Spider-Woman: Origin #5
Madame Hydra arrives at a sea platform operated by her organization to check on things. General Wyndham — who had survived a previous attempt on his life by Spider-Woman — demands to know why she has come. She explains that one of their operatives, Otto Vermis, was seemingly killed earlier that day and she wanted to ensure that Jessica Drew does not interfere with Project Athena.
At that same moment, elsewhere in the facility, Spider-Woman is face to face with the man she thinks is Jonathan Drew. She pulls off her mask and after calling him daddy, Jonathan realizes that this is his actual daughter.[1] This brings Jessica to tears but any warmth from her father quickly ends as he begins asking her a series of questions about her health. She tells Jonathan to forget about that because she has come to rescue him. When he asks who she has come to save him from, she tells him that she came to rescue him from Hydra. He is confused by this, telling his daughter that he is Hydra. She hoped that he was being held against her will, but she discovers that he is willingly helping Hydra create an army of Spider-Woman as part of their Project Athena. When she tells him that her mother is dead, Jonathan is hardly surprised, knowing that it would happen sooner or later.[2]
Jessica puts her mask back on and is prepared to attack her father. However, when he turns around she suddenly sees him as a werewolf and begins to cower away in fear, telling him to get away from her.[3] Jessica’s mind is flooded with conflicting images. She sees images of her childhood nanny Bova as both a human and a cow-woman.[4] She sees image of Mentallo, the Hydra telepath who probed her mind.[5] She also sees the High Evolutionary, the Taskmaster, as well as imaged of her romance with Jared Kurtz. The whole time she hears her father’s voice telling her to calm down, saying that Hydra had done things to her mind as a failsafe in order to make sure they could control her and asks her what she is experiencing. When she asks if Hydra made it so she couldn’t fight back against them, he reminds her that she was treated by Mentallo, Hydra’s telepath. Realizing that her father allowed all this to happen anger Jessica even more and she walks out of her father’s lab, telling him that she will be right back.
Moments later, as Hydra agents in the fuel depot try to look their best for Madame Hydra, Spider-Woman enters the room and uses her venom blasts to set off explosions that rock the entire facility. Watching Spider-Woman attacking her troops, Madame Hydra wonders what to do. General Wyndham tells her that they need to wake up the recipients of Project Athena. After Jessica finishes fighting off the Hydra agents she is soon greeted by an army of women all wearing costumes similar to hers. They all wonder if she is the original Spider-Woman, telling Jessica that her father spoke of her all the time. They hope that Jessica won’t fight them, but when she refuses to surrender they attack. As Spider-Woman is busy fighting her apparent successors, Madame Hydra goes down to Jonathan Drew’s lab and tells him to get moving. Ashamed by what he has done, Jonathan refuses to go with her. Madame Hydra says he isn’t special and as she shoots him dead, she recites the Hydra maxim, saying two more will grow in his place. Back on deck, Spider-Woman continues to fight prompting one of the Project Athena recipients to ask her why she still fights as she won’t win. Jessica explains that she isn’t trying to win, she’s trying to keep them in one spot. Moments later, the entire oil rig explodes. The lone survivor is apparently Jessica Drew who begs to be left alone as a SHIELD helicarrier arrives on the scene.
Days Later….
Jessica Drew is looking over San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge when she is once again approached by Nick Fury. He has come to tell her that she did the best she could given the circumstances. She remarks on how she was ready to let herself die after the rig exploded. However, since she is still alive she tells Fury that she doesn’t want to be a SHIELD agent. Fury tells her that’s fine, telling him that the position is open to her if and when she ever wants it.[6] She has decided to stay on the west coast because all the other superheroes live in New York. She then hands Fury a business card for her new detective agency, telling him that if he ever needs her services to give her a call, telling him that she won’t say no. When he tells her she just did, Jessica tells him to cut her some slack as she is just getting started.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Woman, Hydra (“General Wyndham”, Madame Hydra, Jonathan Drew (?)), SHIELD (Nick Fury)
Continuity Notes
According to Spider-Woman #7, Jonathan Drew is dead. How he could be here is unexplained. I believe either Jonathan faked his death or this is an impostor. The explanations are provided below.
Jessica discovered a woman who appeared to be her mother dead in a hotel room last issue. However, this contradicts New Mutants Annual #3 which states that Meriam Drew was murdered by a werewolf in the 1930s, and this doesn’t even explain whatever is going on currently in Spider-Woman (vol. 7) #3. I think the woman that Jessica found last issue was an impostor, see below for details.
This is a reference to how the Russoff family of werewolves are tied Jessica Drew’s true origins (see Punisher Annual #1, Silver Surfer Annual #1, New Mutants Annual #3, Fantastic Four Annual #21, and Web of Spider-Man Annual #3)
Bova was a member of the New Men, first appearing in Giant-Size Avengers #1. She has been depicted as caretaker of the various children who lived at the High Evolutionary’s citadel of science over the years, including Jessica Drew.
That happened in Spider-Woman: Origin #2, and this who sequence of events really sells my theory that the events of issue #1 were false memories implanted by Hydra.
Jessica doesn’t take Fury up on her offer, but Veranke the Skrull who takes her place in Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1 certainly does.
On Continuity
There are a lot of issues with this story that are at odds with continuity. If you’ve been following along, I’ve provided explanations for these differences. For more detail take a look at the past issues for this series that I’ve summarized. In a nutshell, the conflicting details regarding Jessica Drew’s past are, in my opinion, implanted memories created by Hydra to make her loyal to them. Hence why she keeps seeing flashes of memory about the Rossoff werewolf, Bova, and the High Evolutionary. It’s also implied that Mentallo had a part in these implanted memories.
My presumptions is that General Wyndham is a false identity given to a Hydra agent because Jessica’s memory implants were based on real people she knew. Wyndham’s name was chosen because it was one she trusted given her actual past with the High Evolutionary.
That said, past stories — notably Spider-Woman #7 — have stated that Jonathan Drew was murdered by an organization called Pyrotechnics a number of years prior to Jessica becoming Spider-Woman. My suspicion is either Jonathan Drew faked his death or this is another impostor that assumed his identity. Which is not too outlandish if her memories of the past were fabricated by Hydra.
Lastly, Jessica mentions that she just recently found her mother only to discover that she was dead. I’ve posited in more detail the last issue why I think that she actually found an impostor, click back to that summary for my opinions on that. But basically, the possibility that the woman she found was an impostor is probably based on two stories, New Mutants Annual #3 which shows Meriam Drew getting murdered by a werewolf, while more recently Spider-Woman (vol. 7) #3 ended with a woman claiming to be Jessica’s mother revealing that she was still alive. However, as I write this (August 2020) that story is still ongoing, so the jury is still out on if it’s really her or not.
Chronology
Spider-Woman: Origin #4-5: Spider-Woman searches for her parents, uncovers a Hydra plot to create an army of Spider-Women, foils this scheme. Nick Fury then helps Jessica start her own private investigation agency.
Spider-Woman #21: Spider-Woman founds her agency with the help of Scotty McDowell.
