Artie or Gwen?[]
I've read the story several times, and I have no idea if Artie started out as a boy named Artie, a girl named Gwen, or a nonsexed being from Planet X named Jopaty. (Ok I made up the last item.)
At times it's implied he became she, at other times it's implied that she was always a girl and her dad just never noticed.
--- Yeah. It's almost like the author changed mind during the writing... ;-) Anyway, my personal head-canon attempted to solve the contradictory information in this way: She was born a boy named "Artie," but turned out to be a transgendered girl who named herself "Gwen." She tried to be a boy for her father, but Samantha and "Serena" only knew her as a tomboyish girl. Thus the confusion. --Sir Lee (talk) 00:02, July 2, 2015 (UTC)
We now have Word of God:
- In continuity, Gwen was a girl, and by some unstated twist of fate (looks away innocently, whistles), when her father 'Mr. Magic' was introduced to her, he took her to be a boy. Mr. Magic was so rhapsodic about having a son that Gwen and for some reason her mother (more whistling) played along with this. Somehow the identity of 'Artie' was invented. The fact that Gwen was distinctly androgynous and tomboyish (and Bi) helped. When 'Artie' was spotted doing some Breaking & Entering practice by Dr. Macabre's teen terrors, they mistook Gwen for the Artie who'd already been dragooned into the Vampires. When Dr. Cobb discovered that they had two boys who could easily be mistaken for each other, he tossed Artie/Gwen into his Monster Maker, with an eye toward creating a pair of 'twins' that could be used in various ways. But instead of a boyish vampire resulting, Gwen emerged as a distinctly more feminine appearing 'witch', the process having not only bonded her with the 'Raven Witch' spirit, but triggering her own mutant power.
- Out of continuity, 'Stormy' started out as Artie, Mr. Magic's son, who popped out of the Monster Maker as a girl. But as I wrote it, the TG struck me as gratuitous, an impression that was seconded by a vague mysterious group of people whom I know only by cryptic aliases. And a girl passing herself off as a boy in order to humor the father who'd never known her struck me as sufficiently in genre to work.
- I hope that clarifies things.Bek D. Corbin at the Forums