Marvel’s The Unbelievable Gwenpool has had a fascinating trajectory. The character originally debuted as a variant cover theme capitalizing on the success of Spider-Gwen, and those covers proved popular enough that Marvel gave Gwenpool her own ongoing series. Writer Christopher Hastings made a wise decision in not making this character another alternate-universe Gwen Stacy, instead using Gwenpool to explore superfans’ attachment to superhero comics by having her be a person from the real world outside the comics page. With artist Gurihiru, Hastings found a new spin for Deadpool’s meta point of view, and the current arc of the series has taken that aspect even further as toys around with the visual elements of the page and makes them physical objects in Gwen Poole’s world. (For a deeper dive into this new arc, check out this Comics Panel review of The Unbelievable Gwenpool #17.)
This exclusive preview of next week’s The Unbelievable Gwenpool #18 doesn’t feature the structural experimentation that has made this current arc so astonishing, instead jumping away from Gwen to show her brother Teddy’s experience in the Marvel Universe. Even though Teddy has been thrown into a confusing, scary situation, the creative team still finds way to bring humor to the story, primarily by having Gwen’s adorable octopus backpack represent her demise. As hard as Teddy tries, he just can’t pull the backpack out of the wall, and his increasingly devastated expression is met by the octopus’ blank stare. Gurihiru delivers rich emotion and clean, dynamic action, and the final panel promises a cavalcade of familiar superhero faces as Teddy Poole ventures deeper into the world of Marvel Comics.