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forensicated · 5 months ago

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03x04 - Missing Presumed Dead

TW: Sexual assault

Uniform perform door-to-door on an estate in the pouring rain after gunshots were fired. AMIP (Area Major Investigation Pool) are involved but Roy doesn't see why as all they have is 2 bullets in a wall and some blood but not a body. The AMIP officer thinks it's gang warfare and that CID are hiding something from him. Roy promises to keep him informed if anything arises and, the AMIP officer agrees to leave it to Sun Hill - for now.

The residents all have the same story - no one heard or saw anything. Even those who overlook the exact area where the shooting happened claim to have seen nothing. There is no evidence that links anyone to either being the victim or any suspect. Forensics are trying to get what they can but the driving rain makes it very difficult. Forensics tell Roy that preliminary evidence suggests the shot came from a slow-moving vehicle 'somewhere over there' and he guesses 3 people were involved.

Filling up with petrol, Bob hears a call that a dark Ford Cortina was seen driving away. It's an anonymous tip-off that may or may not be linked, there's no evidence either way. He hears tires squeal as a dark car drives by him so he follows it. Bob calls for assistance to help him and the patrol cars speed off the estate but reports that he lost the car soon after. In the dark Bob ends up hitting a pedestrian in dark clothing who was out walking her dog and who came out of nowhere.

Forensics think the man who was shot was dragged into the car. A woman on the estate invites the officers inside. Yorkie runs over to Roy to tell him they think they have a witness. Ted doesn't understand why they'd take the body of whoever they shot. Roy suggests they'd have an idea of who did it if they knew the victim. A journalist asks Roy for some info. If he runs a freephone number in the paper for people to call with information, Roy will give him an unofficial exclusive interview the next day. When Ted says he wouldn't trust the press as far as he could chuck them, Roy says that with a potential gangland murder on their patch, they have to take what help they can get.

Bob helps the old lady who is slumped in the middle of the road. Her dog is ok and walks off. Mike reports the accident to Roy and that uniform have stopped the dark car and found it was two youths on their way to a party and they are not linked to the shooting.

During the door-to-door, Nick and Taffy find a flat housing exotic animals, including an owl flying free. The resident has been 'borrowing' them from an exotic wildlife park and other places. In the bath there's a crocodile and her baby!

Jim gets a cafe to open so he can ask the owner questions about the shooting. The owner tells him he's lived in the area for 50 years and that it's steadily getting worse. "It was never like this when the twins were about!". Jim describes the man and the peaked cap in the description rings a bell with the owner. "He was very tanned, looked like he'd just come back off his holidays." He was about 40, 6ft 2 or 3 and he had 2 sausage sandwiches and savored them like he hadn't had them for a long time. He looked like he was waiting for someone.

Reg checks local hospitals for reports of anyone with gunshot wounds. They've not had anyone arrive or dumped outside so Alec asks him to try hospitals further away.

Brian arrives at the scene of Bob's accident and is antagonistic from the start. Bob calmly tells him he was traveling at 30mph because visibility was bad and the woman appeared from nowhere. Roy arrives and tells Dashers to stay in the car because 'somethings are not for your ears'. Brian says there are complications and snaps that he wants to know if Bob was in pursuit of the other vehicle or not. "It's a simple enough answer!" Roy shouts at Brian to leave it out and he tells him to shut up because it's nothing to do with him. "Of course it's something to do with me when one of my colleagues is in trouble!" Brian tells him to go and focus on his shooting and Roy snaps back that when the shout goes up everyone piles in to help because they're a team. CAD asks Mike to inform Roy that Ted is on his way back with a witness. "One of these days I'll have you, Kite," Roy growls, adding "Look after yourself, Bob." With Roy walking off, Kite warns Bob; "This brings disrepute on the force through dangerous or careless driving on your part. You won't find me as sympathetic as your colleague! I'll take you all the way!" There's no 'if' in there. He clearly thinks Bob was being careless and is to blame. There is nothing to like in this man!

