Spider-Woman: Origin #4
Nick Fury has just dropped a bombshell on Jessica Drew by telling her that her parents are still alive. Grabbing Fury by the throat, she demands to know where her parents are. That’s when a number of undercover SHIELD agents draw their weapons and order Jessica to let Nick go. When she stops choking Fury, he orders his troops to stand down and says they are pulling out. He once again offers Jessica a job with SHIELD, telling her that while he doesn’t know exactly where her parents are, he is offering her the resources of his agency to find them. When she asks why she should think SHIELD is any different than Hydra. Fury points out that he isn’t trying to manipulate her and coming straight with her. He assures her that there is no use lying to her because they both have the same goals — the utter destruction of Hydra — and that this is what her powers were made for.
She decides to take up Nick Fury on his offer and when she arrives at a meeting aboard the SHIELD helicarrier she does so in her Spider-Woman costume. When Fury says that it is against regulations, she responds by telling him that she’ll tell Captain America the bad news.[1] Fury ignores this and gets down to business pulling up what information SHIELD has on Jessica’s parents.[2] According to their intel, Jessica’s parents split up after their time at Wundagore Mountain. Her father continued to receive payment from Hydra and he continued to work with them on formula decoding, but they lost track of him as he wasn’t working on anything of interest because they were unaware of the existence of Jessica at the time.[3] As for Jessica’s mother, they had determined that she cashed out of her involvement with Hydra and went underground and remained there until they found trace of her two days ago. He tells Jessica that her mother turned up using her maiden name to rent a room in New York City. When asked if she wants SHIELD scouts to go and check it out, Jessica insists ongoing to find out for herself. Fury allows this but reminds Jessica that her mother has been undercover for nearly 20 years and they don’t know what to expect but not to expect it to be any good. Fury will allow her to have a reunion with her mother under the condition that everything Jessica learns goes right back to Fury.
When Jessica arrives at the place where her mother is renting a room, Jessica finds the front desk deserted but manages to find her mother’s room number from the guest book. When she knocks at the door she is surprised to see a Hydra agent answers it. Startled she takes him down with a jolt of her venom sting. That’s when the other occupant in the room, an assassin by the name of Whiplash wraps his whip around her neck. He is upset to have to kill her since he won’t get paid for it but resigns to this being part of the job. However, before he gets the chance to kill her, Jessica sends another venom blast up his whip, sending Whiplash flying. Deciding that this is too much for him to deal with, the villain decides to flee the scene, allowing Jessica to look around unimpeded. The search for her mother ends tragically when she finds the her dead on her rented bed. Jessica rushes to the bathroom to throw up, horrified by the sight. After composing herself, Jessica look around the room to find clues as to what her mother was doing in New York City. Among her mother’s personal effects she finds notes on something called the Athena Device. Reading over the notes makes Jessica start crying all over again. Later, Nick Fury is told that Jessica Drew disappeared again and the situation at the hotel where her mother’s body was found. The chatter among Hydra before everything went silent mention the Athena project as well as the name, Otto Vermis. Fury knows all about Vermis and orders his people to get a location on him.[4]
Sometime later, on the Mediterranean Sea, Jessica has managed to trick Otto Vermis into inviting her onto his ship. However, a few days later, Whiplash and some other Hydra agents arrive to inform him that she is actually Spider-Woman. When it becomes clear that she can’t talk her way out of trouble, Jessica leaps off the boat before they can kill her. The Hydra agents begin spraying the water with bullets, which mostly hit a shark swimming up to feats on Jessica. The blood from the shark leaves them to believe they killed the spy, but Jessica proves that she survived by stealing the yacht’s speed boat after rigging the ship to explode. With the information, she got from Vermis, Spider-Woman soon arrives at a sea platform operated by Hydra. As she sneaks onto the structure she overhears that agents talk about how Madame Hydra is due to arrive at the facility. When one soldier goes to tell Jonathan Drew that Madame Hydra wants an update on the Athena Project he is knocked out after giving his message. Spider-Woman then enters the lab where she comes face-to-face with the man she believes is her father.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Woman, Hydra (Otto Vermis, Whiplash) SHIELD (Nick Fury, Sharon Carter), “Miriam Drew”, Jonathan Drew (?)
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.
Captain America has had a working relationship with SHIELD since given A-1 status in Tales of Suspense #78. Whereas most SHIELD agents are required to wear an agency uniform, Captain America has not had to due to his legendary status.
Other stories, particularly New Mutants Annual #3 and Spider-Woman #7 reveal that Miriam and Jonathan Drew are already dead at this point. Miriam was allegedly killed by a werewolf back in the 1930s while Jonathan was allegedly murdered by an organization called Pyrotechnics. Short of any official explanation, I believe that the Jonathan and Miriam Drew that appear in this story and next issue are impostors. I explain why in more detail below. I also suppose that SHIELD’s intel is based on the false history that I believe Hydra has created for Jessica in order to indoctrinate her into their cause.
