Backstory Gwendolyn "Gwen" Poole arrived to the Marvel Universe from what she claims to be "
the real world". In her home reality, Gwen had been a comics
superfan as an
escape from her life as an unemployed 18- (or 19-)year-old
high school dropout. Unwilling to be an "extra" in the Marvel world, she went to a tailor for superheroes and requested her own costume. The tailor (named Ronnie) complied, but misread Gwen's application form, and thought Gwen went by the alias of "Gwenpool", leading to a costume similar to
Deadpool's. Upon gaining the ability to manipulate the borders of the
fourth wall from an attempt to return her to reality, allowing her to travel in time, Gwen
retcons the Marvel Universe into believing her to be a
mutant after being given the idea by
Kamala Khan, allowing her to enter the gates of
Krakoa.
Solo series Gwenpool's first appearance as a character was in
Howard the Duck Vol 6 #1 (later republished in
The Unbelievable Gwenpool #0), when she was involved in stealing a humanity-destroying virus from
Black Cat and selling it to
Hydra to get money easily, believing that the
Avengers would simply deal with any consequences. When she revealed to
Howard the Duck the item she had stolen from Hardy and to whom she had sold it, Howard scolded her and informed her that the Avengers were not available to save the Earth from the virus. Guilt stricken, she then set out with Howard to retrieve the virus from a Hydra base. In the 2015
Gwenpool Special, Gwenpool is hired on her first mercenary job, to kill a villain. After completing her mission, Gwenpool attends a Christmas party hosted by
She-Hulk, where she is seen talking to
Ms. Marvel. Following the events of
Gwenpool Holiday Special #1, Gwenpool becomes a full-time mercenary. While trying to deposit the money she made killing Orto, Gwen stops a bank robbery by killing all of the robbers, except for the gang's hacker Cecil, whom she enlists as a reluctant sidekick. After a mission revolving around extraterrestrial arms dealers where she killed
MODOK Superior's best agent and took credit for his work, MODOK tracked Gwenpool down. He murdered Cecil to persuade her to become his henchman and an agent for his Mercenary Organization Dedicated Only to Killing. Gwenpool joins MODOK's elite squad, which also includes the alchemist Mega Tony, the magician Terrible Eye, and
Batroc the Leaper, who gives Gwen basic combat and firearms training. Gwenpool then arranged a meeting between herself and
Doctor Strange, in which she explained to him that she was from a reality where all Marvel characters are fictional characters in comic books. Doctor Strange agreed to transfer her history from Gwen's original world to create a fake background for her in the Marvel Universe, so that she could get her
Social Security number,
driver's license and other essential documents. However, this allows MODOK Superior to discover Gwen's ordinary, powerless background, and he swears to destroy Gwen for lying to him and having no credentials to be a mercenary. Gwen and MODOK then engage in battle, and she defeats him with the hacking assistance of Cecil, who returns as a ghost. Without MODOK, Gwen becomes the new leader of the MODOK organization, but learns she is wanted by the alien arms dealers, who are known as Teuthidans. Assisted by a rogue
Doombot named Vincent Doonan and MODOK's other agents, Gwenpool's team defeats the Teuthidans, but destroys the MODOK base in the process. Without a base or funding, Batroc and the others decide to disband MODOK. During the
Civil War II storyline, Gwenpool appears in
Georgia attempting to earn the bounty on an alien smuggler named Chammy, only to discover that
Rocket Raccoon and
Groot are also after him. The three end up fighting another alien named Reeve, who put the bounty on Chammy. After Reeve defeats them and escapes, Chammy tells Rocket, Groot and Gwen that Reeve is looking for a formula that could temporarily neutralize
Captain Marvel's powers, allowing him to kill her. Gwen refuses to help at first, under the logic that Captain Marvel, being one of the most important "characters" in the current "story", would not be killed off in "a comic about a talking tree and raccoon". However, after coincidentally running into
Kitty Pryde, Gwen falls under the mistaken impression that the comic she is currently in was being written by
Brian Michael Bendis, a "big-deal comic book writer" with a fixation on Pryde who would have the authority to kill Captain Marvel. Convinced that Captain Marvel's life is actually in danger, Gwen accompanies Rocket and Groot to the Triskelion, where they and Chammy help defeat Reeve, and Gwen realizes that the real writer put Kitty Pryde on the street to trick her into helping. After short team-ups with the
Champions,
Blade,
Deadpool, and the duo of
Ghost Rider and
Kate Bishop, Gwen meets her brother Teddy, who drags her back to her world (or a close facsimile). Here Gwen loses her memories of her time in the Marvel Universe and resumes an ordinary life, but she gradually becomes once again aware that she is in a comic book. Gwen then begins experimenting with the fourth wall again and learns to interact with the comic book medium by erasing the walls between panels and even climbing out of the panels, finding herself looking in on her life. Watching the past from outside the borders, Gwen sees the "extra pages" of her
