Jessica Drew

Revision as of 06:57, 22 August 2020

Jessica Drew in Spider-Woman v7 #1.

Jessica Drew is a female comic superhero who features in Marvel Comics.

Biography

Origin

Jessica Drew in Spider-Woman v1 #1.

Jessica Drew was a female human born in the modern age where she was the daughter of Jonathan Drew and Meriem 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)

Avengers

After the defeat of the Skrulls, Jessica was freed from confinement alongside the other Earth superheroes that had been replaced. (Secret Invasion v1 #8) In the aftermath, she had nowhere to go and decided to stay with the New Avengers whilst they were still outlaws due to the Registration Act. (New Avengers v1 #49) By this point, many people did not trust her due to her identity being used by the Skrull Queen Veranke leading to her being a pariah despite having no involvement in the invasion. During the Dark Reign, Norman Osborn was appointed the Director of national security after the disbanding of S.H.I.E.L.D. where he created his own agency along with a superteam of Dark Avengers that consisted largely of supervillains. In an effort to expose them, the New Avengers sought to lure them into an ambush and defeat them after temporarily depowering them through the use of Starktech. Spider-Woman volunteered to trick Osborn where she arrived at Stark Tower with her initially be attacked before convincing Norman that she was defecting. She returned with a tracker to the New Avengers ready to stage the ambush only to come under an surprise attack from the Hood and his gang of supervillains who Osborn had tipped about the superheroes location at the abandoned Hellfire Club. (New Avengers v1 #50)

With Osborn's defeat, Commander Steve Rogers went about forming a new incarnation of the Avengers with Jessica accepting the offer in joining the team. During that time, Avengers Tower was visited by Kang the Conqueror who warned that the children of the Avengers would become a threat to the timestream in the future. (Avengers v4 #1)

On a S.W.O.R.D. mission, she investigated the landing of an extraterrestrial object on Earth when she was captured by the Intelligencia. They determined the object was a fallen Spaceknight and intended to interrogate Jessica for information. However, their base was attacked by the Avengers who came to recover their teammate. It was then that the Spaceknight activated where it was revealed that Ultron was within its form and reshaped it into a new body for himself as he escaped. (Avengers v4 #12.1)

Motherhood

Jessica Drew in Spider-Woman v5 #5.

Overview

Personality and attributes

In appearance, Jessica Drew was noted as a young woman with beautiful facial features. (Spider-Woman v1 #1)

By Hydra, she came to be referred to as Arachne but after separating from them she began to take the name Spider-Woman. (Spider-Woman v1 #1)

Originally, she had no intention of becoming a superhero but had taken on the idea of using a costume to mask her secret identity. (Spider-Woman v1 #1)

She came to develop an attraction to Hawkeye with this being mutual from him as well. (Avengers v4 #13)

Powers and abilities

Originally, Jessica Drew was an ordinary human being until a serum was used on her physiology that was based on spider-extract. A genetic accelerator was used to speed up the bonding to her body making her half spider. (Spider-Woman v1 #1)

Notes

• Jessica Drew was created by Archie Goodwin and Marie Severin where she made her first appearance in Marvel Spotlight v1 #32 (February, 1977).
• On the characters creation, Stan Lee noted in The Comics Journal v1 #42 (October, 1978; p. 55) that, "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."
• Brian Michael Bendis noted in an interview] that, "Originally, "Alias" was going to star Jessica Drew, but it became something else entirely. Which is good, because had we used Jessica it would have been off continuity and bad storytelling. So, when we were putting together "New Avengers," I put her because I had all these ideas for her and thought this was a place where I could finally do it and no one will be mad or care. She's an interesting female character who hasn't seen the light of day in a while and I think she's got this great costume."

Alternate Versions

In other media

Television

• In Spider-Woman, the Jessica Drew Spider-Woman featured in the setting of the animated television series where she was voiced by actress Joan Van Ark.
• In Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Jessica Drew did not appear but her costume was shown in the animated television series in the episode "The Triumph of the Green Goblin" where it was being worn by Firestar at a costume party.

Video games

• In Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Jessica Drew as Spider-Woman appeared as a playable character in the video game where she was voiced by actress Tasia Valenza.
• In Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, Jessica Drew as Spider-Woman appeared in the setting of the video game where she was voiced by actress Elizabeth Daily.
• In Marvel: Avengers Alliance, Jessica Drew as Spider-Woman appeared in the setting of the Facebook video game. During the events of the story, she became one of the Worthy and took on the identity of Kurth: Breaker of Stones.
• In Marvel Heroes, Jessica Drew as Spider-Woman appeared as a playable character in the setting of the MMORPG video game.
• In Spider-Man Unlimited, Jessica Drew as Spider-Woman appeared as a playable character in the mobile video game where she was voiced by actress Laura Bailey.
• In Marvel Avengers Academy, a teenage version of Jessica Drew as Spider-Woman appeared in the setting of the mobile video game where she was voiced by actress Kiernan Shipka.

Appearances

• Marvel Spotlight v1: (1977)
• Marvel Two-in-One v1:
• Spider-Woman v1:
• West Coast Avengers v1:
• Wolverine v2:
• Amazing Spider-Man v1:
• Alias:
• New Avengers v1:
• Mighty Avengers v1:
• Secret Invasion v1:
• Siege v1:
• Avengers v4:
• Secret Avengers v3:
• Spider-Woman v5:
• Spider-Force v1:
• Captain Marvel:
• Spider-Woman v7: (2020)

External Links

• Marvel Database Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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