Hey there, I’m Dylan, also known as Auram, filling in for ComicDrake!
Spider-Woman is a title given to many a character in comic books, but Jessica Drew is the first,
and arguably the best, to hold the mantle.
She was born in London, England, to Jonathan and Miriam Drew and when Jess was just over
a year old, the Drews moved to a small enclave on the outskirts of Wundagore Mountain.
They moved there because of her father, who was a geneticist and research partner to Herbert
Wyndham, the man who would eventually become the High Evolutionary.
Jonathan and Herbert discovered a whole load of uranium at their new dig site which gave
them enough funds to build their research facility and continue work on studying evolution,
genetics, and cell regeneration.
Life was great for the Drews until they found out that Jess had fallen ill because of her
long-term exposure to the uranium!
Jonathan, being the expert on genetics that he was, decided to inject Jessica with an
untested serum created from the blood of several uncommon species of spider in hopes that it
would put an end to the radiation infecting her blood, because that makes sense right?
He also sealed her in a ‘genetic accelerator’ that Herbert created which would seemingly
speed up her healing process.
This, however, had the opposite effect as it only slowed her aging for decades.
Eventually she awoke with no memories of her past in a world where she had no parents and
had gained powers that only made everyone surrounding her scared and resentful.
Jessica stayed in Wundagore until the High Evolutionary left Earth and this led her to
finding work as a barmaid in a nearby village.
This is also where she experienced her first romantic encounter which, as they all do,
ended in her killing him with a bioelectric blast!
Jessica was run out of town being called a witch and a murderer until she fell into the
hands of a man named Otto Vermis.
Vermis, who was actually a high-ranking leader in the villainous organization known as Hydra,
offered a home to Jess.
He trained Jessica to control her powers along with teachings of espionage, martial arts,
and even various killing techniques.
Vermis slowly introduced her to HYDRA where she constantly rebelled in small ways, like
making her costume red instead of the iconic green.
On her first operation, Jessica refused to assassinate Nick Fury, the Director of SHIELD,
which led to a fight to the death between her and Vermis.
Spider-Woman defeated him, but just before he died Vermis tricked Jess into thinking
that she is actually an artificially evolved spider, instead of a mutated human, because,
well, comics.
Oh, and if this isn’t confusing enough already, there is another version of Spider-Woman’s
origin that retconned some of the previous continuity.
In this version, Spider-Woman gained her powers after she was zapped by a laser beam filled
with the DNA of several different species of spiders while in her mother’s womb.
This retelling also saw Jess being recruited into HYDRA under false pretenses which led
her to being mentored and trained by Taskmaster.
Either way, Jessica eventually decided to travel around Europe until she encountered
HYDRA once again.
After escaping them and finally rediscovering her true origin, Jess left for Los Angeles.
This is where she met Lindsay McCabe, an actress and Jess’s first close friend.
Jess and Lindsay became quick friends and around this time Jess decided to become a
bounty hunter as Spider-Woman while working alongside an attorney named Scotty McDowell.
Eventually the partners in crime parted ways with Jess and Lindsay moving to San Francisco.
Spider-Woman became a private investigator and a bunch of unimportant antics ensued including
her death, but she came back because comics, but we’re not gonna get into that!
After Jess’s power levels fluctuated for a while, including being completely powerless,
she sought help to cure this which led to striking a deal with none other than HYDRA.
Jess joined SHIELD as a spy for HYDRA, but Nick Fury quickly discovered this which led
him to spread false intelligence to Jess and HYDRA.
Unbeknownst to Fury and Jessica, the leader of the HYDRA cell that was to repair Jess’s
powers was also the leader of the soon-to-come Skrull invasion.
After stabilizing Jess’s powers, Veranke, the Queen Skrull, used Spider-Woman’s DNA
to perfectly impersonate her and allow a gateway for the Skrulls to invade Earth.
This is where time frames get a little muddy seeing as we’re not completely clear on
how long Queen Veranke was impersonating Jess, but it was for around two years at most starting
shortly after Jess joined SHIELD.
She, along with the rest of the impersonated heroes, was rescued by Iron Man.
They soon returned to Earth where she was met with a widely negative response.
The general public couldn’t get over their bad perceptions of Queen Veranke and ended
up pinning it on Jess.
Jessica, broken and distraught, was approached by Wolverine and was recruited to the New
Avengers.
Spider-Woman tried to prove herself as a loyal and valuable member of the team while helping
out as best she could.
She was basically the new kid in school just trying to fit in.
Later, after beating herself up even more because of all the hate surrounding the Veranke
incident, Jess was approached by Abigail Brand with an offer to join SWORD.
Jessica found solace in this seeing as most of her missions involved tracking and taking
down Skrull stragglers still on Earth.
This was the status quo for Spider-Woman for a while until Norman Osborn invaded Asgard
and Jess joined the Avengers.
Jessica became pretty stagnant in this role, mostly being used as a background character.
She had a short relationship with fellow Avenger Hawkeye and rejoined Stark’s expanded Avenger
squad after the conflict between them and the X-Men.
Later, after she was thrown into the huge spider-filled event known as Spider-Verse,
Jessica was pretty much done.
Jess was tired of all the multiversal crazy antics and decided to leave the Avengers to
go back to her life as a PI donning a new costume and all!
Jess teamed up with Ben Urich, a reporter for the Daily Bugle, and Roger Gocking, the
reformed villain known as Porcupine.
Together they would go on to take down more small time criminals.
Eventually Jessica was roped back into the Avengers business by Black Widow when the
final incursion came crashing down and at the time of this recording, that is where
she stands; lost in the fires of Secret Wars.
If you’d like to check out some awesome stories starring the Spider-Woman herself
then I’d look to Spider-Woman Origin by Brian Michael Bendis, Spider-Woman: Agent
of SWORD, or her latest outing, Spider-Woman Vol. 5 by Dennis Hopeless.
And hey, if you liked this video, why not go check out my channel where I release 5
comic book videos a week!