Spider-Woman: Origin #3
Endoctrinated into Hydra, Jessica Drew has been trained to be their superpowered operative codenamed Arachne. Her first mission is to rescue Jared Kurtz, her lover and fellow Hydra agent who has been captured by SHIELD in Moroco.[1] Finding Jared being worked over by Nick Fury, the director of SHIELD. She orders Fury to let Jared go and when he doesn’t comply tries to hit him with a venom blast. However, Fury is able to deflect this with his personal force field. Although she takes down a number of the SHIELD agents in the room, more and more enter and soon she finds herself outnumbered. When she starts spewing the usual Hydra propaganda, Nick Fury tells her to save it until after he shows her something.
He takes Arachne into the main control center of this SHIELD base which has banks of televisions monitoring world events and tells her that this is the real world.[2] He sits Arachne down and shows her footage of the day before which shows Jared Kurtz engaging in a terrorist bombing. At first, Jessica can’t believe it until she sees footage of Jared mowing down innocent people in the name of Hydra. Pulling off her mask, Jessica asks how Nick Fury and SHIELD know so much about her. Fury then shows Jessica the intel that SHIELD has on her and her family. It details how her parents were working on a project to re-write DNA for the British government when her mother was in an accident that altered Jessica’s DNA with that of a spider while she was still in utero. Their parents later became disillusioned with working for their government and joined up with Hydra. However, their lives were ruined on Wundagore Mountain and Jessica ended up being held in stasis for over a decade while Hydra tried to unlock the secret of her own DNA.[3] In more recent times, they decided wake her up and brainwashed her into serving the Hydra’s cause. Jessica becomes more and more upset as she hears these facts and eventually storms out of the room. Fury orders everyone to stand down and for Agent James Woo to tail Arachne once she leaves the facility.
Time Passes….
Two hours after orders are given to follow the Spider-Woman, a SHIELD agent comes in to report that they have lost track of her. Fury orders his agents to find her before SHIELD does.[4] Months pass and there is still no sign of Jessica Drew, much to Fury’s aggrivation.[5] It’s some time after this that Jessica Drew is finally found. When Nick Fury is told this, they have finally tracked the woman down while she is living in London.[6]
At that same moment, Jared Kurtz — who has since escaped SHIELD custody — has tracked Jessica down as well. He and a number of Hydra operatives recognize her as she walks into a nightclub even though she dyed her hair black.[7] Jessica is enjoying her evening and turns down every man who tries to pick her up. That’s when Jared confronts her and knocks Jessica over causing her venom blast to fire wild. This causes the crowd to flee, as they presume that she is a mutant. As the dance club clears out, Jared pulls a gun and tells Jessica how he was held prisoner by SHIELD and interrogated for months, the whole time he thought about how he was going to get revenge on her for leaving him behind. He tells her how General Wyndham ordered him to pretend to be romantically interested in her.[8] Since she had the mentality of a seven year old child at the time, he found the assignment disgusting. He makes the mistake of getting too close and Jessica manages to grab Jared and throw him into some of the other agents and flee out the front door under a hail of bullets.
Outside she is confronted by the Taskmaster who calls her a coward for running from the soldiers inside, reminding her that he trained her better. Drawing his sword he tells her that she doesn’t deserve a warriors death and that she sickens him.[9] However, when he attacks, Jessica holds her own and eventually manages to disarm Taskmaster and stab him with his own sword. Saying that she dreamed of this moment she then channels a venom blast through the hilt of the sword using Taskmaster’s body as a conduit to amplify and redirect the blast on all of the Hydra agents around her. The last person standing, Jessica goes up to Jared’s unconscious body and collapses to her knees and starts crying.
Later, Jared wakes up and finds himself tied up to the captains chair of an aircraft. Jessica, in a modified version of her Arachne costume, tells Jared that he wanted him to see this and jumps out of the aircraft. Looking out the windshield, Jared sees himself speeding toward the mansion owned by General Wyndham. When a Hydra agent enters Wyndham’s study to warn him, it comes too late as the aircraft crashes into the mansion and explodes, killing everyone on site.
