The following contains major spoilers for Spider-Gwen: Gwen-Verse #2, available now from Marvel.
Gwen Stacy has been an indelible part of the Marvel Universe for nearly sixty years, and her superpowered Multiversal counterparts have only expanded on that story in the best ways possible. Even more incredible than changing the course of what was previously a tragic legacy, with her latest adventure, Spider-Gwen has cemented a long posited theory as absolute law in the Marvel Multiverse. And now that every trip through time is creating its own space within the Multiverse, Gwen's journey isn't the only one that could inadvertently create Marvel's next biggest problem.
When the maniacal future pop icon Finale attempted to spread her likeness across all time, the machinations behind her plot instead splintered the persona of Gwen Stacy. This has not only sent Gwen spiraling through time in the hopes of resetting her own timeline but has drawn Finale's ire her way. In an effort to correct course, Finale has even called in the help of the Gwen Stacy better known as Nightbird. While Nightbird is undoubtedly a capable threat in her own right, she and her team aren't able to put their time traveling to any immediate use. At least, not without causing a Multiversal catastrophe. As revealed in the pages of Spider-Gwen: Gwen-Verse #2 (by Tim Seeley, Jodi Nishijima, Federico Blee, and VC's Ariana Maher), the generally understood idea that altering time creates a whole new world of possibilities is in fact a hard and fast rule, and Finale is far from the first person to turn that reality into a very serious problem.
Time travel and alternate realities are hardly new territory in the Marvel Universe, and the two have been inextricably tied for so long that they almost seem mundane. What might be the most famous example of time travel leading to new universes, the Age of Apocalypse, has even become a learning tool for the students of Doctor Strange's mystical New Orleans academy. All that considered, it may not seem surprising that Spider-Gwen: Gwen-Verse has confirmed the ways in which tampering with time causes branching realities to form. Of course, that is only within the context of Gwen's story. When stacked up against the other goings-on of the Marvel Universe, this concept only becomes more and more terrifying.
Plenty of heroes and villains have meddled in the temporal arts. In fact, journeying through the centuries has become both a boon and burden to some of the most iconic figures of all time, though not all of them have experienced the consequences of it. When Gorr the God Butcher posed a threat to all pantheons, he did so across thousands of years. Eventually, Gorr came face-to-face with three distinct Thors, all the same, yet gathered together from various chapters of his life. As the impact of time travel is understood now, the actions of those various Gods of Thunder could have easily led to their own timeline peeling away and producing something more. No matter how shocking that would have been, that idea is still almost nothing next to what Venom is leaving on the table.
Since ascending to the throne of King in Black, Eddie Brock has pushed his newfound powers beyond the veil of linear time, as have seemingly all of his successors. This includes the villainous Meridious and hulking Bedlam, both of whom have their own devastating webs to weave across time.
What Spider-Gwen and her allies are currently dealing with is no small concern, yet the implication that her situation has just laid the groundwork for a Venom-Verse absolutely dwarfs Finale's plot. For how hard it is to imagine Gwen not being able to save her own timeline, it is even more impossible to ignore the potential for even more characters to find themselves embroiled in a sprawling Multiverse of their own unwitting design. Hopefully, the precedent Gwen has just set won't be the downfall of any other fan-favorite Marvel heroes, no matter how much trouble traveling through time gets them into.