Or, Gwen Should Smooch Her MJ (real!)

For later reference if the date of the post doesn’t make it immediately clear enough, I’m writing right after Giant Size Spider-Gwen #1 (2024) released but before Spider-Gwen: Smash #4 has released. Spoilers for the first three issues of Smash and for Giant Size if that’s something you care about

The actual introduction to this blog post

Okay so. I’m a lesbiab. lesbean. Gay. I like seeing people like me in media and that extends from both broody moody women to The Queers™️, and in case you missed it, I am a massive Spider-Gwen fan because she just exudes the queer gal vibes yknow. In the latest mini-series (plus Giant Size), they’ve turned up the will-they-won’t-they of GwenMJ to 11, picking back up the implications that underlay the Gwen and MJ relationship in Earth-65 from all the way back in Gwen’s first solo run. I have Thoughts on that.

The Text

So just like. Look at the second-last page of Giant Size Spider-Gwen #1 (2024). No notes, big gay. You can skip to the next section if you don’t want to read me gushing about this relationship.

For those who haven’t skipped to the next section, here, enjoy some gushing: Okay so like it’s actually such a fun relationship dynamic to have like, Gwen and MJ but with Carnage in the middle of it and the kinda spikey relationship between them is so delicious. Like cmon, you can enjoy depictions of relationships that aren’t like your own in media, the enemies to lovers thing is COOL okay. Also it’s like, we can just not have muh brand synergy and have all depictions of a character be 100% carbon copies. Ghostflower or whatever it’s called can be ghostflower in the movies, let the gay girlies eat good with the comics, they already tried Gwen and Miles in the comics before and the movies do it a billion times better, let the gays have the comics and the heteros can have the movies. To be fair I do still really love the movies but I digress. GwenMJ gang gang, love my gay punk rocker girlies and they are just like me fr fr

Reactions

So I wouldn’t make a blogpost just to gush about gay women¹, there’s obviously Something I wanted to write about that’s more substantial. That Something would be the reactions I’ve seen online to this relationship. I’m going to hypothesise about why the reaction is how it is, and tie it into broader trends to make this worthwhile.. maybe..

So first we need to actually explain what exactly the reaction was to this comic. So normally I like to browse reddit and tumblr for fandom stuff for spider-gwen in particular – reddit because they actually remember the comics exist, the tumblr fandom does not; buuut the tumblr fandom makes some GwenMJ fanart so you win some you lose some. The difference in response is… Fascinating. Tumblr (what few of them do remember Spider-Gwen comics exist) reacted by making a bingo card about their relationship, posting the panel and being like “god why are they putting her on earth-616 again instead of Gay Things”, and… not much else – I did say they don’t remember the comics exist over there. Meanwhile on Reddit. Yes it’s as bad as you’d expect. Funny how a subreddit that needed to be reminded that trans people are human beings who want to see themselves in their favourite characters too would not be happy with a really fun queer relationship featuring said favourite character. There are also people who are disappointed that Melissa Flores couldn’t actually make the girlies kiss but they’re a minority compared to the people who just Don’t Understand Why People Like This Pairing.

I wonder why this could be²… If it could have anything to do with people on reddit being mostly dudes who like Gwen because reasons rather than people who see themselves in her character…

Marvel, can you don’t

Now don’t get me wrong, nothing wrong with sexuality Existing, and me liking Gwen because she is literally me fr fr doesn’t make me More Pure or something. But it irks me when people who like a character in that way get priority yet again, given that Marvel in their infinite wisdom keeps putting Gwen into 616 time and again for no good reason, ripping her away from her girl. On the one hand they let Gwenpool, a minor character who was basically a meme who got her own comic run, be fruity openly but then have a great chance to commit to the bit by making Gwen bi canonically and they just Don’t because I guess they’re scared the audience who likes Gwen based on the spider-verse films wouldn’t want that? like hello? it’s me i’m audience who came from ATSV in particular, who appreciates that Gwen and Miles in the movies is a cute relationship but wants my gay shit in the comics where they have written in way more chemistry between Gwen and MJ!! If they actually Do A Brand Synergy and make ghostflower a thing in the comics too in some convoluted way just to sell comics to the heteros I will be so disappointed but unsurprised.

But yeah, just let her be queer, it’s okay for her to be different to the movie version. Stop prioritising profits from straight people. Who do you think has the money to buy some variant cover of Spider-Gwen of all things? The straight people who will just buy the Miles comic with a ghostflower variant cover or the queer fans who want to see themselves in mainstream media, who helped drive the marketing of ATSV through that hinting at Gwen being trans?

Damn, maybe I should be writing the GwenMJ fic that Marvel will never give me…