User blog:Inhuman./Marvel missed out with Spider-Gwen

Recently Marvel has made a couple big changes to some of their top characters, namely Captain American and Thor, to introduce more diversity with their top tier characters. I think, so far, these changes have been handled...... poorly. My issue isn't with adding more diversity to Marvels line up but rather the clumsy, forced way they've gone about it.

Since Edge of the Spider-Verse #2 came out "Spider-Gwen's", the Spider-Woman from Earth-65, popularity has been on the rise. So much so that Marvel has announced she will be getting her own ongoing series starting in February.

Given the retcon friendly nature of the multi-verse storylines going on in Spider and Avengers right now, and in the upcoming Secret Wars I hope Marvel uses the opportunity to add some diversity to their line up in better thought out ways. Spider-Gwen should be front and center in that. Instead of continuing with "Lady Thor", which no one was clamoring for, replacing Peter Parker with Gwen Stacy would give Marvel that top tier female hero in a package that fans want, plus the change is pretty easy to make. At the end of either Spider-Verse or Secret War they just have to put Peter and Gwen in a dire situation where Peter sacrifices himself for Gwen (which is very much what Peter Parker would do for his 1st love and the love of his life. They've already shown him being protective of her). Afterwards Gwen, ideally along with some elements of her back-story like the Marry Jane band, her resurrected father etc... finds herself as THE Spider-Woman (Spider-Hero if you will) of whatever Earth/Universe is left at the end of the story. We have a dead Peter Parker (he isn't running around like "Odinson", a constant reminder of who the real Thor is) and the main character Marvel's flagship book is a woman.

That would be a much better and compelling story to add a woman to the top of Marvel's Pantheon, and the woman being put there is a character that fans are already demanding more of. Its a much better and organic way achieving their goal then creating "Lady Thor", who I believe will soon be seen as a "place holder" until the "real" Thor is brought back.