Wear & Pieces

Spider-Woman and Jessica Drew went to Death Valley to investigate an unspecified threat based on a tip from Morris Maxwell. Now, Jessica finds herself clinging to the side of an alien ship as it heads toward an even larger craft and wonders where these beings came from and what they want.[1] Inside the smaller ship, Spider-Woman finds herself surrounded by alien creatures. However, when she demands answers from them the creatures all they can do is parrot what she is saying. Getting fed up, Mattie attacks the creatures prompting them to merge into a single, monstrous form. When the creature tries to attack her, Spider-Woman’s psychic spider-legs react subconsciously and emerge from her back, and fire venom blasts at the newly formed monster. The blast breaks up the monster into smaller versions of itself that then begin swarming Spider-Woman. Suddenly, the creatures stop fighting and begin reverting to their original forms as a new player enters the room. While outside the ship, with no way of getting in, Jessica leaps onto the larger ship before she is crushed when the smaller ship docks on the larger one.

Meanwhile, back in New York, Madame Web monitors his granddaughter Charlotte Witter, the evil Spider-Woman, who has finally fallen asleep after being sedated. Cassander is concerned as Charlotte’s strength has been increasing. She curses what Doctor Octopus did to her granddaughter. Worse, Cassandra feels that the power of immortality she was given by the Gathering of Five is starting to fade and fears that the same might be happening to Mattie, and that means there will be nobody around to stop Charlotte if her own powers return, making her a menace again.[2]

Back in Death Valley, Spider-Woman finds her confronted by one of the alien creatures that has made itself look similar to her. Finally, the creature starts speaking its own words, telling her in broken English that fighting is futile as it always in. This only raises more questions as to why the alien creatures are here and who is in charge of them. While Jessica is infiltrating the alien ship and continues her search for Mattie, Spider-Woman fights past the alien creature that looks like her and flees to another part of the ship. There she finds a massive facility that is creating more of the alien creatures, but that hasn’t been brought to life yet. That’s when she notices the bodies of dead aliens hanging from the roof.

By this time, Jessica runs into the alien that has taken on the form of Spider-Woman and mistakes it for the real thing until the alien creature attacks her. While Jessica battles this impostor, the real Spider-Woman is suddenly attacked by the newly created creatures as they come to life. While trying to hit them with venom blasts, Spider-Woman destroys the machine that creates them. Suddenly, the alien crafts begin to melt, prompting Spider-Woman to makes a hasty retreat, grabbing Jessica on the way out. Once they are safely outside, Spider-Woman has deduced that these alien creatures were probably going from world to world to test other alien species. Jessica figures they can ask Morris Maxwell about these aliens when they get back.

Once in New York, Mattie and Jessica check on Madame Web and are shocked to discover her passed out on the floor. More shocking is the fact that she is suddenly old again. That’s when they look up at the monitor screens and notice that Charlotte Witter has managed to escape.

This story is continued in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #14….

Recurring Characters

Spider-Woman (Franklin), Cluster, Madame Web, Jessica Drew, Spider-Woman (Witter)

Continuity Notes

1. Jessica mentions how she is starting to get her powers back. Drew lost her Spider-Woman powers after they were stolen by Charlotte Witter, an evil Spider-Woman, in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #5. She started noticing her powers slowly coming back in Spider-Woman (vol. 3) #3.

2. There is a shit ton of exposition going on here. Let’s get down to brass tacks:

   • There’s another reference to the Gathering of Five. Sensational Spider-Man #32-33, Amazing Spider-Man #440, Spider-Man #96, Spectacular Spider-Man #262.

   • Mention is made of how Doctor Octopus was responsible for Witter’s transformation into a Spider-Woman. The details were explored in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #6.

   • Mattie and the other Spider-Women battled Charlotte in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #5-6 and Spider-Woman (vol. 3) #1-2 ending with Mattie absorbing all of Witter’s powers, stolen or otherwise.