Unbelievable Gwenpool #9 (2017)
by Christopher Hastings & Gurihiru
cover by David López
While Doom himself doesn’t meet Marvel’s latest fourth-wall-breaking character yet, this will be important later.
Since Gwenpool is probably too recent to eventually show up in the Hero Origins retrospective, I have to mention that she has one of the most unusual origins ever.
In 2015, Marvel did a bunch of alternate covers featuring Gwen Stacy… and Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars had some fun with a joke character.
She wasn’t meant to be an actual character, but the same year she showed up anyway on Howard The Duck. All we know about her at this point is that, like Deadpool, she knows she’s in a comic book…
…and that she’s NOT an alternate version of Gwen Stacy.
After popping up in the Marvel Universe, the woman who made her costume mistook her real name of Gwen Poole for the codename Gwenpool.
That was just the regular Howard The Duck insanity. But in 2016 she got her own series that greatly expanded her: she’s a teenager from the real world, which is why she knows comics lore.
She starts of the series deciding that she’s not just going to copy Deadpool (she doesn’t even like HIS comics), and decides to become a hero.
After this series Gwenpool will guest-star in other books, where to me she’s mostly a miss.
But in THIS series she’s a great character, as the she gets to explore that while this is just a comic book… it’s not all fun and games and the characters she meets still matter.
Notably for the issue we’ll look at today, at the beginning of the series she dismissed M.O.D.O.K. for being ridiculous…
…only for him to brutally murder her friend the next panel.
Which highlights what differentiates her from Deadpool. While he would probably laugh it off, for Gwenpool it’s the beginning of a character arc where she becomes a more complex person.
Don’t feel bad for her friend. He comes back as a ghost.
I really recommend this series, it’s surprisingly good: if you think Gwenpool is a waste of a character, it might change your mind.
I did and it changed mine!
But we’re here for the Doctor Doom connection. Which technically begins in issue 8, when Gwenpool and her ghost friend meet the guy who previously hired M.O.D.O.K. to stop an alien invasion by humanoid squids (don’t ask).
And when a fight ensues…
We’re FINALLY at issue 9, which begins with the creation of a new Doombot.
This is a flashback dating to when Doctor Doom was in the past, trying another scheme similar to his second Squirrel Girl fight… and being defeated again by Old Squirrel Girl.
During the fight, the new Doombot escapes and befriends a regular guy.
Over the years, his new friend helps him get a humanoid appearance and even switch off his doominess.
And that is the origin of Vincent, who will later go by Vincent Doonan.
Also the friend who reprogrammed him turned out to be Spider-Man villain The Tinkerer.
Moving back to the present, Gwenpool is a bit confused by this origin.
To be fair, she’s a bit occupied to pay too much attention.
He’s even resistant to a ghost hacking his programming, because of course he is.
During the battle, a cop tries to arrest Gwenpool for the various crimes she’s committed in the series. And in one of the best moments of the series, Gwenpool has a novel solution to make sure they will meet again: give her a name!
At least Gwen and her friend manage to escape and retreat to the M.O.D.O.K. base they’re squatting at, but that’s the extent of the good news.
At least until she learns that she now has access to M.O.D.O.K’s henchmen.
Unbelievable Gwenpool #10 (2017)
by Christopher Hastings & Gurihiru
cover by Stacey Lee
So they’re Gwenpool henchmen now. It’s a living.
The issue begins with Gwenpool hijacking a M.O.D.O.K. ship to fight the alien squid people from earlier in the series.
Will Gwenpool be able to save the day?
Maybe we should just let Vincent handle this.
The aliens have M.O.D.O.K’s earlier henchmen hostage; including Batroc, who had become something of a mentor to Gwenpool.
Gwenpool makes him change his mind by threatening to kill the “extras” that he cares for.This is an interesting aspect of Gwenpool: she treats as people only characters with established names and personality, but to her all minor characters are still entirely fictional.
Which adds a unique layer to how other people in-universe see her.
This is when the henchmen become useful. Well, as useful as they’ll ever be.
Still, Gwenpool is improvising everything and her luck eventually runs out.
Told you we should have let Vincent handle everything: he dispatches the aliens with ease.
He would still like to keep his privacy…
…but you know it won’t last.
In the end, Gwenpool’s circle of friends disband. They WERE mercenaries after all.
Which is heartbreaking for Gwenpool because, by this point, these were people to her and no longer fictional characters.
We will eventually get back to both Vincent and Gwenpool because later in the series they will both meet Doom in person.
And spoiler alert: it will include one of the most badass Doctor Doom appearances ever.
Doom significance: 0/10
Unfortunately Vincent will only be significant in THIS series.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
Fourth wall breaks aside, it’s still silly enough.
Does it stand the test of time? Gwen / Pool
I’m hesitant to give this one a proper score, since this is a mostly comedic series and I’ve mostly talked about the Doom-adjacent stuff.
A lot of your enjoyment of the series will depend on whether you like Gwenpool’s style of humor.
Personally, I thought the character was a terrible idea… until I read this series.
Deadpool had already been overused, as had the Gwen Stacy alternate versions: I didn’t even know Gwenpool wasn’t an alternate version of either of these characters!
In this series she gets to explore a different aspect of having a character being aware they’re in a comic book, thanks to her origin as coming from the real world.
Deadpool and She-Hulk may KNOW they’re in a comic, but they’re still supposed to be comic characters themselves, so they end up either unable to fully detach themselves from the in-universe story OR they treat everything as a big joke.
Gwenpool finds a sweet spot in the middle: she comes across as a hyperactive teenager that treats the world she’s in like a big game, until she grows to care for characters that become real people to her… but she doesn’t quite get to treating everything seriously, or everything jokingly, which creates a very unique balance that I find fascinating.
Outside of this series she ends up into one of the two extremes, which leads me to believe she’s best suited for doing her own thing.
Supervillains created by Dr. Doom: 23
Vincent is ultimately not a bad guy, but he DOES employ multiple supervillains so I’d say he counts.
Number of superheroes who have fought Dr. Doom: 136
By my rules, characters are added if they fight Doom in person OR one of his creations… so because of Vincent, Gwenpool gets added.
Times Doom has saved the world: 23
If I count Doom’s robots towards the number of heroes he’s fought, I should also consider when one of them seves the planet.
Crazy tech
Doctor Doom’s half-finished robot is able to learn magic, trick M.O.D.O.K. and almost single-handedly stop an alien invasion.
You have no idea how happy I am to have covered Gwenpool the day after a Sgt Rock retrospective.
Talk about the versatily of comic books as a medium, because it would be hard to find characters more different from each other!!!