Holiday Special, in which when her brother Teddy was sucked into the Marvel Universe, he ended up working for Orto the snake swordsman. Upon seeing her kill Orto's henchmen, Teddy runs into versions of
Spider-Man, The Terrible Eye, and Vincent Doonan, who claim to be from a future where Gwen becomes a huge threat and destroys their lives. They offer him the chance to "return home" with his sister and fix things. Being concerned for Gwen's mental health, and having had a terrible time, he readily agrees. On finding this out Gwen, with her memory and costume restored, re-enters the borders, confronts Teddy for trying to undo the past and steal her dream of living in a comic, and shows him that their "parents" are not real, and they never even left the comic. Terrible Eye explains that their attempts to send the Pooles to their home dimension created a pocket dimension from their memories that was almost identical to their real one. The three realize that trapping Gwen was what led to her gaining her powers over reality in the first place. When Spider-Man narrates a flashback sequence of the future evil Gwen's misdeeds, the evil Gwen herself travels through the flashback's panels to follow him to the present. Future Gwen battles Spider-Man, Terrible Eye, and Doonan, while each side tries to convince the present Gwen to join their cause. Future Gwen turns out to be weakened by Present Gwen's doubt, but still effortlessly kills Doonan, Terrible Eye, and Spider-Man, horrifying Present Gwen, before explaining to her past self that she became a villain because she was tired of her good deeds being undone as the plot progressed, so she turned to committing evil that could always be undone on characters that "matter", demonstrated when Spider-Man's death is retconned a moment later because he is too important in the story to be killed. However, Present Gwen is disgusted at the idea of hurting the characters she has grown to love, and wipes her future self from existence. This comes at the cost of erasing all of the Evil Gwen stories and thus dramatically shortening Present Gwen's lifespan. Learning that the universe is attempting to make her into a joke villain, Gwen wants to make sure her evil self never comes to be. To catch the attention of the Avengers she visits Latveria in an attempt to face off with Doctor Doom, thinking him to still be evil, as she has not read
Infamous Iron Man. It is revealed that she and Cecil, now in his mystical monster body, share an apartment and since she has given up killing people because it's hacking to pay the bills. A short time later after rescuing Vincent Doonan from Paste Pot Pete and throwing him into the void between comic panels as a demonstration of her new superpower, Gwen asks Vincent where to find the real Doom so she can defeat him and prove herself to be a fameworthy hero. Vincent leads her to Doom, who explains he is reformed, but Gwen still attacks him, releasing an evil version of Doom from within him. After a brief fight in which she realizes she cannot kill the Doom doppelganger, the real Doom comes to her aid and destroys his evil past self. He and Gwen have a chat about why she wanted to kill him, which turns out to be because since destroying her evil destiny self, her comic pages are running out and she believes she is doomed to be cancelled. With only a few pages left, once Doom is gone, she wonders if she has to become a super villain. In the final chapter of
Unbelievable Gwenpool, a Gwen from the future appears to her and explains that while her first comic series has ended, she is already in several other comics, toys, games, fan works, and so on. Even if her current book ends, she and her side characters will return in future stories. Meanwhile, in between these pages, Gwen enlists the help of Stephen Strange and her friends to restore Cecil to human form. She is given a watch that counts down the issue's remaining pages and she uses the rest, one page at a time, to see old friends, team up with new superheroes, rescue her brother from Hell, meet the Marvel Universe counterparts of her parents, and chase off M.O.D.O.K. one more time. Future Gwen then says goodbye to the audience and goes back to where the chapter started to talk to her past self, creating a loop.
West Coast Avengers Vol. 3 After recently having been beaten up and humiliated with tickling by a
clone of
Squirrel Girl, and later attending the funeral of a separate
Skrull duplicate of Squirrel Girl, Gwen visits Kate Bishop in Los Angeles, before being drafted to join the accidentally reformed
West Coast Avengers. She instantly enters into conflict with one of the members,
Quentin Quire, but their clashes and shouting matches eventually evolve into passionate kisses. However, Gwen later informs the camera crew following the team that she started a relationship with Quentin partly because she felt a romantic plot would make her less of a supporting player and thus less likely to die, having also considered establishing a romantic relationship with
America Chavez. Along with the other Avengers, Gwen helps stop giant monsters created by the original M.O.D.O.K., adopts a baby land-shark she names
Jeff, and faces an alliance of villains headed by
Madame Masque. Later, during the
War of the Realms storyline, Gwen and the West Coast Avengers assist
Otto Octavius in protecting
San Francisco, and she uses her perspective as a Marvel Universe outsider and a fellow B-list hero to help him come to terms with his lack of a star role in the event.