Roy asks Alec if there's anything he should know and Alec tells him that the Chief Inspector of Area Traffic is going to investigate Bob's accident.

Bob has hold of the letters the pedestrian was out to post and says he better post them for her. The Chief Inspector tells him she's a widow with seemingly no other family and has to suspend Bob from driving police vehicles. Bob is desperate to get to the hospital to see how the victim is but the CI wants to talk to him first. He explains that Brian alleges Bob was in pursuit after calling for backup to assist. Panda's are not pursuit vehicles and if that is correct, despite Bob's protestations, that could be it for him.

At the station, the witness from the estate is taken to speak to Roy. Her boyfriend, Eric [A guest starring Andrew Paul who later returns in series 5 to become Dave Quinnan] doesn't want her to speak to the police because they have to continue living on the estate.

She tells Roy that her boyfriend was putting the kettle on for a cup of tea. She looked out the living room window and saw a Cortina pull up outside. The man on the pavement went towards the car and then suddenly he fell down with his hand on his chest. She pulled away from the window because she was scared and called for Eric. Eric looked outside and there was nothing there. When she looked out beside him seconds later it was empty like nothing had happened.

At the hospital, a nurse tells Bob that the elderly woman went in for an emergency operation but asks him to speak to reception for more. Bob stands outside the operating theatre, waiting for more information about the victim. She's eventually wheeled out but is clearly very poorly.

Roy has a funny feeling that something is being hidden in the shooting case and requests Alec to call everyone in for a briefing. A large number of officers are dealing with the animals found in the flat so uniform help is a little limited at the moment. Jim reports that a cafe owner, reported a man in the checkered cap that was found at the scene was in the cafe earlier and he's got a good description.

The

RSPCA Inspector tells Tom that the animals have been well looked after and have been stolen from pet shops and wildlife parks all over the city. "It's quite easy to do if you put your mind to it."

At the station briefing, Viv is filling in for missing uniform officers (aka: spotted a chance for overtime) despite not being on the original investigation. Forensics think that with the amount of blood at the scene there's very little chance the victim is still alive. The Royal Free is the only hospital that had a gunshot wound victim but it's nothing to do with their inquiry. June asks for news on Bob and Roy tells her he's still at the hospital as far as he's aware. There's a partial fingerprint in blood of the victim on the pavement but it's unlikely to be able to identify anyone given the location of the print. Roy asks Jim, Ted and Dashers to discreetly inquire at local pubs to see if the landlords have heard anything or recognise any descriptions. He reminds Ted it's work and not a pub crawl excuse.

June heads over to the hospital to support Bob. He wants her to take his statement sooner rather than later and wants to hang around to know how the old lady is. The nurse doesn't seem overly optimistic and suggests Bob go home. June tells him the statement can wait till tomorrow and also tells him to go home. She says she'll come and see how the lady is in the morning and ring him to tell him but Bob insists he's staying until midnight and will fill out his statement whilst he's there and that June should go home.

Ted asks three late-night stragglers to leave a pub after closing hours when the landlord reports that they won't leave during his attempt at asking questions about the shooting. They don't take overly kindly to it and assault him, forcing him face-first onto the pool table.

Bob is confronted by the nephew of the lady he knocked down. He shouts at Bob that he's slack and tries to get the nurse to throw him out. Bob gathers his hat and statement and leaves.

Ted refuses an ambulance or the police, he just asks the landlord to take him to hospital. "And if you mention this to anybody I'll bring the world down on your ears." Sadly from how Ted was forced over, the sheer amount of blood on the back of his trousers and his inability to sit down, it appears that Ted might have been brutally sexually assaulted with a pool cue or bottle. He books in under a false name 'Mr Jones' and slips over onto his backside when the chair he leans on moves, shouting out in pain.

Bob returns to the hospital the next morning to find that the lady had passed away in the middle of the night.

