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Jessica Drew (Earth-616)

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This page is similar in name or subject to other pages.

See also Jessica Drew, Spider-Woman, Arachne for a complete list of references to distinguish between these closely named or closely related articles.

Character Template Help
Current Alias

Aliases
Red, Webs and Webby (Spider-Woman); Jessie (Jessica Drew), Arachne, Ariadne Hyde

Identity

Alignment

Affiliation
New Avengers; former unofficial member of Heroes For Hire, Hydra, Spider Society, Drew And McCabe Private Investigations, SHIELD

Relatives
Jonathan Drew (father, deceased), Merriem Drew (mother, deceased)

Universe


Characteristics
Gender

Height


Eyes

Hair

Unusual Features
Hair is dyed jet-black

Status
Citizenship

Marital Status

Occupation
Fugitive, adventurer, detective, former subversive

Education
Formal education stopped in early grade school; extensively educated by the High Evolutionary during stasis; received combat training from the Taskmaster

Origin
Origin
Genetic alterations

Place of Birth


Contents

History


When Jessica Drew was about a year old, her parents moved from England to a small enclave in the outskirts of Wundagore Mountain. Her father,Jonathan Drew, geneticist and research partner to the man who would later become the High Evolutionary, found large amounts of uranium in their property, which gave them the financial resources to build a research facility to keep working on their controversial studies of evolution, genetics and cell regeneration.

In the course of the next three years, life was good, until little Jessica became ill, poisoned by her long-time exposure to the Uranium that was so prevalent in their land. Jonathan, being an expert on the regenerative and immunological properties of arachnids' blood, injected Jessica with an untested serum made with the blood of several uncommon species of spiders, in the hopes of stopping the tissue damage and immunizing the girl from the Uranium radiation in her blood.

Then, he sealed her in a genetic accelerator created by Herbert Wyndham (aka the High Evolutionary) to speed the process, but it only seemed to work at a very slow rate. In stasis for decades, her aging greatly slowed, she awoke with no memories of her past, to a world in which both her parents had disappeared mysteriously, and possessing powers that made everyone around her scared and resentful. Jessica lived in the Wundagore citadel until the High Evolutionary left Earth.

Remaining behind in the area, Jessica eventually found work as a barmaid in a nearby village. She also experienced her first romance, which tragically ended when an innocent prank panicked the young woman and accidentally triggered a bioelectric blast which killed her boyfriend. Accused of witchcraft and murder, Jessica fled from an enraged mob into the clutches of Otto Vermis. The wealthy Vermis offered sanctuary to Jessica, who didn't know about his double-life as a high-ranking leader in HYDRA, an international terrorist movement.

Vermis trained Jessica in the use of her powers and taught her espionage, martial arts, and various killing techniques. HYDRA wanted to mold Jessica into the perfect assassin. However, she rebelled on a basic level against them, going so far as to deviate from their conformity by making her first costume red instead of green. In her first and only field assignment for HYDRA, Jessica refused to assassinate SHIELD Director Nick Fury. Rebelling against HYDRA, Jessica defeated Vermis in a battle to the death. Before he died, Vermis tricked Jessica into believing that she was originally an artificially-evolved spider instead of a mutated human.

Distraught by what she learned, Jessica wandered Europe until a clash with HYDRA in London brought her into contact with the Thing and Modred the Magician. Modred magically revealed the truth of Jessica's true origins, and she lived briefly in London. Meeting a mysterious sorcerer named Magnus, Jessica traveled to the United States to learn the truth about her father's fate. She and Magnus met up with SHIELD agent Jerry Hunt, and the trio settled down in Los Angeles. During her first few months in L.A., Jessica ran afoul of immortal sorceress Morgan Le Fey in her Spider-Woman guise and foiled her plans to acquire the Darkhold (a tome of dark magic).

Eventually, she parted ways with both Jerry and Magnus, and struggled for a long time to find a sense of belonging and purpose in the world. Jessica met her first female friend, actress Lindsay McCabe, at a pop-psychologist's therapy group. The two became fast friends over their defiant departure from the group. While she looked for a steady job, Jessica began working as a bounty hunter as Spider-Woman. She worked alongside attorney Scotty McDowell until they parted ways over their different goals and methods.

Jessica accepted Lindsay's offer to be her roommate in San Francisco, and the two women started over in the City by the Bay. A period of personal success began in this time, beginning with Jessica's establishment as a private investigator. She quickly built a successful business and also fell in love with her landlord, David Ishima. Spider-Woman gained a reputation as the "Dark Angel of San Francisco", and even established ties with SFPD via Lt. Sabrina Morrell.

Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) - by Greg Horn - WIZARD # 161 cover
Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) - by Greg Horn - WIZARD # 161 cover

However, Jessica's pattern of bad luck struck again when Ishima broke up with her after discovering the truth about her super heroics. Not long afterward, Magnus recruited Jessica to travel back in time for a final strike against Morgan Le Fey. Jessica succeeded in destroying her arch-enemy, but not before Morgan cast a spell which separated her time-traveling soul from her body. Jessica falsely believed that she had died and asked Magnus to cast a spell which made everyone who ever met her forget about her.

Lucky for Jessica, the spell was broken when her friends Tigra and the Shroud discovered her body. The two performed CPR and revived her, although Jessica remained comatose. Tigra called her associates in the Avengers, who in turn called Dr. Strange. These heroes worked together to save Jessica from Morgan's act of vengeance. However, the process of Dr. Strange's spells and Jessica's physical ordeal temporarily left her powerless.

Abandoning her costumed identity, Jessica still worked with Lindsay at their private investigator's agency. She even helped the X-Men by providing them a temporary home after an encounter with the Beyonder. Eventually, the two women traveled to Madripoor on a case that brought them into contact with Wolverine when he was using the alias of Patch. Remaining in the island nation for about two years, Jessica eventually returned to the States following an encounter with the criminal Charlotte Witter, who briefly stole her powers and used the alias Spider-Woman.

Jessica helped renowned psychic Madame Web mentor a teenage heir to the Spider-Woman title named Mattie Franklin. Over time, Jessica slowly regained her powers, although they were unstable. A case in New York involving a missing Mattie led Jessica to cross paths with another detective named Jessica Jones. After a brief misunderstanding wherein Drew repeatedly zapped Jones and Jones put her through a kitchen table, the two former superheroines teamed up to save Mattie from Denny Hayes, a drug dealer who was using her to manufacture a super-drug derived from "Mutant Growth Hormone" (as well as from a misguided Speedball, who was attempting a sting operation against Hayes and who panicked when Drew and Jones barged in, releasing a barrage of kinetic energy that temporarily incapacitated Jones.) Ultimately, Franklin was rescued, and with Drew's help, got cleaned up.[1]

New Avengers

Later, Jessica sought a permanent solution to her fluctuating powers and thus accepted a deal with HYDRA. The terrorist organization overhauled her abilities over the course of one year. In exchange, Jessica joined SHIELD to spy on the counter-terrorist organization for HYDRA. However, Nick Fury discovered this and thus used her to spread false intelligence. After several months as a double-agent, she was put on a security detail on "The Raft", a prison which housed superhuman criminals. When all the inmates attempted to escape during a break-out, Jessica worked with Matt Murdock, Luke Cage, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Captain America to minimize the damage caused by the riot. Despite the relative debacle of that incident, the heroes worked well together and were invited to join a newly reorganized Avengers team. Under pressure from her two employers, Jessica accepted a personal invitation from Captain America and joined the team by once more donning her Spider-Woman costume. Life as a double agent began to take its toll on her, and her cover very nearly fell apart after she was confronted by Viper during a mission in Japan. Afterwards, Spider-Woman confessed to Captain America about her status and later sided with the resistance in Civil War.

After the Civil War Jessica joined Luke Cage and the New Avengers. On a recent mission when Elektra was revealed to be a skrull in disquise, Jessica chose to take the body to Tony Stark.

In World War Hulk Jessica tried to aid the heroes that were repelling the Hulk and his Warbound. Unfortunately, she was defeated and imprisoned with several other heroes.

Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) in New Avengers 15
Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) in New Avengers 15


Powers and Abilities

Powers

Spider-Woman possesses several superhuman powers derived from the genetic experiment that granted her spider-like abilities:

  • Superhuman Strength:Spider-Woman's muscular density and strength have been extraordinarily enhanced and enable her to lift about 7 tons.
  • Superhuman Speed: Spider-Woman is capable of running and moving at speeds much greater than even the finest human athlete.
  • Superhuman Stamina: Spider-Woman's musculature generates less fatigue toxins during physical activity than the musculature of an ordinary human. She can exert herself at peak capacity for several hours before fatigue begins to impair her.
  • Superhuman Durability: Spider-Woman's body is somewhat tougher and more resistant to injury than an ordinary human's, although she is far from invulnerable. She is capable of withstanding impact forces that would severely injure or kill an ordinary human with only mild to moderate discomfort.
  • Superhuman Agility: Spider-Woman's agility, balance, and bodily coordination are enhanced to levels beyond the human body's natural limits.
  • Superhuman Reflexes: Spider-Woman's natural reaction time and reflexes are enhanced to levels beyond the human body's natural limits.
  • Superhuman Flexibility: Spider-Woman's body is extraordinarily limber and her tendons and connective tissues are twice as flexible as the average human being's, despite the augmented musculature and its enhanced strength.
  • Superhuman Hearing: Spider-Woman's hearing is superhumanly acute and enables her to detect sound at virtually any frequency, and she's been known to detect, sort out, and correctly identify sounds through thick steel doors, and across considerable distances.
  • Immunity to Toxins, Poisons, Drugs, and Radiation: Spider-Woman's metabolism rapidly creates powerful immunities to all forms of toxins, poisons and drugs, after an initial exposure that usually makes her dizzy. Her body is totally immune to radiation.
  • Wall-Crawling: Spider-Woman's limbs can adhere to surfaces via electrostatic attraction. Spider-Woman can hold and carry a considerable amount of extra weight while sticking to walls without falling off; it's safe to assume that the weight she can carry is dozens of times her own, and the limits of how long she can do this before fatigue sets in are still unknown.
  • Venom Blasts: Her body possesses an inordinate amount of bio-electricity that she has learned to channel and discharge through her hands, in controlled bursts of what she calls "Venom Blasts". These energy projections vary in power; they mostly affect the nervous system in humans. Spider-Woman can regulate them from simply a stun to potent enough to kill an average-sized man in the same way that a lightning bolt could kill him.
  • Pheromone Secretion: Her metabolism generates certain types of pheromones that elicit attraction and/or repulsion on others, depending on unknown factors which might include gender and mood.
  • Self-Propelled Flight: Hydra enhanced Jessica's flight; she no longer needs collapsible glider-wings. It is unclear as to the range and extent of this power.

