In a shock change toSpider-Manlore, Marvel has brought back a character who died back in 1970 - one who fans never expected to see again. Most of the time in superhero comics, no significant death lasts long before the character is resurrected. However, this passing became so key to Peter Parker’s backstory thatfans thought it would never be reversed.
Fans will be waiting for Peter Parker to encounter the character, given his lasting guilt over their death.
In today’sSpider-Gwen: The Ghost Spider #15, Gwen ends the saga of having a reality-altering Cosmic Cube inside her. Gwen does her best to set reality right after her experiences with King Loki, having the villain locked up by the TVA and altering Earth-616 to give herself a permanent place in mainstream Marvel reality (including anawesome new black costume.)
The permanent changes to reality give Gwen a new status quo, removing her former symbiote costume and bringing back her original spider-powers. Additionally,an important character comes back to life in Earth-616 - Gwen’s father, Captain Stacy.
With the declaration that Spider-Gwen is “here to stay” as an Earth-616 hero, it’s clear Marvel intends these new changes as a permanent status quo shift.
Captain George Stacy Returns to Earth-616
New Changes to Spider-Gwen Bring Back Her Police Captain Father
When Gwen wakes up in Earth-616, she walks into the kitchen and is greeted by her father, who sheused the Cosmic Cube to shift over to Earth-616from her native reality. The originalCaptain Stacy was killedin 1970’sAmazing Spider-Man #90, slain while rescuing a child from falling debris caused by Doctor Octopus.
Captain Stacy’s death was a foundational failure for Spidey, to the extent that ‘the death of a police captain’ was represented as an essential ‘canon event’ suffered by all Spider-Heroes in 2023’sSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. It also acted as a precursor to the death of his daughter Gwen Stacy - the most significant failure of Spider-Man’s career outside Uncle Ben. While Captain Stacy was reintroduced as a clone during 2016’sThe Clone Conspiracy, it was a brief appearance quickly followed by the character disintegrating.
Now, however,it’s clear that Captain Stacy is back to stay, withGwen’s manipulation of realityseemingly not just bringing him to Earth-616, but giving him a history on this world that leaves him as a police captain in New York City. Fans will be waiting for Peter Parker to encounter the character, given his lasting guilt over Gwen and George’s deaths. It was one thing to have an alternate Gwen Stacy out there in the multiverse, but now Spider-Man’s home reality is haunted by two of the people whose deaths changed him forever.
At the same time,Spider-Gwenjust gave a classic character a second chance to make an impact on the Marvel Universe, making this a truly fascinating change toSpider-Manlore that fans will be eager to see develop in the near future.