Roy and Jim are the first officers in CID the next morning with both believing Ted would have drinking each pub he called in dry. Mike is at the site of a burnt-out Ford Cortina on waste ground. The plates were removed before it was gutted and forensics are unlikely to be gathered.

The clothing van has arrived at Sun Hill to allow those who need it to obtain new items of uniform. Yorkie is struggling to find a pair of trousers that will fit him. "You must have lost weight." "You have been doing the post-natal exercises haven't you!?" Taffy teases him.

Ted slowly makes it into the office with a blow-up ring to sit on, telling Mike and Roy that his 'farmers' [piles] are playing up. The way Dashers asks if he's alright is so gentle. He is about to slowly lower himself onto his seat when Roy takes his arm and asks him if he wants to go home instead. He even passes Ted the inflatable ring so he doesn't have to bend down to pick it up.

Our little CID family are adorable! ❤

Jim searches through the cafe's rubbish for the paper discarded by their victim. The owner comes out clutching it and hands it over. Jim updates Roy who arranges for him to be collected to take the paper to SO3 (forensics) and for Mike to sort a photofit line up.

The two estate residents return to CID for Roy to tell him they've remembered something. Just before the victim was shot someone was walking away from him. She didn't see them talking but it was obvious that they had been. She couldn't see his face clearly but he was middle-aged with white hair. Mike arranges for a man to sit with her and build a photofit of the suspect.

June attends the hospital and sees the bed of the RTA victim is now empty and is told she has passed. She returns to her car and spots Bob walking aimlessly nearby.

Ted sits outside the pub he was attacked in, waiting for his attackers to return. Beside him on the passenger seat is a crowbar...

The Chief Inspector from Traffic attends Sun Hill to tell Brian that the victim has passed away. He has gathered enough evidence from the scene and witnesses to prove Bob was not driving carelessly or dangerously. Brian mutters that it's a good job for Bob and the Chief Inspector doesn't buy a word of it. He points out it was Brian who alleged that Bob was driving poorly rather than the victim or any witnesses. "My concern is for the good reputation of the force." The Chief Inspector calls his bluff, knowing he would be just as down on Bob if he'd sat back and done nothing. Brian tries to say that it looks like a whitewash to Mrs Martin's family but the Chief Inspector tells him he has spoken to her neighbour who says it isn't the first time that her dog has pulled her into the road and caused an accident.

June tells Bob not to blame himself and that it was an accident. "It's the risk you take being a policeman," she says softly. "You've told me that often enough. And you were right. If it wasn't for you, Bob Cryer, I'd have left the job ages ago." Bob wonders what kind of woman she was and that he never got to tell her he was sorry.

Reg contacts Roy to tell him that a woman has arrived at the Front Desk with information about the shooting. He arranges for her to be brought up to his office. The woman asks to see and feel the hat as she's a psychic. She brings in 'references' and assigns Tom Penny - with a smirk - to be the officer to look after her.

Ted spots the three men who attacked him coming out of the pub and he gets out with the crowbar in hand. Uniform are called to an alley to 'deal with a disturbance'. Jim takes the call before any uniform - other than the extra who is driving him to take the newspaper to be fingerprinted - can. Ted has pinned one man down and is wrestling a second away. The second runs off when he spots Jim and Ted raises the bar Jim grabs Ted from behind. Ted freaks, sending Jim flying. The man escapes and Ted turns on Jim. Jim holds his hands up with Ted coming to his senses but spitting out a warning. "Don't you ever....! I'll never forgive you for this, Carver."

Jim reports back to the station that the alley was all quiet on arrival and that he didn't see anything. Ted is in the back of the car with his eyes closed. When Jim returns, Roy asks how long it takes to take the paper to SO3 but he says he was delayed by taking Ted home. A thumbprint is found on the paper. The victim is called Brian Corrigan.

The psychic is 'feeling' her way around some wasteground with Taffy and Yorkie tasked to 'help' by digging holes to locate 'evidence'. So far all they've found is an old bike wheel.

