Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Character Analysis: Gwenpool

 

Background

A girl from the “real world” who traveled to the Marvel universe to escape her mundane life. She took up the role of a “hero”,  believing it would give her plot armor against the Marvel Universe's constant world ending cataclysms. Her hero name and costume are due to her tailor mistaking her name “Gwen Poole” as a reference to Deadpool.


During her early career Gwen becomes a mercenary, and gets blackmailed into the service of the villain MODOK.


Eventually she overthrows MODOK and takes over his organization, only to run it into the ground shortly after. Requiring the organization to disband.


As the series progresses more of Gwen’s backstory is revealed. She was essentially a jobless NEET who was a burden on her parents before coming to the Marvel universe.


The series reaches its climax when Gwen reunites with her brother Teddy, who came into the Marvel universe with her. Teddy had been secretly aligning himself with a squad of heroes from the near future, who had come back in time with hopes of sending Gwen back to her home reality. The reason being that Gwen would become a dangerous super villain in the future due to her lack of concern for “fiction beings”, desire to stand out amongst Marvel’s catalog and an awakened ability to manipulate reality with her 4th wall breaking powers.


As a result of this time travel adventure Gwen meets her future evil self. Dark Gwen tries to appeal to her younger self by explaining how the universe itself pushed her to become a villain, but Gwen eventually rejects her. Deciding to show mercy towards the Marvel universes characters even if they’re still fictional. This retcons the Dark Gwen out of existence.


The final arc of the comic deals with Gwen coming to terms with the cancellation of her comic. As well as meeting a “good” future version of herself that shows her how to tie up her loose plot threads, as well as how to reflect on the nature of comics as a whole.

Armor

Gwenpool uniform

A Deadpool inspired costume. Lacks pants.


Shield generator

A force field generator.


Skate shoes

Skates built into Gwen’s shoes. Allows for good mobility.

Arsenal

Twin Katanas

Dual katanas used for melee combat. Gwen can also throw them like boomerangs.


Hammers

Large hammers for melee combat.


Knives

Knives for close combat slash attacks.


Throwing stars

Throwing star projectiles.


Multi-Gun

A modified gun that can fire lethal blasts, lasso grappling hooks, or a  foam like material that can immobilize enemies.


Pistols

Normal pistol weapons.


Automatic firearms

Various rifles, submachine guns and assault weapons.


Grenades/Bombs

Handheld explosives and bombs. Gwen also has sticky bombs and bombs shaped like presents.


Smoke bombs

Smoke bombs to grant cover.


Rocket launchers

Various bazookas and rocket launchers.


Magic rocket launcher

A magic rocket launcher created by Amato.


Motorcycle

A motorcycle with a mounted turret.


Misc

Abilities

Note: While Gwen’s powers were first introduced using comic book conventions, spin off material shows that she does not lose access to their powers when placed in other artistic mediums. Her powers simply adapt themselves to fit whatever medium she happens to be inhabiting. 


Supernatural luck

Gwen has canonical plot armor. The universe itself will conspire to keep her safe in dangerous situations, as long as she’s considered the main character. This is later elaborated on as Gwen subconsciously altering probability. Sometimes reducing opponents to clumsy stormtroopers regardless of actual strength or skill.


Comic knowledge

Gwen has an encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel comics and is implied to have knowledge of other comic lines like DC. This includes storylines, characters, authors and general writing conventions.


Gaps

Gwen may have gaps in knowledge. She has not read Deadpool comics for example. She also tends to be far less knowledgeable on subjects after her arrival into the Marvel universe(Post-Secret wars).


Post-introduction knowledge

Gwen can get knowledge on post Secret Wars events via Gutter Space. As she’s referenced comics after her arrival in Marvel.


Eternal youth

Gwen follows the rules of “sliding time scale” for comics. As such she does not age under normal circumstances from a real world perspective.


Telekeneisis

Gwen can move objects with a mild form of Telekinesis.


4th wall awareness

Observation

Gwen can see word and thought balloons of other characters, allowing her to read their minds. She’s also cognizant of artstyle changes and editors pages in her own comic.


Interaction

Gwen can interact with comic aesthetics like tangible objects. This includes grabbing title cards, word balloons, or destroying sound effects to silence them. She is aware if she has a narrator and can speak to or acknowledge them.


