Talents

Acrobatics, Martial Arts A B D, Detective, Law Enforcement

Contacts

Wolverine, Lindsay McCabe, X-Men, Martha Franklin/SpiderwomanIII, SHIELD

History

Jessica Drew was the daughter of American arthropologist Jonathan Drew and his British wife Meriem. When Jessica was still under two years of age, her parents moved to the small Balkan nation of Transia. Her father and his colleague, geneticist Herbert Edgar Wyndham, had purchased a parcel of land on Wundagore Mountain within the Transian borders, and intended to build a small scientific research center there. After discovering uranium on the property, the two scientists became wealthy and poured their riches into the building of a citadel of science. Coinciding with the completion of the Wundagore citadel five years later, Jessica Drew became deathly ill due to her exposure to the radioactive uranium. To save her life, her father injected Jessica with an experimental serum composed of irradiated spider's blood, since his experiments showed that spiders possessed greater immunity to radiation than did human beings. Jessica did not immediately respond to the treatment, however, and Wyndham placed her in a genetic accelerator of his own design for further treatment. Meriem Drew, distraught that her daughter was now a "guinea pig" for her husband and friend, died several days later. Jonathan, in turn, became so despondent that he left Wundagore for his home in England. Jessica was raised at Wundagore and continually subjected to the genetic accelerator, effectively making her half-human, half-spider.

Jessica was led to believe that she was actually one of the genetically accelerated animals of the High Evolutionary, but as the other demi-humans shunned her, Jessica left to wander the world, but was captured by the terrorist group HYDRA, and she became an agent, given the title and costume of Arachne. When she was sent to kill Nick Fury, head of the espionage agency SHIELD, she rebelled and quit. However, she was captured and brainwashed by HYDRA again. When the hero, the Thing, and his girlfriend Alicia Masters were visiting Stonehenge, HYRDA ordered Jessica to kill him. The hero was actually attacked by a group of elementals created long ago by Merlin to capture Modred the Mystic, and Jessica, now as Spider-Woman, ended up aiding the Thing and Modred in defeating the elementals. Modred could sense that Jessica's memories had been tampered with and he told her she was indeed human, letting her remember her true origin.

She soon battled the villain Excaliber and afterwards encountered Magnus the Magician, who promised to help Jessica. She moved to Los Angeles with Magnus in order to continue her search for her father there. During the course of her investigation, she battled many supervillains and was chased by a SHIELD agent Jerry Hunt. Ultimately, she learned that her father died after being conscripted by a paramilitary terrorist organization using the front of a scientific corporation, Pyrotechnics. She and Hunt began a romantic relationship, and Magnus began to make a life for himself, eventually leaving the couple.

Jessica tried unsuccessfully to hold down a number of jobs until she stumbled across the villain Nekra and her Cult of Kali. She defeated the mutant and learned her body produced fear-inducing pheromones, which led people to subconsciously dismiss her. As Spider-Woman, Jessica continued a full-time crime-fighting career, much to the chagrin of Hunt, who eventually left her. Later, Jessica met her namesake, Spider-Man, and began a brief partnership with criminologist Scott McDowell.

Later still, Jessica moved to San Francisco where she fought the mutants Siryn, Black Tom Cassidy and the Juggernaut along side the hero team X-Men. She became a licensed private investigator and battled for the first time Magnus' archenemy, Morgan Le Fay. During this time, she met and became fast friends with Lindsey McCabe.

On one adventure, Jessica battled the Viper and the Silver Samurai. Viper tried to convince Jessica that she was her mother, and when the power behind her latest plot was shown to be the demon Chthon, Viper betrayed Chthon rather then hurt Jessica, and the two went their separate ways. Later, Jessica would be attacked by the Viper, who believed that Jessica had brainwashed her into thinking she was her mother. With the help of Captain America, Jessica defeated the Viper, who fled.

When an insurance company hired her to investigate a rash on industrial robberies in San Francisco, she encountered the Atom Smasher and his henchmen and traced the thefts to Los Angeles. Once there she came across the Thing and Bill Foster (then, the third Giant Man) from whom the Atom Smasher and his men had stolen equipment from. The Thing didn't remember meeting her before but knew she seemed familiar. Together they tracked them down and they learned that Atom Smasher planned to use a neutron bomb to kill everyone in the city and loot it, then blackmail the nations of the world to prevent it from happening to any other city. During the fight the Thing learned that Spider-Woman was immune to the Atom Smasher's radiation blasts. He informed Giant Man, who was dying of radiation poisoning. She donated in a massive blood transfusion to save Giant Man's life, even though the doctor's told her she no longer would possess her immunity to radiation by doing so.

Jessica was then contacted again by Magnus, who convinced her to travel in astral form with him to sixth-century England to free souls from the clutches of Morgan Le Fay. Morgan apparently died in the ensuing battle, although her astral form survived. Morgan's astral form placed a spell on Jessica's prone body, so that Jessica's astral form could not return to it. The Avengers and Doctor Strange traveled to the astral plane to battle Morgan Le Fay and reunite Jessica's spirit with her body. They were successful, but Jessica apparently lost her powers when she returned. She gave up her Spider-Woman identity but resumed her private investigator career.

At one point, Jessica set up operations in the east-Asian city of Madripoor. She was later ensorcelled by the Black Blade to battle the X-Man Wolverine, where it was revealed that Jessica's powers may not have been permanently lost. She would then assist Wolverine on several adventures.

Later still, having somehow become trapped in a magical dimension, Jessica was rescued by Lindsey McCabe, Spider-Man, and the second Spider-Woman, Julia Carpenter.

Some time later, Jessica Drew was attacked by a costumed villain calling herself Spider-Woman, stealing Drew's (apparently fully regenerated) powers for herself. Drew joined with the second Spider-Woman, Julia Carpenter, a recently-rejuvenated Madame Web, and a new hero calling herself Spider-Woman to track down this villain, who had been stealing powers from these women as well. Ultimately, the newest Spider-Woman stole all the powers back from the villain, leaving Jessica Drew without her powers yet again.

Drew remained in New York, and, alongside Madame Web, often helped the new Spider-Woman, a youth named Martha "Mattie" Franklin, in her nascent adventures. Eventually, Jessica Drew began to notice that different aspects of her superhuman powers were returning. Nevertheless, Drew remaines reluctant to return to full-time costumed adventuring.