Roy goes to speak to Corrigan's ex. Corrigan has been living in Spain where he escaped to after grassing on fellow villains. The ex genuinely believes he still is and that she and their daughter are only now starting to recover, 5 years on. Roy has to tell her that he has returned and was murdered. There's only one thing he'd return for and that is Susan, their daughter. The ex tells Roy that Gerry Noakes, Corrigan's cousin, rang and wanted to take Susan out for the day but she refused to let her go. Roy rings Sun Hill and orders the photofit to be checked against Reg's file on Noakes. If it matches - which it does - arrest him immediately.

Roy and the ex have history. She claims that if she talked she'd end up like Brian and asks what is more important to Roy, solving the crime or her life? "Just this once. For old times sake." She tilts her head. "How many times have you said that to me?"The man he should talk to is called Harry Stobbs. They lean in and are about to kiss before she pulls away and asks him to leave her alone.

Noakes was kicked out of the address Reg had on file 3 weeks previously. Thankfully the person who lives there now had a forwarding address but it's not good news. His things are there but he is not. He was seen the night before with a suitcase heading towards Heathrow.

Bob is called to see Brownlow. Brownlow knows it's been difficult for him since Kite arrived. "...He does have an abrasive manner." Charles says diplomatically. "That's what we're calling it, is it?" Charles continues that the men like and respect him, as does he, and he suggests that Bob go for Inspector. "Would we still be having this cosy little conversation if I had been found responsible for the accident?" he asks, before saying he's staying at the rank he is.

Roy goes in to see Stobbs at his office. He reminds Stobbs of when they first met - a charity dinner for the Police Dependent's Fund. They auctioned off an autographed Spurs football and he was very generous in what he paid. Stobbs asks what Roy really wants and Roy gets to the point. He thinks Stobbs got Noakes to set Corrigan up to be shot under the pretense of seeing his daughter. Stobbs claims he doesn't know Noakes. "When an East End boy makes good, there's a lot of talkative people in the shadows..." Roy warns him.

Brian Kite spots Bob in the canteen and goes to sit with him. He says how sorry he is to hear that the victim of the RTA has passed but that he has heard Bob has been cleared. Bob nods and reminds him that he tried to break him and almost succeeded. Brian is left staring at the table as Bob walks off, returning to his work as Custody Officer.

Stobbs tells Roy that he was blamed by Corrigan for 4 counts of robbery that he didn't commit and he's entitled to feel bitter about it. "You paid off a lot of people..." Roy points out. "I'm a great believer in British Justice," Stobbs says before telling him that Corrigan put away a lot of innocent people who have an axe to grind and that the world revolves on rumours. "For example... who assaulted your Detective Sergeant last night? I could probably find out..." "Don't you play the Godfather with me!" Roy growls. He is adamant that CID will have arrested Noakes by now and he'll be on the way to the nick." Stobbs simply smiles. "As you say, I'm a very busy man..." Roy warns Stobbs that he is the law in Sun Hill and walks out. As he logs back on the air, he receives a message from Dashers via CAD to tell him 'Our bird has flown via Heathrow'.

The next morning Ted returns to the station and apologises to Jim for how he spoke to him the day before, "Mum's the word, right?" He says before Bob tells him there's been another shooting at a warehouse. Mike, Jim and Ted head to the warehouse with Roy arriving soon after. The victims have all been strung up and kneecapped. Jim pointedly says he has seen them 'somewhere before' when Roy asks if they know who they are. Dashers wonders if it's the beginning of gang warfare and Roy shakes his head, "It's a message for me." he sighs, walking over to Ted. "You know who they are, don't you? Why didn't you tell me about last night?" Roy asks. Ted sighs. "I was embarrassed. If they'd done it anywhere else I wouldn't have minded but having a glass up your jacksy like that. It's humiliating." "Not half as humiliating as being told about it by a villain like Stobbs and then receiving a demonstration of who the real law is on the manner." Roy tells him, walking off and leaving Jim watching after him and Ted.

