New Avengers #23
New Avengers: Disassembled, Part 3
Civil War continues from Heroes for Hire (vol. 2) #1….
Jessica Drew (aka Spider-Woman) wakes up and turns on the news.[1] It is flooded with stories about the recent passage of the Super Human Registration Act and how its passage into law has divided the superhero community.[2] The top stories regarding this are Luke Cage fleeing from SHIELD,[3] Spider-Man (Peter Parker) revealing his true identity to the public,[4] as well as Captain Ameirca’s denouncement of the new law.
That’s when there is a knock at the door. She cautiously looks through the peep hole and sees that it appears to be Nick Fury. Jessica thought Fury was going to remain underground, but he explains that with the war that just broke out the situation has changed.[5] With the way that Fury is acting, Jessica becomes suspicious because he is eager to find Captain America (Steve Rogers) and his resistance. To verify her suspicions she waits for “Fury” to have his back turned and hits him with a venom blast. When “Nick” doesn’t even notice, Jessica begins talking about current SHIELD Director Maria Hill. This is all it takes to prove to her that this is not the real Nick Fury, but a Life Model Decoy remotely controlled by Maria Hill herself. With the jig up, Maria — through the LMD — says that this was all a test to see if Jessica is a traitor and this confirms it. Drew then destroys the decoy just as a team of SHIELD Cape-Killers come bursting into her apartment. Caught completely off guard, she is taken into custody.
She later wakes up in a SHIELD interrogation room. There she is greeted by Maria Hill who congratulates her for being first confirmed traitor in the war. She figures her parents — former Hydra agents — would be proud, revealing that she knows that Jessica has been working as a spy for the terrorist organization.[6][7] This was told to her by Iron Man (Tony Stark) her teammate on the New Avengers, who fully supports the SHRA. Hill muses over Jessica’s triple agent status. Drew can’t believe that Tony would betray her like this. Stark explains that there is a war on and he can no longer afford any wild cards like Spider-Woman on the table. This deeply upsets Jessica because she gave up everything for them. That’s when the power aboard the SHIELD Helicarrier is struck by an electro-magnetic pulse unleashed by Hydra. As the helicarrier falls out of the sky, agents storm the facility and rescue Spider-Woman. Before leaving, one of the Hydra agents boasts to Iron Man — incapacitated by the pulse — that the crashing helicarrier will land right on top of the state of Rhode Island, causing countless casualties. Luckily, tragedy is averted as SHIELD reboots their systems and get their anti-gravity generators running again. It is a close call as they are mere inches above a major city. Hill then gets on the radio and orders her operatives to figure out where Hydra has taken Spider-Woman.
Jessica wakes up again and this time finds herself on Hydra Island. She is greeted by her Hydra contact, Connelly who explains that in rescuing her they used a one-time-only exploit against the helicarrier. He explains that they have brought her in because the civil war has changed the playing field. He hopes that her recent situation has proven to her once and for all that she was being manipulated, that she wasn’t actually working for Nick Fury. She was being manipulated by the thugs in SHIELD and that there is nobody there to protect her but Hydra. He then offers her a spot at the leadership table along with Madame Hydra (aka Viper). He mostly wants Jessica to replace the unstable Madame Hydra and supplant her as leader. He figures someone who was born loyal to Hydra would bring some much needed stability to the organization. After thinking it over for a moment, it seems like Jessica is going to go along with this. In reality, she is just lulling Connelly into a sense of security so she can ambush him. When guards rush into the room, she incapacitates them with a venom blast. She then learns the location of Hydra’s fuel depot and power source and sets the island to explode before fleeing.
Later, Jessica Drew arrives at one of Nick Fury’s safehouses. There she finds Captain America and his resistance movement who have no idea where Fury is.[8] With no where left to turn, Jessica breaks down into tears and asks Steve to allow her to join the fight as she has nowhere safe to go.
… Civil War continues in Wolverine (vol. 3) #45
Recurring Characters
“Spider-Woman”, “Secret Avengers” (Captain America, Luke Cage, “Daredevil”, Falcon, Cloak, Dagger, Stature), Hydra (Connelly), Iron Man, SHIELD (Maria Hill)
Continuity Notes
The woman who appears to be Spider-Woman in this story is actually a Skrull spy named Veranke, as will be revealed in Secret Invasion #3. In New Avengers #42 we learned that she took the place of the real Jessica Drew circa Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1.
The SHRA is a law that was passed that requires all superhumans to register with the government. This was passed into law after the Stamford Disaster, a superhuman incident that killed hundreds of innocent people in Civil War #1. At the time of this story, the law came into effect in issue #3 of that series. The law will remain on the books until Siege #1-4.
Luke Cage refused to register and evaded arrest last issue.
