that he was.

does mortis show up? gwen seems underwhelmed when they meet so have they met before? since she's dazzler's sister maybe she's the one who sicced the hulk on alison.

anyway. we know things work out, sort of. ok. one more issue of good before we get into the run we have to kill.

the actual issue

glory's hair looks amazing. best outfit too. love that.

slightly funny that glory and betty are like 'well. this is our life now' about em turning into a ragemonster live on tv.

i appreciate that glory gets a moment to assist gwen in the fight.

and that glory and em are clearly still being drawn like a couple, even if they can't say it or kiss.

and that when em bitches out on glory it's acknowledged that she's in the wrong and glory's only trying to help her. glory loves her! glory's good for her! somehow a writer both acknowledges em's feelings for gwen and that SHE ALREADY HAS A GIRLFRIEND.

love that nat's an ally of gwen's. gwen needs more super-friends on her world. kinda weird that she doesn't really have any. samantha wilson was the last one she had and they haven't spoken since gwen was in jail, jan van dyne dipped right after giving gwen her suit, and harry hasn't helped her in a fight since the predators arc.

betty's personality's back! i missed her pervy jokes. it is so. so. nice that someone writing for gwen remembered the janes' personalities. glory's the heart, betty's the comic relief, em's the leader, gwen's the lancer. i missed this. i hate that it's about to go away For Good.

so orlando octavius is the villain here. initially i had my reservations.

part of the appeal of gwen's world is the usual spider-man villains get such great reimaginings (shadow clones completely failed to understand this-- gwen's clones are spliced with the sinister six... of earth 616? fuuuuck off). her biggest villains are the heroes of other worlds (silk and jesse drew, daredevil, punisher, the storms, hulk, peter parker), the typical iconic spidervillains are either nonentities (electro's just a shady dude living his life selling drugs to teens in alleys, norman hasn't goblined at all, connors is just a redpilled science teacher), fully redeemed (harry, venom) or villains of the week, like kraven... and doc ock

gwen's ock is a pathetic, goofy little scientist minion of cindy's who has an organic octopus instead of mechanical arms. he was fun because he was unique!

so learning we were getting a second ock with more staying power didn't exactly have me thrilled... but orlando's great.

LOVE his design. the duster with the golden tentacle design? the nerdy--ass little initials on his glasses? love it. he's hot, he's slimy, he's rich, and he's a little bit of a bitch. AND he's a nepo baby.

interested in the implication that doc ock is dead. technically this still fixes the keep-gwen's-villains-unique problem. she can never fight doc ock again because he's dead. but she can fight a different octopus villain.

i appreciate that his tentacles, while mechanical, are much more fluid and organic-looking than the typical raimi ripoff look. i still like the organic ones better, but this is fine.

very interested in what orlando and otto's domestic life was like. how'd otto adopt him. what's the story there. did he kill his dad.

melissa flores even remembered that gwen-65's from forest hills. amazing. actual continuity.

so much queer shit here. the closet jokes keep coming. this author knows what's up with gwen.

i'm getting amanda conner era harley quinn vibes from the take on gwenjay here. we all know they're queer, but somehow it's still being dangled just out of reach.

very funny that gwen's the straight man of the gwenom-carnage duo when she's usually the one punching bricks. nice benchmark of her growth.

and like with nat, it's great that gwen's getting another superperson to team up with. even if she's trying to kill her half the time.

on that note: i do think if em were a guy, 'him' trying to kill gwen half the time wouldn't be played for laughs. i like that we're not switching to gwenjay being all flowers and sunshine like the shippers want, but there is something toxic about their relationship that needs to be acknowledged.

the entire gwen-mjarnage teamup has a bickering gfs vibe, right down to "do you wanna take a cab" and the swinging scenes are very shippy

so carnage and em are referred to by gwen as separate entities... but that's not how e65 symbiotes work. idk if that's unique to gwenom, if the writer forgot, or if gwen's in denial about some shit related to em jay

mortis is the second villain here. cool design. love the flower motif. wonder if she's introduced in smash 4.

mysterio's back! i was wondering why the backup was the halloween issue! nice to see he was remembered. still not really sure WHY he's working with orlando and mortis.

idk if carnage is literally a separate consciousness or if the writer forgot that em was also at the haunted house.

the Horrors (tm): so clearly they're both still afraid of gwenom and carnage... or are they afraid of each other's symbiote?

regardless god i miss gwenom. love her toothy hood.

... "being left in a closet" being a horror lurking inside gwen and/or em's minds. hm.