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hellomystraightlacedfriend · 5 months ago

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Of the High Evolutionary and Spider-Woman - and why I like Jessica Drew's Second Origin Story the Most

Like a lot of Marvel characters, Jessica Drew has experienced retcons and revisions to her history. In her very first appearance, 'Arachne' was told by Hydra General Vermis that she was originally a spider but was transformed by the High Evolutionary into a woman with spider-like properties. (1st Origin, found in Marvel Spotlight #32: written by Archie Goodwin, with art by Sal Buscema.)

However, this origin was immediately retconned in her very next appearance when it was revealed that Vermis told Jess this story to make her feel disconnected from the rest of humanity. Vermis and Hydra brainwashed her into believing that they were the only people who would want anything to do with her. They were her only hope for survival and acceptance. (The fact that Jess was young and very naive and her pheromones actually did have an unnerving effect on other people made this idea even easier to swallow).

In this version, Jessica Drew was the daughter of Jonathan and Merriem Drew. Jonathan was the research partner of Herbert Wyndham, who would later become the High Evolutionary. When Jess became sick from exposure to uranium as a young child, she was given a cure (made from spider blood), which gave her her powers.

This was Jessica Drew's 2nd origin story (developed largely by writers Marv Wolfman, Mark Gruenwald, Chris Claremont and their respective artists), and the one that was hard canon from the 1970s up until 2005. It's also the backstory that is still used in Marvel handbooks and was the one given in History of the Marvel Universe (2019).

In 2005, Brian Michael Bendis and Brian Reed wrote a 5-issue mini called Spider-Woman: Origin. And while I get why certain changes were made - obviously, there was an effort to simplify/streamline Jess's backstory - I just hate a lot of them. In stripping it down, many aspects of Jess's backstory that I found unique and personally fascinating were lost.

Also, some of the changes actually made things more complicated - like the decision to retcon Wyndham into just a Hydra general. Because the High Evolutionary is a key character in other characters' backstories - like Adam Warlock and the Maximoffs - this decision didn't really stick/was ignored by other writers. Because of this, Spider-Woman: Origin does not fit into the broader continuity of the Marvel Universe.

So today, I wanted to go over what I enjoyed about Spider-Woman's 2nd origin, and examine the changes that were made afterwards.

Before I proceed further, though, I do think it's only fair that I acknowledge that Bendis was responsible for really bringing back Jessica Drew as a character and making her a little less obscure. Also, there are definitely choices he made with the character that I like/find interesting, like: developing her friendship with Carol, continuing her relationships with Wolverine and Nick Fury, and getting her Spider-Woman title/costume back, among others. I even really enjoyed the whole Veranke imposter thing, which I know pissed off some fans.

That said, I still have a very visceral reaction to some of the ways Bendis handled Jessica Drew - and how some fans treat him as the end-all-be-all for the character.

So, let's go.

Part 1: The Man Who Would Be God

Okay, so the thing that probably offended me the most is how Spider-Woman: Origin turned Wynham into just a nondescript Hydra General. The reason for this is because the High Evolutionary and the Drew family actually have a very tightly wound history, and Bendis obviously wanted to stress Jess's relation with Hydra. But even though the High Evolutionary doesn't have a lot of comic book appearances (under 200 as of today) he has been quite an influential character, playing an important part in the Maximoff twins, Adam Warlock, and Spider-Woman's backstories - and also making recurring appearances in X-Men, Avengers, Thor, and even Spider-Man comics.

Also, I just like him. Like yeah, the dude's a piece of shit, but I find him interesting as a character - so that is why I am starting with him and who he is in the main Marvel Universe.

Note: While I am not going to give specific dates, this was originally supposed to take place around the 1920s - 30s. The time period isn't vitally important, though, in my opinion. It was more just that this was supposed to take place some 30+ years before the main Marvel events (like the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four forming).