SHIELD intel states that Jonathan Drew returned to London before they stopped tracking him. This tracks with Jessica’s own investigation into her father in Spider-Woman #1-2. She later learned her father relocated to Los Angeles, taking her to the events of Spider-Woman #7 and the news that her father was seemingly murdered by Pyrotechnic.
Although it’s not clearly established here, particularly why the notes on Athena upset Jessica or how Fury knows who Otto Vermis is, one needs to look no further than Marvel Spotlight #32 which identifies Vermis as a Hydra operative. He was one of Jessica’s early handlers and the one who recruited her into Hydra. Fury’s involvement with Vermis dates back to 1964 according to Original Sins #5. Anyway, I explain how Vermis survived his alleged death in Spotlight #32 below. His past experience with Jessica Drew would also explain how he is so easily able to see through her disguise in this story.
On Continuity
As I’ve stated in previous entries for this series, I believe the events of the first issue were implanted memories created by Hydra to make Jessica Drew more easily indoctrinated into Hydra. This is the only way to make this story work without ignoring previously established continuity that is also tied into the continuity of a number of important Marvel characters (for more on this, see my summary of Spider-Woman: Origin #1)
As far as the chronology, I believe the events of this issue and the next take place between Spider-Woman #20 and 21. In issue #20, Spider-Woman was operating in Los Angeles and issue #21 has her suddenly living in San Francisco with a pre-established detective agency and working with a man named Scotty McDowell. Although an explanation was promised, one wasn’t given for a long time. Issue #3 of this series has Jessica Drew in San Francisco attending San Francisco State University and issue #5 ends with Jessica being given a private detectives license by Nick Fury. With that said, this is the only logical place for these issues to take place.
However, that creates problems of its own: Namely, by this point, Jessica has been led to believe that her parents are dead. This story also features Otto Vermis alive and well even though he seemingly perished by Spider-Woman’s hands in Marvel Spotlight #32. So here are my best guesses as to how this could work with pre-established continuity.
In the case of Miriam Drew: It was established in Silver Surfer Annual #1 that Jessica Drew’s mother (her name spelled Meriam) died at the hands of a werewolf while she and Jonathan were still working on Wundagore Mountain with Herbery Wyndham, the man who would later become the High Evolutionary. While in this story it’s stated that her mother (named spelled Miriam) was alive and well and is later found murdered by Whiplash. How do you explain this? Well, as I’ve said in my summary of the first issue, it’s my belief that the events of Spider-Woman: Origins #1 are implanted memories that borrow from the actual facts about Jessica Drew’s life. For example, “General Wyndham” was likely based on the High Evolutionary, her nanny was named Bova a human woman based on the cow-woman that actually raised her, and so on. I think the woman who is identified as Miriam Drew is a Hydra agent that took on a false identity (like General Wyndham) and not Jessica’s biological mother, hence the different spellings of their names. They were able to learn the name of Jessica’s mother but not how it was spelled hence the differences. She was likely going to be used as a means of further manipulating Jessica had she remained with Hydra. Since Jessica defected, Hydra had no use for her and hired Whiplash to eliminate her before Jessica could discover the truth. Supporting this idea is the recent revelation in Spider-Woman (vol. 7) #3, however, at the time of this writing (August 24, 2020) it has yet to be seen how this is going to play out. I will revisit these entires once that story arc is resolved and everything is explained. Right now all we have to go on is face value and that just doesn’t cut it for me.
On Otto Vermis: He could have easily survived the plane crash that seemingly killed him in Marvel Spotlight #32. Villains have survived much worse in the past (Just look how many times Doctor Doom and the Red Skull have cheated death without any superpowers!) In the original story, Jessica crashes the plane but doesn’t bother to check the wreckage. I think it’s easier to assume that Vermis survived as that makes more sense than just ignoring that the events of Spotlight #32 never happened (as fans tend to do because it’s easier than a No Prize-worthy explanation like the one I’ve been giving here)
Lastly, we have Jonathan Drew, who I can’t decide if he’s the real Jonathan Drew or an impostor like Miriam Drew. It’s possible that Jonathan Drew survived all this time. First of all, even though he was alive in the 1920s and 30s, his past is linked with the High Evolutionary who developed techniques to prolonged his life. There is no reason not to think that Drew also gained access to such technology explaining how he managed to survive well into the Modern Age, as Jessica Drew was able to track him from England to Los Angeles in the first few issues of Spider-Woman volume one. In issue #7 of that series, Jessica discovers that her father was murdered by a company called Pyrotechnics whom he worked for. In that story, Prytechnics was attempting to trigger a nuclear war and use her father’s spider-serum to create an army of soldiers immune to radiation like she was. When Drew refused to follow along they murdered him. If the man who appears in this story is the Jonathan Drew then one could assume that Pyrotechnics was a Hydra front and they faked his death so he could work on replicating the process that created Jessica’s powers. Alternatively, this man could be another imposter pretending to be Jonathan Drew
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.