Spider-Man revealed his identity to the public to show his support of the new law in Civil War #2. While the whole world knows that Spider-Man is Peter Parker they will still be made to forget following the events of Amazing Spider-Man #545 after Peter made a deal with Mephisto to save his Aunt May’s life. This altered history so that he and his wife Mary Jane never got married. In the new timeline, Doctor Strange cast a spell that made everyone forget his true identity. People remember that Spider-Man revealed his identity during Civil War, they just forgot who the person on the mask was. See Amazing Spider-Man #641.
The real Nick Fury went underground after it was revealed that he staged an illegal attack on the nation of Latveria. See Secret War #1-5.
It was revealed in Spider-Woman: Origin #1-5 that Jessica’s parents were loyal to Hydra. However, this contradicts the origin told in Spider-Woman #1. An official explanation for this discrepancy is unexplained. Since the Origin series showed that the telepath known as Mentallo manipulated her memories to make her loyal to Hydra to start, one could assume that these memories have been altered. Regardless, this is what everyone believes so it’s two and a half one, one and half the other.
As seen in Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1, Jessica was approached by Hydra who offered to restore her powers in exchange for her spying on SHIELD for them. This is because her powers have been on the blink since Avengers #241. During the process to restore her powers she was replaced by Veranke who continued this ruse to infiltrate SHIELD, as detailed above. Per New Avengers #13, she went to Nick Fury about this and was told to spy on Hydra while she was spying on SHIELD. However, since Fury was the only one in SHIELD who knew this arrangement, she was left stuck doing Hydra’s bidding after he went underground.
The man who appears to be Daredevil in this story is actually Iron Fist in disguise. In Civil War: Choosing Sides #1, Matt Murdock asked Iron Fist to pose as his alter ego. This is because, at the time of this story, Murdock had been sent to prison after a federal investigation into the revelation that he was secretly Daredevil all these years. See Daredevil (vol. 2) #32 and 76-87.
Topical References
“Jessica” is depicted as having a CRT model television in her apartment. This should be considered a topical reference as this is now an obsolete technology.
Civil War Reading Order
Road to Civil War: Amazing Spider-Man #529, 530, 531, Fantastic Four #536, 537, New Avengers: Illuminati #1
Main Event: Civil War #1, She-Hulk (vol. 2) #8, Wolverine (vol. 3) #42, Amazing Spider-Man #532, Civil War: Front Line #1
Civil War #2, Thunderbolts #103, Civil War: Front Line #2, X-Factor (vol. 3) #8, New Avengers #21, Wolverine (vol. 3) #43, Amazing Spider-Man #533, Fantastic Four #538, Civil War: Front Line #3, Thunderbolts #104, Civil War: X-Men #1
Civil War #3, Cable & Deadpool #30, Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #1, Civil War: Front Line #4, X-Factor (vol. 3) #9, New Avengers #22, Wolverine (vol. 3) #44, Amazing Spider-Man #534, Fantastic Four #539, Civil War: Front Line #5, Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #6, Civil War: X-Men #2, Heroes for Hire (vol. 2) #1, New Avengers #23, Wolverine (vol. 3) #45, Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #2, Cable & Deadpool #31, Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #7, Civil War: X-Men #3
Civil War #4, Wolverine (vol. 3) #46, Heroes for Hire (vol. 2) #2, Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #3, Civil War: Front Line #6, Captain America (vol. 5) #22, Cable & Deadpool #32, Amazing Spider-Man #535, Civil War: Choosing Sides #1, Fantastic Four #540, Civil War: Front Line #7, Civil War: X-Men #4, Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #8, Wolverine (vol. 3) #47, Heroes for Hire (vol. 2) #3, Captain America (vol. 5) #23, New Avengers #24
Civil War #5, Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #4, Iron Man (vol. 4) #13, New Avengers #25, Punisher: War Journal (vol. 2) #1, Civil War: Front Line #8, Amazing Spider-Man #536, Black Panther (vol. 4) #22, Captain America (vol. 5) #24, Civil War: War Crimes #1, Civil War: Front Line #9, Iron Man (vol. 4) #14, Fantastic Four #541, Black Panther (vol. 4) #23, Punisher: War Journal (vol. 2) #2
Civil War #6, Civil War: Front Line #10, Amazing Spider-Man #537, Fantastic Four #542, Civil War: The Return #1, Punisher: War Journal (vol. 2) #3, Black Panther (vol. 4) #24
Civil War #7, Amazing Spider-Man #538, Civil War: Front Line #11, Black Panther (vol. 4) #25, Civil War: The Initiative #1, Iron Man: Director of SHIELD #15, Mighty Avengers #1, Captain America (vol. 5) #25, Civil War: The Confession #1, Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Fantastic Four #543-544, Avengers: The Initiative #1