Also, no, the High Evolutionary's whole "evolving" animals into more "advanced" versions of themselves isn't scientically accurate - but I like chewing on the thematic elements it creates.

So to begin, Herbert Edgar Wyndham was born in Manchester, England, into what was probably once a well-off family. However, his father’s passing (when Herbert was still young) seemed to have put financial strain on the family. Due to this, Herbert's dream of attending Oxford University to further his studies in genetics depended entirely on him getting a scholarship or sponsorship.

This didn't seem completely out of the realm of possibility - because young Herbert was something of a genius who was already pouring hours of his free time into obsessively studying the genetics of rats.

Herbert had become fixated on the idea of improving the world through accelerated evolution - and he wanted to be the one to do it. He'd even made a machine that he hoped would evolve the rats into later stages of rat evolution. Although all of his attempts so far - which had mostly been bombarding rats with radiation - had just ended with dead rats. But as much as their deaths saddened him, Herbert wasn’t one to give up.

Now Herbert was living with his mother, and she completely doted on him, so when Herbert got an invitation to attend a major genetics conference in Geneva, she was the one to go to all of their relatives to collect money, so he could go on his trip.

And this is where he bumped into a young American - Jonathan Drew, a student at Yale specializing in arthropods.

The two of them hit it off right away - Herbert seeing in Jonathan a fellow "visionary," as Jonathan Drew wanted to use the genetics of spiders to 'improve' the human race - making them less susceptible to toxins and disease.

During the convention, Herbert and Jonathan attended a lecture, where the speaker warned against the dangers of genetic tampering - saying that more theoretical research needed to be done into the long-term effects. Over dinner, an angered Herbert complained to Jonathan about this, when he suddenly felt dizzy and went out to get some air. There, he was approached by the inhuman geneticist Phaeder, who gave Herbert the genetic information he needed to perform his experiments.

(Although Phaeder didn't actually introduce himself as Phaeder, he just gave Herbert a stack of papers and then fucking left. Apparently, Phaeder gave out information like this to other human geneticists as well - like some weird fairy godmother or twisted Prometheus - but his reasons for doing so aren't relevant to this story).

Shortly after this, Herbert did end up getting into Oxford, but he blew the opportunity by spending all of his time working on a machine to turn animals into more "evolved" versions of themselves. When he couldn't even manage a demonstration on what he was working towards, he was kicked out of Oxford.

After getting kicked out, Herbert finally made a successful attempt with his machine - a machine which he had named his "genetic accelerator." He "evolved" his pet dalmatian - enhancing its intelligence to that of a chimpanzee and getting it to walk on its two back legs.

Herbert was estatic. However, the poor dog was accidentally shot by hunters, who then called it "a freak of nature." This led Herbert to believe that the only way for him to keep his "creations" safe was to keep them away from the rest of humanity.

So, he met back up with Jonathan, who had married a European woman and was now living in Europe.

Note: The nationality of Jessica's biological mother is inconsistent across sources, sometimes said to be English, sometimes French. Sometimes, she is listed as being born in Transia. Also, I guess she could have been born in Hungary, too, because of the whole Viper thing. (We'll get back to that.)

Jessica Drew's place of birth, however, is universally London, England.

Anyway, Herbert reconnected with Jonathan Drew, who now had a young daughter named Jessica. Jess seemed a pretty outgoing and affectionate child as she immediately climbed up on Herbert, something her mother scolded her for, but Herbert said he didn't mind.

Herbert and the Drews decided to pool their resources together to create "a citadel of science." Jess's mother, Merriem, had just inherited a tract of land in (the fictional Balkan country of) Transia - in the shadow of Wundagore Mountain. So that's where they decided to set up their base.

Herbert sold his mother's house (without fucking asking her!) for building money. (He'd already persuaded his mother to move into her sister's place so he could rent out the house for money for his experiments - which really demonstrates his complete but rather oblivious self-centeredness.)

