Saturday, January 28, 2023

Saturday Splash Page #57

 
"Eleventh Commandment," in Unbelievable Gwenpool #20, by Christopher Hastings (writer), Gurihiru (artists), Clayton Cowles (letterer)

Gwenpool wasn't the first Marvel costumed character to be presented as a huge fan of superheroes. That feature was part of Kamala Khan's backstory, for one, and there was the "Spectacular Spider-Kid" from the '80s Amazing Spider-Man comics (although he turned angry in the '90s, because of course he did.)

Gwen Poole was, however, the first Marvel character I can think of who fell into the universe from a stand-in for our universe. Where all the heroes only exist in comics, movies, posters and whatnot. Which means, at least at first, Gwen's superpowers consistent of being a fangirl. She knows everyone's names, powers, and abilities. More important, she's genre-savvy enough to know the only way to survive is to make yourself important enough The Powers That Be won't kill you off (or won't let you stay dead.)

So she finds a woman who makes costumes, gets one in pink - because there's a lot of pink fabric available, though not enough for pants - and starts taking gun-for-hire jobs. This is how she's presented in her earliest appearances, in the Zdarsky/Quinones Howard the Duck series. Although viewed from Howard's perspective, Gwen just seems insane. In her own book, we see Gwen treating it as a game, or a vivid dream. These are fictional characters to her, which means none of it is real, so nothing she does really matters. It's OK to shoot nameless henchmen, or steal a terrible virus for AIM.

What Chris Hastings does is play up the difference between Gwen's expectations and the reality of them. Gwen thinks she's the star, so when MODOK appears, insisting she work for him, Gwen laughs it off. It's MODOK, she's not scared of him. So he disintegrates her new hacker friend Cecil. She's not able to simply instantly learn combat skills. The heroes, like Miles Morales Spider-Man, don't find her willingness to kill people charming. The friends she makes working for MODOK, most of whom are new characters, plus Batroc, get mad when she tries to do the right thing and costs them their jobs.

The final six months of so of the book are Gwen struggling with how to continue existing. Even as she starts to learn how to manipulate being in comics, by stepping outside the panels or dumping villains into the gutters, she may be running out of time. And if the choice is between becoming a villain and staying important, or trying to stick it out as a hero and fading to obscurity, what's she gonna pick?

Hastings fills the book with a lot of humor, whether it's Gwen drawing dollar signs on her eyepieces when she sees how much a job pays, or how other characters react to her unusual behavior. But you also have Gwen's desperate struggles to make herself more relevant by beating Dr. Doom, or trying to help Cecil get some sort of a physical body. Batroc gets written as a honorable rogue who grudgingly acts as a mentor to this crazy girl and the rest of her cast.

The Gurihiru art team does make Gwen look a little young for someone meant to be at least out of high school, if not in her early 20s, but their style is great for the humor parts and the violence parts. Especially when Gwen is still operating under the thought that nothing really matters. It's (mostly) bloodless violence, nobody's getting hurt! Except that guy that HYDRA guy she pushed in the furnace. But whatever, he didn't have a name, and he works for HYDRA!

The book ended in early 2018. In 2019, Gwenpool got a mini-series about trying to remain relevant, which ended with her being retconned into a mutant and shipped to Krakoa, where nobody ever does anything with her. Beats being brutally murdered on-panel (or off-panel) by some hack going for a cheap pop, I guess.

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