Ghost-Spider Is Bigger Than Ever, But We've Gotta Stop Calling Her Spider-Gwen
Who is "Ghost-Spider," you ask? It's her. The hottest Spider-hero right now, with the possible exception of "Spider-Verse" main character Miles Morales (Shameik Moore). In a movie series full of breakout characters, the Earth-65 Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) stands head and shoulders above her peers. In "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," she proves once and for all that she rocks the best possible versions of all classic Spidey traits and still finds a way to give them her own, fresh spin. Wisecracking? She can do it with the best of them. Amazing costume? One of the greatest and most distinctive in the entire Spider-Verse, no less. Tragic backstory? You bet, to the point that the person she lost in her universe is none other than Peter Parker. Oh, and she can even play the drums.
Basically, Gwen is awesome, and it's time we start using her equally awesome codename, Ghost-Spider.
Yes, the movies call her Spider-Woman, which is fine, but the comics Gwen has been calling herself Ghost-Spider for years now. The real problem, though, is fandom's overwhelming insistance on referring to her by the name "Spider-Gwen," and it's something we've got to stop doing. Please. Seriously. Yes, we know that calling her Spider-Gwen is ... well, a whole thing. However, that's not what she calls herself in-universe: it's just something fans and Marvel use as a shorthand for the character on this side of the Fourth Wall.
Spider-Gwen is never going to be her actual codename, for obvious reasons (it's as dumb as if we had "Spider-Peter" or "Spider-Miles" or "Iron Tony"), and when you also consider what a better character Ghost-Spider is than the original Gwen Stacy, it becomes clear that it's time to toss this overused nickname into the garbage can.
Yes, Ghost-Spider is the official name (though it took the comics some time to get there)
As Wolverine's goofy debut costume (complete with the whisker outlines) in 1974's "Incredible Hulk" #180 will readily prove, some superheroes have to go through a few changes before getting things right. Gwen is no exception. While she arrived as a visually complete package, Marvel has taken a good long while to figure out the character's superhero identity.
When Gwen debuted in 2014, her official superhero name was Spider-Woman, just like in the "Spider-Verse" movies. However, there are lots of Spider-Women out there, and there had to be a way to set her apart from Jessica Drew, Julia Carpenter, Mattie Franklin, and the rest of the gang. The "Spider-Gwen" nickname proved so popular that in 2015, it became the title of her solo comic book series. And with a title like that, it doesn't really matter what the character is actually called, because of course the nickname is going to stick.
As such, fans aren't technically wrong to call the character Spider-Gwen, at least as long as Marvel continues to use this nickname on the cover of her own comics, as is currently happening with "Spider-Gwen: Shadow Clones." Whether said nickname is justified, though, is an entirely different matter. Gwen is one of the edgier and more conflicted Spider-heroes out there, so referring to her with a cutesy made-up name instead of her own preferred codename is just plain weird, especially since we don't do that with other prominent superheroes. Calling her Spider-Gwen instead of Ghost-Spider minimizes her importance.
The comics leaning harder into the name Ghost-Spider hopefully signifies that they're trying to phase out "Spider-Gwen," but as long as fandom continues using that name, Marvel is unlikely to drop it entirely.
Ghost-Spider is so much better than the boring original Gwen Stacy
Another reason the name Spider-Gwen shouldn't be used anymore is simple: The less this Gwen Stacy reminds people of the original one, the better.
When you lower the rose-colored glasses, there's a reason the fiery, independent Mary Jane Watson so quickly replaced Gwen as Peter Parker's ultimate love interest in the comics, and it has nothing to do with the Green Goblin. "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" is one of the most pivotal Marvel story arcs out there, but as a character, the original Gwen is pretty boring. She's a blank romantic interest with a Daisy Duck-style penchant for juggling suitors, created at a stage of Spider-Man history where most supporting characters were just beginning to evolve beyond one-dimensional archetypes.
Ghost-Spider, on the other hand, has consistency and personality to spare. She's one of the most fully-realized new Marvel characters in ages, and her struggle with her powers and self-imposed responsibilities is arguably even more relatable than most other Spider-Man, thanks to the extra scoop of hurt and confusion that lies beyond her cool veneer, as well as the fact that she's not a tech genius like Peter or Miles, nor a particularly trained fighter. Whereas the classic 616 Gwen is forever immortalized as a victim, Ghost-Spider is very much the hero of her own story.
In other words, it's high time to let the old Gwen Stacy go and embrace the Ghost-Spider version, who's not defined by the historical ballast of Gwen Staciness and has her wholly own thing going on. As part of that process, we'll need to drop the whole Spider-Gwen name and allow her to exist as a superhero in her own right, instead of just seeming like a quirky alternate version.
Let's leave the Gwen codename to another Gwen-themed superhero, and let Ghost-Spider be her own thing
There's one more reason to abandon the Spider-Gwen name and embrace Ghost-Spider: There's another Gwen out there who is not a variant of Gwen Stacy, and whose Gwen-themed codename actually makes sense.
Gwendolyn Poole, aka Gwenpool, started out as a Deadpool-themed Spider-Gwen homage, but fans loved the variant cover concept so much that she soon became a fully-realized Marvel Comics character. In the comics, Gwenpool is a real-world person who gets sucked into the Marvel comic book universe and decides to become a costumed adventurer, using her real-person powers to break, distort, and manipulate the medium in various outrageous ways that'd make She-Hulk turn an even brighter shade of green with envy. Amusingly, and despite her obvious connection with Deadpool, her in-universe superhero name isn't a Spider-Gwen-style play on an existing codename — she's just a person named Gwendolyn Poole, and "Gwenpool" is just how the person who made her uniform read her name. She decided to roll with it.
With Deadpool's (Ryan Reynolds) impeding arrival in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's probably only a matter of time before Gwenpool joins him. Meanwhile, considering how huge the "Spider-Verse" movies have made Ghost-Spider, it stands to reason that the MCU will want to eventually introduce a live-action version as well — perhaps whenever the MCU also inevitably brings in Miles Morales.
Despite their origins, Ghost-Spider and Gwenpool are very much two separate characters, and it'd sure be nice if we could clearly separate them ahead of their live-action debuts, wouldn't it?