With these plans in hand, Herbert, Jonathan, Merriem, and little Jessica all moved to Wundagore together to start their new lives.

Part 2: Wundagore

When Herbert and the Drews got to Wundagore, they immediately heard rumours from the locals that there was an evil spirit trapped in the mountain, and werewolves and vampires living close by. There was, in fact, an evil spirit trapped in the mountain - the evil elder god Chthon - but Herbert and Jess's parents (in a very Dracula moment) dismissed the nearby villagers as superstious simpletons.

Their arrogance grew when they found that the soil in the land they owned contained a lot of uranium ore. Now they would be wealthy! Interestingly, though, this turn in fortune did not cause any friction between Herbert and the Drews, as even though the land was technically Merriem's, Jonathan assured Herbert that they were all full partners in this venture.

Note: It's funny how especially compared to how Bendis and Reed wrote the Wyndham & Drew relationship (in Origin) as being pretty much purely professional - in Mark Gruenwald's hands, Herbert Wyndham and Jess's parents come across as having a rather unconventional closeness.

Herbert especially seems quite fond of Jonathan Drew (even though he often expresses waryness of humanity as a whole), and the fact that their finances are all so willingly tied together is very interesting to me. It would be more expected, particularly in a villain's origin story, for there to be more infighting around money. Instead, Jonathan and Herbert like each other enough that this never became a problem.

Herbert and Jonathan started working on their citadel of science, but because the engineer they hired to build it was obsessed with outerspace, they got a lab with space-faring capabilities. Jonathan was like "is this really necessary???" But he had bigger problems.

His young daughter had collapsed on the dirt she was playing in. Because even though Jonathan warned Merriem to keep Jess away from the dirt, they were both pretty neglectful in actually watching their daughter. Jess was now suffering from uranium poisoning that had been building in her little body for months. She was sick and quickly dying.

In a panic, Jonathan injected his young daughter with the experimental spider-blood serum he had been working on. However, Jess didn’t respond. Herbert then offered to use his genetic accelerator on Jess, but Merriem argued against it. She thought that it was too late for Jessica, and accused her husband and his partner of just using Jess as a guinea pig. Against her wishes, Herbert did put Jess in his genetic accelerator, merging Jess's genetics with those of the spiders.

However, Jess still seemed completely unresponsive, and Herbert put her in an induced coma/partial suspended animation in the hopes that the serum would slowly cure her over time. Angry and distressed that her daughter had been experimented on for what seemed to her no reason, Merriem rushed off into the night - and was killed by a werewolf.

Note: Okay, I wanted to pause here, because I actually highly prefer this version of Jessica Drew getting her powers to the one in Spider-Woman: Origin - where she accidentally gets spider DNA beamed into her body while she's still a fetus.

I just find it more interesting seeing these characters have this genuine fear and panic about their little girl dying - and maybe it resonates with me more because my little brother became very sick when he was three years old and eventually died (and I spent quite a bit of time in children's hospitals growing up) but there's also more nuance in this origin.

For some reason, Bendis and Reed made Jonathan and Merriem Miriam more black-and-white figures, with Jonathan being painted as a guy who secretly hated his daughter - because he's weirded out by her spider DNA - but still used her to advance his research. Whereas Jess's mother was presented as a much more sympathetic figure, as she was first taken in by her husband lies about her daughter being sick and thus the testing on her being necessary, and then later when she found out this wasn't true, she fought to defend her daughter from him.

But in the 2nd origin, especially in the parts penned by Mark Gruenwald, neither of Jess's biological parents was actually perfectly "right." Here, it is pretty clear that although Jonathan genuinely wanted to save his daughter's life, he also really wanted to see if his serum would work, and he very much wanted the glory of that success. However, Merriem was going to stand in the way of her daughter possibly surviving - because on principle, she didn't want her daughter to be used as a science experiment. Jonathan's motives were not close to being 100 percent pure, but if Merriem had gotten her way, Jess would have absolutely died.