Ripple proof memory

Gwenpool is able to remember and remain cognizant of retcons to her own history or the marvel universe as a whole. Even magic that changes 616’s entire history or higher beings like Galactus, does not affect her due to not being a denizen of the comic universe in the first place.


Reality warping

After gaining awareness of the meta nature of comics, Gwen gained the ability to alter reality with her mind or by physically manipulating her own medium. 


Conjuration

Gwen can conjure items by thinking about them as thought bubbles or drawing them into the comic with pencils/pens.


Space/time holes

Gwen can tear apart the paper her comic is made of, creating holes in reality itself.


Teleportation

Gwen can teleport herself or others by imagining herself in different locations with thought bubbles. She can even use the thought bubbles of others to teleport to their location.


Size shifting

Gwen can abuse perspective and establishing shots to make herself giant.


Paper Memories

“Paper” copies of marvel characters. Gwen has only made one by accident. They have the powers and abilities of the original, but are much weaker endurance wise. They also act on their original personality rather than Gwen’s commands.


Flashback/Cosmic retcons

An ability to retcon reality by having flashbacks to events that did not happen and retroactively making them real. This includes altering characters' memories, setting up preemptive traps, or Gwen changing her own history in the Marvel universe.


Nullification

Gwen can create nullification devices that can nullify the powers of superheroes.


Gutter Space

Gutter Space is an alternate dimension that exists outside of Marvel comics. Gwen can enter it via holes in space/time or by crossing over the “border” of her comics into white space. Gutter Space is not magical in nature. It normally cannot be accessed by those without great dimensional abilities, though Gwen can summon other 4th wall breakers into it or push normal people into it physically.


Clairvoyance

Gwen can see events in history, both past and future, from Gutter Space.


Time/space Travel

By traveling to different “pages” shown in Gutter Space Gwen can travel both forward and backwards in time.


Dimensional/Cross comic travel

Gwenpool can travel to any comics or locations shown throughout Marvel’s history via Gutter Space. 


Dodging 

Gwen can duck her body parts around corners in reality to dodge attacks.


Existence erasure

Gutter Space can be used to erase opponents from existence, via throwing them into its void.


Clones/Gwen Hive

Gwen can grab alternate versions of herself across space/time to back herself up in fights.


Internet access

Gwenpool can access the real world internet from Gutter Space. 


Item stealing

Gwen can grab objects from across her own history or Marvel Comics as a whole. This includes things like Cap’s shield, Mjolnir, Web Shooters, etc. Conceivable anything she can locate, she can grab.


Time manipulation

Time stop

Gwen can stop time by reverting the comic world to grayscale.


Time compaction

Gwen can speed up the flow of time by “flash forwarding” through multiple events quickly.


Time looping

Gwen can create infinite time loops of events in history.


Time segment removal

Gwen can physically remove segments in the timeline by removing their “pages” from reality.


Acasality

Because of Gutter Space, Gwen does not need to interact with the time in a way that follows conventional causality. She can save herself using bootstrap paradoxes or experience “effects” in a timeline before the “cause” happened. If past versions of her die they also may not affect the present Gwen or other versions of her.

Stats

Strength


Speed


Endurance


Scaling

Basic physical stats

Miles Morales


Via powers or Prep

Gonna put an * here. Most of Gwen’s high end accomplishments were done with some form of prep and you could contest how consistent she is with high ends. Despite that, I’m gonna treat them all as straightforward. For the sake of thoroughness.


Doom


Savage Hulk & Mojlnir


Dormonu & Magneto


Mephisto


Franklin


Dr. Strange


Scarlet Witch

Experience

Weaknesses

The ultimate stop gap on Gwen’s powers is what editorial will let her get away with. Her plot armor may fail against more popular characters and the author can even undo her actions if they go too far against cannon.


Editorial may also deny Gwen her powers in books or storylines where it can break the plot.


Gutter Space is not “impossible” for others to enter or exit. Those extremely skilled with dimensional travel like Doom can do it. Gwen also can’t go to locations that have never been shown on panel before or follow characters who don’t exist as fictional characters.
Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. DarrylAugust 21, 2024 at 1:13 PM

    This was such a cool blog on a very interesting character.

    ReplyDelete
  2. OswaldAugust 21, 2024 at 1:44 PM

    Gwenpool vs haruko is still not a good idea and there are better options

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)