Time Passes….[10]
Jessica Drew has relocated to San Francisco where she starts attending classes at San Francisco State University. After a literature class she is confronted by Nick Fury who offers her a hot dog since she hasn’t eaten all day. He tells her that SHIELD just found her. When she asks if he has come to arrest her, Fury tells her that after she destroyed a Hydra base and took down Taskmaster and a dozen terrorists he’s ready to give her the Nobel Peace Prize. She tells him that she just wants to be left alone, but Fury tells her that she doesn’t have that option since she only took down one arm of Hydra and as their motto goes “cut off one limb, two more take its place.” Fury gets to the point and says he is impressed that she was able to hide this whole time and offers her a job working for SHIELD. She refuses outright, telling him that all she wants to do is make something of her life to honor the memory of her parents.[11] That’s when Fury asks her what makes her think that her parents are dead.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Woman, SHIELD (Nick Fury, Sharon Carter, James Woo, Jasper Sitwell), Hydra (“General Wyndham”, Jared Kurtz, Taskmaster)
Continuity Notes
This story contradicts the original origin for Spider-Woman told in Marvel Spotlight #32/Spider-Woman #1. An in-universe explanation has yet to be provided. I provide my interpretation of these conflicts here.
This story is based on the events of Marvel Spotlight #32.
The television screens show images from various other Marvel Comics that were published around the time Spider-Woman first appeared they are:
Daredevil #164 (Daredevil holding his bloodied father in his arms)
I can’t identify this one, if you know it drop me an e-mail (Doctor Doom surrounded in energy)
Fantastic Four #120 (Galactus framed around headshot of the Fantastic Four)
Fantastic Four #112 (The Thing and Hulk fighting)
Iron Man #99 (Iron Man shackled to the side of a missiel)
X-Men #101 (Phoenix rising from the water)
Avengers #194 (The Vision fighting mechanical tenticles)
Amazing Spider-Man #151 (Spider-Man trapped in a flooded tunnel)
Avengers #103 (Captain America and the Avengers fighting a Sentinel)
Fantastic Four #215 (The Fantastic Four battling Blastaar)
X-Men #122 (Colossus straining against a Danger Room trap)
The final image is the homepage of Jinx World, the official homepage of Brian Michael Bendis as it appeared in 2006.
This intel appears to support the events depicted in Spider-Woman: Origin #1. However, it could be that this the phony background I think Hydra manufactured to make Jessica more compliant to them. The idea that Hydra was attempting to replicate the process that created Jessica’s powers is not outlandish as that was the plot to Marvel Two-In-One #29-32.
This would follow the end of Marvel Spotlight #32 which ends with Spider-Woman seemingly killing Otto Vermis. As seen in a flashback in Marvel Two-In-One #31, Spider-Woman was recaptured by Hydra and put back in suspended animation.
The narrative of this story states that the passage of time at this point is six months. Which should be considered a factual reference as it measures the length of time between Marvel Spotlight #32 and Spider-Woman’s next appearance in Marvel Two-In-One #30. Per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616 the actual passage of time would be 1.5 months, not six.
The narrative states that this takes place 2 years later. Not sure where Bendis came up with this passage of time because it doesn’t fit with the length of time between publications or in universe. I place this as happening after Spider-Woman #1, as Jessica was in London and encountered Jerry Hunt, a SHIELD agent.
In the first volume of Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew originally had short blonde hair and actually wore a black haired wig when she went out as Spider-Woman until she grew out her hair and started dying it. This story suggests that Jessica always had long hair. Does it really matter? Not really since the end result is still the same pretty much.
“General Wyndham” is no relation to the High Evolutionary who is an integral part of Spider-Woman’s true origins (see Spider-Woman #1). If my theory that the events of Spider-Woman: Origin #1 are implanted memories, then I presume that the familiar name is a false identity for General Wyndham as it was part of the manipulation to indoctrinate Jessica into Hydra.
For a brief moment, Jessica sees the Taskmaster with the face of a werewolf. This is probably a remnant of whatever memory she has that her mother was killed by a werewolf, as seen in Silver Surfer Annual #1.
The narrative states that this moment takes place two years later. Again, I think Bendis is pulling this passage of time out of his ass because it doesn’t fit with anything. Continuity wise, this scene would fit best between Spider-Woman #20 and 21, which saw Spider-Woman move from Los Angeles to San Francisco where she was suddenly set up as a private investigator working with Scotty McDowell. Spider-Woman #21 promised they’d explain this sudden change in narrative but they never did, I’d like to think that issues #3-5 of Spider-Woman: Origin fill at least part of that gap by explaining how Jessica Drew became a private eye. At any rate, by my calcuations, per the Sliding Timescale she was off the grid for months rather than years.