Abilities

Jessica is a highly experienced fighter in many forms of armed and unarmed physical combat, that include boxing, Judo, Karate, Capoeira, swords, and many other disciplines, learned through her time as a HYDRA assassin (during which she received training from the Taskmaster) and her time as a SHIELD agent. She is also extensively trained in espionage, covert operations and stealth. She is a superb athlete and an Olympic-level gymnast. Due to her HYDRA espionage training, she is fluent in several languages, including Russian, Japanese, French, Spanish,Portuguese, Korean and German.

Strength level

7 tons

Weaknesses

None known.


Paraphernalia

Equipment: None known.
Transportation: None known.
Weapons: None known.


Notes

  • No special notes.


Trivia

  • Spider-Woman was created in response to the animation company Filmation's proposal to create a Spider-Woman character for their Tarzan/Batman Adventure Hour. Upon hearing about Filmation's plans, Marvel rushed the character into publication, forcing Filmation to rename their character as Web-Woman. Because of the rush, the creators used an origin that was originally developed for Wolverine, although this was later abandoned.[2]
  • Jessica Drew was born on December 7th, 30 years prior to publishing year.
  • Jessica is a natural redhead but dyes it black.

Appearances in Other Media

Television

A Spider-Woman cartoon, featuring Jessica Drew, launched on ABC's Saturday Morning Cartoon block in 1979 (produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and Marvel Comics Animation.)

Jessica Drew, voiced by Joan Van Ark, is editor of Justice Magazine, a publication which had its own skyscraper and helicopter yet showed only two other employees - photographer 'Jeff' and Jessica's teenage nephew 'Billy'. When trouble reared its ugly head, Jessica would come up with an excuse to slip away and change into her Spider-Woman secret identity. Spider-Man also guest starred in the series.

The cartoon differs somewhat from the comic book and lasted for one season of sixteen episodes. The animated Spider-Woman retained the ability to fire bursts of energy from her hands called "venom blasts," but they are white instead of green and can apparently be used an unlimited number of times. And she had (like Spider-Man) a "spider-sense": a kind of clairvoyance that would allow her to see dangers as they happened, no matter where she was (she would close her eyes and see the event outlined by a spider-web.) The animated Spider-Woman also had the ability to change into costume merely by spinning around, an idea borrowed from the Wonder Woman (TV series). (Not to be confused with the animated superheroine Web Woman, a Filmation superheroine cartoon launched at around the same time, which reportedly prompted Marvel into creating a Spider-Woman character to secure the copyright.)

As of 2006, similar to the majority of the other Disney-acquired Marvel Comics animated series, there are no plans to release this series on DVD.

  • Spider-Woman has made two live action appearances on TV:
    • A cameo role on the short-lived TV series, Once A Hero, about a comic strip hero who leaves his "world" to find his creator. Near the end of one episode Captain Justice returns to the "Real Earth", and a crowd of comic book characters can be seen cheering him on, including Spider-Woman.
    • The Saturday Night Live sketch, "Superhero Party", originally broadcast March 17, 1979. The sketch featured Hulk, The Thing, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Ant-Man, and Invisible Woman.

Video games

Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) - Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) - Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
  • Spider-Woman is a playable character in the video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. She possesses all of the powers she has in the comic book except super-strength. She has a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent variant costume (a navy blue and black mask less version of her classic costume, with white glider webs and a silver belt).


See Also


Discover and Discuss


Links and References

  1. ↑ Alias 19 - Alias 21
  2. ↑ Brian Cronin, "Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #28!", Comics Should Be Good, ComicBookResources.com: December 8, 2005.


Retrieved from "http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Jessica_Drew_%28Earth-616%29"
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