Miles seems to be much more popular.
Miles seems to be much more popular.
Because challenge with Gwen is always going to be the fact that she Alternate Universe version of the dead Gwen Stacy. By comparison, even with the continuity snarl that Miles has had coming from the Ultimate Universe to the main one, the core of his character is a pretty straight forward one that makes it easy to adapt.
It's all really relative though. Spider-Gwen is really popular. Just going by the amount she's cosplayed as, as Marvel seems just as eager to user her in media (ITSV, Marvel Rising, the Marvel's Spider-Man cartoon) goes to show that she's not exactly lacking in that area either.
The artist formerly known as OrpheusTelos.
The Ultimate timeline had notable differences from 616, but there was a world merge retcon. Couldn't a world merge resolve that for Gwen too? I'm sure the 616 U.S. government has gotten used to people coming back from the dead at this point. Not sure how they could fix Peter being the Lizard though...
True.
There's various issues with that...Gwen's original supporting cast was made out of AU characters from 616, including characters more associated with Peter, so they'd have to be ditched like they were with Miles (but without a Ganke to make up for that), and she and her dad are both dead in 616 and I don't think they'd undo that for another world merger.
1) Miles came first. He debuted in August 2011 in Ultimate Fallout #4 after The Death of Spider-Man arc in Ultimate Spider-Man. Gwen Stacy came on to the scene in Edge of Spider-Verse#2 in September 2014. So Miles had greater novelty at the outset than Gwen did.
2) Miles was introduced and promoted as an individual legacy hero from the outset. Whereas Gwen was introduced as one of many Spiders in the Spider-Verse event satellite books. So Miles was promoted as the center attraction right from the start in his own title, whereas Gwen was the scene stealer in a group event.
3) Miles is far more innovative in terms of an Afro-Latino legacy to the major superhero, an update on Peter's original premise as a working-class teenage superhero in New York City. Whereas Gwen Stacy is just another girl with Spider Powers and Spider Moniker (as compared to Jessica Drew, Mattie Franklin, Mayday Parker, Anya Corazon, Cindy Moon, and in Spider-Island, briefly Mary Jane Watson herself). If not for Gwen's unique costume design and the art style of her original comic, there's not much that's original to her whereas Miles does have more original touches.
Those are the three main reasons. The other reasons are as some mentioned, the confusion between Spider-Gwen and regular Gwen of 616 (although I think that's a minor issue compared to other stuff).
The multiple re-brandings of her character probably don't help. Is she called Spider-Woman, Spider-Gwen, or Ghost Spider?
On-top of that she's had like four relaunches in only a few years.
Miles is probably more accessible as he's got his own supporting cast. Spider-Gwen is in an alternate world which doesn't appeal as much to new readers.
The creative teams are different. Bendis is a bigger writer than Latour. Pichelli and Marquez are bigger artists than Latour.
Some of the storytelling decisions about Spider-Gwen have also taken the series away from what made it special, as it's become more about dimension-hopping and her identity was made public.
I'll note that both characters are rather successful. One is just more so.
Sincerely,
Thomas Mets