Per long standing continuity, Meriam Drew was killed by a Werewolf in the 1930s as mentioned above. However, her father survived well into the modern age and allegedly went to work for a company called Pyrotechnics and was allegedly murdered as explaine in Spider-Woman #7. I’ll get into the stickier parts of the Drew family continuity in my summary for next issue…
On Continuity
As stated in past summaries of this series, a number of elements presented in this story contradict previously established continuity. I'm of the opinion that the events of the first issue are false memories that were implanted in Jessica’s mind by Hydra as there is a wealth of evidence to support this idea.
Part of this story is adapted from Marvel Spotlight #32 and expands on that story and other segments of Spider-Woman’s lore with actually very few problems.
One issue is that SHIELD shows her intelligence taken from SHIELD that outlines Jessica’s past and the origin of her powers. These details match what was told in the first issue. One could assume that the information SHIELD obtained was actually the false information Hydra create to fabricate Jessica’s false past in their attempts to make her loyal to them. This works, particularly when Fury tells Jessica that her parents are still alive, particularly when the first 7 issues of Spider-Woman volume 1 are spent searching for her father.
The rest of this story can later be used to fill the gaps between when Jessica Drew relocated from London to Los Angeles, and then later to San Francisco to become a private investigator. We’ll get into some of the stickier issues about Jonathan and Miriam Drew still being alive when we take a closer look at next issue.
Chronology
Marvel Spotlight #32 (page 1-9, panel 2) ~ Marvel Spotlight #32 (page 4, panel 4) ~ Marvel Spotlight #32 (page 9, panel 3-page 13, panel 3) ~ Spider-Woman #37 (page 4, panel 5) ~ Marvel Spotlight #32 (page 13, panel 4-7) ~ Spider-Woman: Origin #2 (page 19-21) ~ Spider-Woman: Origin #3 (page 1-7): Arachne is sent to destroy Nick Fury. Learns the truth about Hydra. Slays Otto Vermis for manipulating her. (The intel that Nick Fury shares with Jessica Drew in Spider-Woman: Origin #3 is based on stolen Hydra files, which likely were based on the false memories they implanted in Jessica's mind rather than the truth)
Marvel Two-In-One #31 (page 3, panel 3-page 4, panel 1): Leaving the scene of the battle, Jessica was captured by Hydra again and put in suspended animation once more.
Marvel Two-In-One #29: Now called Spider-Woman, Hydra brings her suspended body to England where they hope to create an army of Spider-Women.
Marvel Two-In-One #30: Spider-Woman is brainwashed into being a loyal Hydra agent again. She is sent to kidnap Alicia Masters to be a test subject as payback for the Thing interfering in Hydra's operations.
Marvel Two-In-One #31: Spider-Woman is freed from mental control in battle with the Thing. The pair work together to free Alicia only to discover that she had been mutated into a spider monster.
Marvel Two-In-One #32: With the further aid of the Invisible Girl, the Thing and Spider-Woman stop Hydra, free Alicia and restore her to normal.
Marvel Two-In-One #33: Spider-Woman and the Thing are drawn to Stonehenge where the elementals are freed. Modred the Mystic assists them in defeating the creatures. Modred takes Spider-Woman as a desciple, offering to reveal the truth of her past.
Spider-Woman #1 (page 6, panel 2-3): Modred the Mystic uses a spell to unlock memories of Jessica's past.
Spider-Woman #1: Spider-Woman's first encounter with Jerry Hunt.
Spider-Woman: Origin #3 (page 8-21): Jared and Task Master come after Jessica in London. She defeats them. Crashes a jet carrying Jared into the home of General Wyndham.
Spider-Woman #2: Spider-Woman battles Excalibur, joins forces the Magnus
Spider-Woman #3-20: Spider-Woman operates in Los Angeles trying to learn what happend to her father. She is convinced that her father is dead.
Spider-Woman: Origin #3 (page 22-24): Jessica relocates to San Francisco and goes to school. She is tracked down by Nick Fury, who tells her that her parents are still alive.