Spider-Man/Deadpool Vol. 9 After popping up in the daydream of Wade Wilson while he fights alongside Peter Parker before finding her way "out of this book", Gwen returns to assist the duo in taking on Robbie "The Manipulator" Thompson, a comic-book writer who had written a version of himself into the story as a supervillain, Gwen using her access to the Gutter Space outside reality (no greatly outpowering the duo) to provide the duo with weaponry, and write them through various incarnations of popular events to defeat the Manipulator and render his destruction of reality
non-canon, before confining him to prison.
Gwenpool Strikes Back (2019) In this miniseries, after breaking up with Quentin and using encounters with
Peter Parker,
Wade Wilson, and the
Fantastic Four as
filler for its first two issues, Gwen uses a new ability to create flashbacks to things that had previously never happened (allowing her to manipulate reality) to acquire a fortune from
Tony Stark post-
Civil War II to allow her to pit the heroes of the Marvel Universe against one another in a battle royale. After accidentally setting herself to combat the
Immortal Hulk, Gwen pulls previous versions of herself, as portrayed by different writers and artists, from the Gutter, forming a six-Gwen team known as the
GwenHive. Gwen leaves the GwenHive to enter combat with the Hulk while she dives into
continuity, leading to the death of the Gwen from
Champions. Gwen returns, having stolen
Mjolnir and the severed arm of
Thor Odinson, and uses them to defeat the Hulk. Gwen then finds herself facing
Kamala Khan as the tourney's final battle. Fearing for her continued existence, and upon being accidentally inspired by Khan, Gwen uses the retcon ability to convince Khan and the wider Marvel Universe that she is a
mutant, hoping that as a "mutant" resident of Krakoa she will remain "in continuity"; upon arriving, she encounters
James "Logan" Howlett and Quentin. Gwen later avoids participating in a
Fortnite tie-in while drinking with
Kwannon,
Mystique,
Storm and
Domino. After being hired by
A.I.M. Scientist Supreme Monica Rappaccini to kill MODOK (being accredited for having briefly killed him when she first launched him into space), Gwen assumes that she has been given a new ongoing
Gwenpool series and happily kills MODOK, only to realize with a sigh (upon viewing his projected memories of a family) that he is being humanised, and she is merely a guest star in his book—the villain of his story. Entering the Gutter, Gwen proceeds to rearrange the comic's pages and retcon MODOK's death to having been merely knocked out by an
EMP. Gwen helps MODOK discover his family's home from his memories, and MODOK grants Gwen his respect. Gwen is later seen wearing cosplay for a
fan convention, and is also seen in
Los Angeles celebrating the repeal of
Kamala's Law with
Robbie Reyes and the West Coast Avengers, and leaves a
mug with her face on it to Kate as a parting gift.
''It's Jeff!'' (2022–present) In 2022, after being an
unseen character in the 2021 first season of ''
It's Jeff!'', Gwenpool returned as a main on-page character, continuing to raise her "son"
Jeff the Land Shark along with Kate Bishop. While initially living in different houses, Gwen later moves in with Kate. Over this series, after being trapped in the romance comic for several months, Gwen comes to the "realisation" (being told by Julie) that she is aromantic and asexual, or
aro-ace.
Gwenpool (2025) In the limited series
Gwenpool (2025),
Gwen Stacy is resurrected with
Weapon X-like abilities as Weapon X-31. Her mysterious handler known as the "Grand Architect" calls her by the "Gwenpool" name, which she dislikes. The real Gwen Poole teams up with
Peter Parker in an unlikely adventure, both to figure out who revived Gwen, why she is wearing a purple version of Poole's suit, and how to stop her. When Gwenpool was killed, her ghost remains. She would later interact with this Gwenpool and learned that this Gwen is actually the reanimated Gwen Stacy (Stacy's soul in a clone body) from
Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy. They worked together to fight the forces of the Weapon X base that the Grand Architect works in. When Spider-Man,
Kate Bishop, and
Jeff the Land Shark arrive to join the fight, the Grand Architect is unmasked as a counterpart of Marvel Comics writer
Cavan Scott. After regaining her body which has been made into a
Deathlok, Gwenpool persuades X-31 to spare the Grand Architect's life. While planning to have MegaTony work to restore her body by her next appearance, Gwenpool and the group then proceed to fight
Fin Fang Foom. ==Powers and abilities==