Fear Today, Gwen Tomorrow

Hey, check it out...Gwen Stacy is back!



Yeah, I think you could be a little more diplomatic about her re-appearance, Spidey. "Oh no, the love of my life is back! If only I wasn't married to that pesky Mary Jane! Maybe I should call Mephisto and..." Yeah, that's never a good idea.





Luckily for Petey and his self-proclaimed lousy love life...oh, cry me a river, Parker, with your harem of fabulous lookin' babes...Gwen has popped up not in Manhattan but in Crystal Cove, "The Most Hauntedest Place on Earth." Headband, stripey top, and all! Except this time she's not hanging around with Mary Jane and Harry and a guy named Flash. Nope, The Divine Ms. S. has a whole new posse:



Fred! Velma! Daphne! Shaggy! And, cowering somewhere behind the seats there, presumably Scooby-Doo...they're all hanging around the all-new, all-cartoony Gwen Stacy, and frankly, who wouldn't? Well, actually, since Fred is infatuated by her (naturally), Daphne's not too happy. But as we have seen in the past, redheads don't like Gwen dating their men.



Let's face it...how could anybody resist those pupiless purple eyes?



Okay, okay, I must not tell lies. That really isn't Gwen Stacy, but Alice May, a character from the newest incarnation of TV's longest-running teen-and-their-talking-dog mystery/adventure series, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. It's the one where the gang investigates a series of mysterious, unexplainable hauntings which later prove to be somebody under a rubber mask. You know, that one episode.

Updated for our modern, Facebooked, Twittering, KFC Double-Down'd twenty-first century, Mystery Incorporated features a season-long story arc in which our favorite young investigators unravel a series of mysteries only to be confronted by the biggest one of all: what happened to the years-earlier, original Mystery Incorporated...and their talking bird, Professor Pericles?




This is also the Scooby series that features the romantic entanglements of Fred and Daphne as they attend the school prom...



Why, even Velma and Shaggy are dating! (Although Scooby is exceptionally jealous.)



In the end, it all winds up pretty much the way you'd expect, with a teenager holding a shivering Great Dane...



...a kicky musical number to accompany a chase through the hallways and corridors...



And, when the villain is revealed, it's (surprise!) Gwen Stacy Alice May, complete with spider-pattern outfit and a snarled "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling...classmates!"



So, there you go: the producers and creators of Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated—such big Spider-Man fans that they based a villain on everyone's favorite bridge-faller, Gwen Stacy. But then again, maybe we shouldn't be so surprised that Gwen has shown up in Crystal Cove. After all, as we've seen in other episodes, it just happens to be the hometown of Pebbles Flintstone and Bamm-Bamm Rubble:



...not to mention Suzie Chan of the Amazing Chan Clan:



Also, there is inadvertent surfing on gravestones.



Gwen Stacy, back from the dead? Frankly, even if she's a villainess, I'm happy to have her among the living yet again.

Special bonus extra-cute screen shot: Flashback Toddler Gwen! So kawaii!



Ah, Gwen. You can come back to life in my town anytime.