Spider-Woman

Spider-Woman in Spider-Women Alpha v1 #1.

Spider-Woman is the name used by several characters in the Marvel Universe.

Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)

Main Article: Jessica Drew

Jessica Drew

She came to suffer from radiation poisoning from the uranium at the site with this having developed over the course of months. Her father had placed her in cryogenic unit to slow down the rate of cell destruction. In desperation, her father looked to use serums based on spider-extract to save his daughter. However, the incubation period was said to take months with Jessica was unable to survive in that time. This was until it was decided to use the genetic accelerator to speed up the serum's effects. Around this time, the strain placed on Jessica's mother was so great and she was noted to had passed away. The process had to be repeated on numerous occasions over the course of years where she came reside among the New Men hybrids of the High Evolutionary. During her time there, she was hated by the other creatures of Wundagore for she was seen as a reborn human and not a true animal. (Spider-Woman v1 #1)

Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter)

Main Article: Julia Carpenter

Julia Cornwall was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. The daughter of Walter Cornwall and Elizabeth Cornwall. She met and married her college sweetheart Larry Carpenter and together they had a daughter named Rachel Carpenter. (Iron Man v1 #214)

Spider-Woman (Mattie Franklin)

Main Article: Mattie Franklin

Martha Franklin was a female human who lived as a regular teenager living in New York City. She was daughter of Jerry Franklin a wealthy businessman. Her uncle was J. Jonah Jameson, editor and owner of the Daily Bugle. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #441)

Overhearing a conversation between her father and Norman Osborn about a ceremony, Mattie took her father's place in the Gathering of Five. The ritual with five arcane relics, where the people are granted either immense power or they pay the ultimate price. These relics, when brought together and the ritual performed, allow the five who possess them to be blessed or cursed with: power, knowledge, immortality, insanity and death. However, the true aspect of each power was not known to people at first: what first seemed madness was in fact knowledge, what seemed power was madness and death seemed like immortality. Norman Osborn received 'Insanity', Morris Maxwell received 'Knowledge', Cassandra Webb received immortality and Gregory Herd received the aspect of 'Death'. Granted the gift of power, Mattie was endowed with superhuman physical attributes, as well as the power of flight. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #441)

Spider-Woman (Charlotte Witter)

Main Article: Charlotte Witter

Spider-Woman (Veranke)

Main Article: Veranke

Princess Veranke was a female member of the Skrull species who was one of the blood born among her kind and was from the Tyeranx Seven Province of the empire. She came to be guided by prophecy and headed a large religious group within the Skrull Empire where she came to believe that ruin was coming to her people. This group spoke of the warnings but they were ignored by Emperor Dorrek VII with the princess confronting him during a gathering on the Skrull world of Satriani. For her defiance, the emperor had her arrested and exiled to a planetoid for years. (New Avengers v1 #40) Whilst on Earth, she and her Skrulls disguised themselves as Hydra agents which was when Jessica Drew approached them and wanted her powers restored as Spider-Woman. Thus, she was inducted as an agent of Hydra but was unaware that her handlers were Skrulls who abducted her. She was then used as a template for Veranke who took on the guise of Spider-Woman as part of the infiltration of the planet for the coming Secret Invasion of Earth. (New Avengers v1 #42)

Notes

• The concept of Spider-Woman was created by Archie Goodwin and Marie Severin where it made its first appearance in Marvel Spotlight v1 #32 (February, 1977).
• Marvel Comics publisher Stan Lee said in The Comics Journal v1 #42 1978 about the characters creation, "I suddenly realized that some other company may quickly put out a book like that and claim they have the right to use the name, and I thought we'd better do it real fast to copyright the name. So we just batted one quickly, and that's exactly what happened. I wanted to protect the name, because it's the type of thing [where] someone else might say, "Hey, why don't we put out a Spider-Woman; they can't stop us." ... You know, years ago we brought out Wonder Man, and [DC Comics] sued us because they had Wonder Woman, and ... I said okay, I'll discontinue Wonder Man. And all of a sudden they've got Power Girl [after Marvel had introduced Power Man]. Oh, boy. How unfair."

Alternate Versions

• In Ultimate Spider-Man v1 #98 (2006), an alternate version of Spider-Woman appeared in the Ultimate Marvel reality designated as Earth-1610 in the Multiverse.
• In Amazing Spider-Man v3 #10 (2014), an alternate version of Spider-Woman was shown to exist in the Wastelands of reality designated as Earth-807128 in the Multiverse. On this world, the supervillain community had risen up together to eliminate the heroes and taken over the planet. In the years afterwards, Clint Barton came to be involved with Spider-Man's youngest daughter named Tonya and together they had a child together who was named Ashley Barton. By adulthood, Ashley showcased superpowers where she later came to taken the name Spider-Woman.
• In Spider-Gwen v1 #1 (2015), an alternate version of Spider-Woman was shown to exist in the reality designated as Earth-65 in the Multiverse. This version was the identity taken by the Gwen Stacy of this Earth after she gained spider-related powers.

Appearances

• Marvel Spotlight v1: (1977)
• Spider-Woman v1:
• Amazing Spider-Man v1:

External Links

• Marvel Database Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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