... about that ending.

the ending was very abrupt. like, we just Stop in the middle of the action without defeating any of the villains and suddenly em jay's putting herself on a bus.

so we really are gonna confirm gwenjay's canon... right before getting rid of em jay for the forseeable future. okay. i see. this really is the new 52 harley quinn era of spider-gwen.

i like that em acknowledges that she needs to get a grip on her symbiote. she does. overall flores has done great with both acknowledging that em has feelings for gwen and not excusing any of the shitty behavior she's flung at her. no, it's not ok for em to keep ditching glory for gwen. no, it's not okay for carnage to try to kill gwen half the time and for them to just pretend like it's fine.

em jay taking the initiative to figure her shit out on her own is fantastic. it actually fixes one of the biggest problems with gwenjay as a ship (not that it'll stop the gwiles shippers from insisting that em jay is Too Toxic For Her unlike their saint miles)... assuming she actually changes for the better, and ever shows up again.

not exactly thrilled that it seems like nat's the magical plot convenience button. where'd the storm siblings go? nat got rid of them. gwen's wanted for a crime she didn't commit? nat cleared her name. em jay's an uncontrollable rage monster? nat's going to fix that too. come on. we don't even get to see her do it.

i like that gwen's upset, because they're finally getting along again.

it doesn't seem like gwen about to give her a Confession of Love, so i guess they are genuinely just friends. works fine!

and i truly cannot tell if em jay and gwen got over em's crush on her at the end of smash 4 or if it's still on. because em says "i love you" but as a "friend" .... but dude.

what the fuck is that hug then.

so gwenjay really does seem like it's canon-but-unrequited. which matters less bc ~our ship isn't together~ and more because gwen still isn't confirmed queer. we're closer than we've ever been before but we're still not there. okay. yup. i see.

SHE REALLY DID SLIP THROUGH OUR FUCKING FINGERS HUH

so the cliffhanger clearly sets up the formation of gwen's sinister six... which we know won't happen because gwen's being sent to earth-616 For Good. sigh.

idk what's up with the cliffhanger screen. half the characters there are recognizably from earth-65 (mjarnage, gwen, dazzler, natasha, lila cheney, pixie, samantha, the z-list influencer villain gwen was fighting at the start of smash),

half of them could go either way. i can't tell if the artist just didn't stick with the 65 designs or if they're genuinely meant to be from another dimension, probably 616.

-> is that the earth-616 hulk?

-> is that woman with white hair and a black outfit with a white fur ruff supposed to be felicia hardy? felicia-65 is black.

-> gorilla guy. not sure who that is.

-> sue storm, clearly. but there's no fantastic four on earth-65 so did the artist just get her costume wrong or is that sue from another dimension

-> kraven, clearly, but definitely not the kraven from 65.

-> cindy moon, clearly. but that's not what cindy-65 looks like. that's cindy-616.

-> and... i have no idea who the army guy in the bottom right is, but something's up with his fists.

anyway i'm guessing that they're teasing possible additions to the sinister six that'll never exist now. damn.

.... orlando's getting a whole superhero suicide squad together to kidnap em jay, and gwen's about to leave her all alone to deal with that. uh oh.

also glory and betty are still in that closet.

and em jay left for god knows where without saying goodbye to her girlfriend. mess.

... how's gwen even going to leave for 616? she isn't alienated. she doesn't feel alone anymore. she's more secure in 65 than she's been in years. she has more allies now than she ever had. she wasn't even kicked out by the six. she knows she's needed here. her portal necklace still works so there's no reason why she can't come back.

looking forward....

.... so gwen finally reconnected with her friends and her world... and is about to lose it For Good

gwen finally knows em jay loves her, but it doesn't seem like she reciprocates

em's doing the work to fix her attitude and get control of her powers... but who knows when and if that'll ever come back

orlando's gathering a sinister six team to kidnap em jay... and gwen's about to leave em jay to deal with that all on her own.

.... i guess glory and betty are gonna have to yellowjacket their way through being trapped in that closet because they might literally be there Forever.

at least we know natasha can magically fix all the things keeping gwen from coming home offpage so anytime she wants to come back we can just do that shit with no setup

well. i'm not gonna buy the gwen-in-616 run because i want it to fail so i guess next week will be it for a while.

overall, flores is the best gwen writer since mcguire. she clearly loves this character, her supporting cast and their world, and has actually done the research on them. she even got gwenjay halfway to canon and left the door wide open for gwen to return to 65, which shoots another hole in the 616 For Good book before it even starts-- which is a good thing, because we need that thing to flop.

i'd wish she were the one getting the full run instead of phillips, but if gwen going to 616 is a mandate from editorial, that wouldn't have mattered; she'd have still been forced there. still at least we'd know what we'd be getting.

looking ahead i feel nothing but dread, anger, apathy and disappointment, because they're synergizing the hell out of the spiderverse. gwen's ten-year redesign seems to just be 'slap the atsv suit on her.' gwen's first big villain is going to be 616's kraven... so the exact canon event atsv gwen had that we glimpse in the movie. gwen's going to be stuck with miles, peter and the 616 spiders, and she's a candidate for the spider society event book that's coming. and we all know they're gonna try and force gwiles again if she's there long enough. thanks i hate it.

i have nothing against the creative team of the new run (yet) but i truly hope spider-gwen: the ghost-spider flops, burns, is panned and canned after 8-10 issues, and gwen quietly returns to 65 after that. but then we'll probably just have to do ANOTHER round of 616 synergizing when btsv comes out, and the gwilesification will be even worse then. and maybe even ANOTHER if that spider-women movie ever gets made.

anyway, smash+'giant' size was great except for this ending. and the only reason why this ending is bad is we already know nothing in it matters, so all the new threads feel pointless and bitter because we know we won't get any closure or followup on them. still worth a read, and by far the best of gwen's miniseries since the mcguire run.

and if nothing else, at least smash 4 won't feel like too much of a kick to the teeth when it drops next week.

#spider gwen thoughts #gwenjay #spider gwen salt

3 notes · View notes