Spider-Woman (vol. 5) #5
Spider-Woman is riding through the city on her motorcycle reflecting on her decision to quit the Avengers. She has made this decision because she wants to have some normalcy in her life.[1] That’s when she hears a woman crying for help and swings into action. She finds the woman in an alley being terrorized by a massive mugger. She gets between the pair and, introducing herself to the would-be victim, easily trounces the massive crook.[2]
She realizes too late that this is actually an NYPD SWAT exercise to teach officers how to handle a super-villain situation. Jessica apologizes for messing up their training session, explaining that she didn’t get the usual Avengers alert because she has been out of the loot recently.[3] She then asks if there is anything she can do to make up for this.
Jessica finds herself locked up at the local police precinct playing charades with the other prisoners until someone pays her bail. This person turns out to be Ben Urich, a reporter for the Daily Bugle. In reality, Jessica was never booked because the police would never be able to let the charges stick. Instead, they stuck her in a jail cell to embarrass her by posting the pictures on the internet, hence how Urich knew she was locked up. As Jessica collects her personal belongings, Ben asks if they could talk. She tells him he can talk, she feels like smashing something.
They go back to the office that Jessica used to run her private investigation firm out of. There she starts smashing the walls as Ben tries to tell her about his idea for a story. She explains that she is not a super-hero anymore, and she never even bothered getting her investigation firm up and running when she returned to New York. She is going to live here and wants to do some renovations. As she continues putting holes in the wall she explains that all she wants to do now is help normal people. This is what Ben wants to talk about, as he points out that her recent attempts to “help” people hasn’t gone very well so far. He cites when she broke the shop window of a jewelry store when she thought a former super-villain — hired as a security guard — was trying to rob the place. She then broke a stuntman’s leg pulling him out of a burning car. More recently, she damaged two subway trains trying to catch a purse snatcher. He concludes by saying that Jessica is rusty doing solo super-hero work and suggests that he tag along and help.
Although Jessica isn’t interested at first, she agrees to follow Ben to the Daily Bugle and look at a file he’s been compiling because he is offering her a free lunch. She is surprised when Ben pulls a physical file out of his cabinet. It contains reports of missing people: Haley Davis and her two sons, Rebecca Clyde, and Carla Townley among others. Jessica wonders what makes these missing persons so important. That’s when Urich reveals that the father of Haley’s two sons is Brendan Doyle, aka the Mauler. Rebecca Clyde on the other hand was once married to Señor Suerte. Lastly, Townley was the longtime girlfriend of Big Wheel. Ben says that family members of super-villains are going missing and nobody cares.[4] However, when Ben tells her that he hasn’t gone to the police, Jessica has heard enough. As she leaves his office she suggests that maybe these women don’t want to be found because of their past involvement with super-criminals. She is so disinterested in Ben’s story, that she even forgoes the offer of a free lunch.
As she rides her motorcycle home, Jessica curses Ben Urich for trying to rope her into his story. That’s when she comes across the Porcupine trying to rob a bank. Chasing after the villain, Spider-Woman leaps off her motorcycle and blasts him with one of her venom blasts. The blast knocks off the Procupine’s mask and sends him crashing to the ground. He pleads with Jessica to let her get away otherwise someone is going to kill his daughter. Seeing her foe in tears, Jessica decides to investigate this further. She drags the Porcupine to the Daily Bugle and leaves him handcuffed outside while she breaks in and looks at Ben Urich’s file again. Sure enough, her hunch was right and it turns out that the Porcupine, aka Roger Gocking, has a wife and daughter who are also among the missing.
She curses Ben Urich for being right and leaves with the Porcupine on the back of her motorcycle. She figures she’ll tell Ben Urich eventually. However, when Urich returns to his office and looks out the window he sees her driving away. Deducing that he got through to her puts a huge smile on Ben Urich’s face.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Woman, Porcupine, Ben Urich
Continuity Notes
Spider-Woman briefly mentions how her parents injected her with “spider-juice” and was a Hydra agent before becoming a SHIELD operative. There is a lot of pretty confusing continuity mentioned here:
Jessica Drew’s origins are mired in conflicting accounts. At the end of the day, she was given spider-powers by her parents maybe with the help of the High Evolutionary. See Spider-Woman #1, or Spider-Woman: Origin #1-5. Marvel has yet to clear up the conflicting stories.
As revealed in both Spider-Woman: Origin #1-5 and Marvel Spotlight #32, Spider-Woman was coerced into joining Hydra until Nick Fury convinced her to break free from them.
As revealed in New Avengers #42, Jessica joined SHIELD during a period she was powerless until New Avengers #1.
During her fight with the mugger Jessica also mentions a few relatively recent events in her life:
She refers to having been involved in a “multiversal spider-orgy”. This is a reference to the Spider-Verse event which took place primarily in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 3) #9-15. Jessica’s particular role in that event was documented in Spider-Woman (vol. 5) #1-4.
She also mentions being replaced by a Skrull. This was part of a Skrull invasion of Earth. Jessica was replaced circa Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1. See Secret Invasion #1-8.
She also mentions that she was “Shame Googling” Spider-Woman butt. This is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the outrage online over a variant cover to Spider-Woman (vol. 5) #1 by artist Milo Manara due to its heavy focus on Spider-Woman’s butt.
Captain America is referred to as an old man here. This is because, at the time of this story, Cap had lost his super-soldier serum causing him to rapidly age in Captain America (vol. 7) #22.
Ben mentions a recent clash between Daredevil and Leap Frog and that the villain has been in a coma ever since. He’s most likely referring to the Leap Frog that Daredevil fought in Daredevil (vol. 4) #5.