Which is more unique for a Marvel backstory, because there are so, so many bad father/nicer mother narratives in Marvel. Which I am not saying this isn't a dynamic that doesn't occur often in real life, but I feel like Jessica's story was more about all her guardians failing her one-by-one.

But anyway, Merriem was killed by a werewolf, and it was Herbert who found her body. Not really believing in werewolves but also not wanting Jonathan to become biased against nonhuman life, Herbert staged the death to look like a fall.

Jonathan was absolutely devastated: first his daughter had become sick/comatose and now his wife was dead. Herbert tried to think of ways to console his despondent friend, but it wasn’t long after this that Herbert woke up to a note from Jonathan Drew, saying that he couldn’t stand being there anymore without Merriem, and he was going back to America. Jonathan left Herbert the citadel, and his daughter.

Part 3: The New Men and Recreating Camelot

So, Herbert found himself alone and lonely in his now completed citadel. The only person with him was his former partner's unconscious child. He decided that he would be a father to this abandoned little girl, and well, any daughter of his was going to have a world-class education. So he set up audio recorded lessons and lectures to play in her cryogenic chamber while she slept.

Herbert was (unsurprisingly) still lonely. He couldn’t really talk to Jessica (and she didn’t seem to be getting better), so he had this whole empty citadel to himself. To keep his mind busy, he set to work on making himself the perfect suit/armour to protect himself from environmental toxins. But also as a 'just in case' - even though he did not believe in werewolves or werewolf folklore or any of this crap about a demon living inside the mountain - he made the suit silver-plated on the outside.

When his perfect silver-plated hazmat suit was completed (after an intense process of trial and error), Herbert started wearing it all the time. It wasn't long, though, before his mind started itching to work on something else, and his thoughts drifted back to the evolved dog he had "created" before.

He started acquiring both domestic and wild animals from all over: lions and tigers and bears and pigs and cows and sheep. And he started putting them through his genetic accelerator. Those that survived and showed successful signs of intelligence, he called his "New Men" - though he would also more affectionately refer to them as his "children."

The New Men were absolutely bewildered by this whole process, but Herbert assured them they would adjust to this new way of existence. He had them watch educational tapes until they gained the ability to speak, and he started to feel a little less lonely.

Then, joy of joy, Jonathan Drew returned to Wundagore. Herbert was like, "I missed you. It hasn't been the same without you!" And Jonathan was like "Actually, I'm not Jonathan. I'm the ghost of 6th century wizard who took possession of your friend's body to warn you that you are in grave danger." And Herbert was like 😯 (Quotes aren't exact exact but pretty damn close).

Herbert didn't believe the whole ghost possession story, but he decided it was "a harmless mental disorder" caused by Jonathan's grief. So when "Jonathan" suggested they teach the New Men to be lance-wielding knights, Herbert decided to commit to some long-term LARPing to make his friend happy. Besides, this new code of honour would guide his New Men, make them civilised. Also, he did enjoy being the king of his castle. This is when Herbert started going by "the High Evolutionary" - a title that "Jonathan" encouraged.

Now Jonathan was, in fact, being possessed by a 6th century ghost. A guy named Magnus, who had come to Wundagore to warn Herbert that all his drilling into the mountain had awakened a dormant demon. Herbert - the High Evolutionary did not want to hear about this, though. He was like (paraphrasing):

"John, dear John, or Lord Magnus - however you want to be called, you can tell me all you want about how you used to work with Morgan Le Fay, before she murdered you with her bare hands, but don't speak to me of demons. I am a man of science™ There are no demons, and there is certainly no demon trapped in my mountain."

But like I said before, there was, in fact, an evil spirit in the mountain. He had been bound to it by Morgan Le Fay and her followers back in the 6th century - once she realised she couldn’t control the spirit she had summoned.

But back in the 20th century, time passed. A decade went by. The New Men, now called the Knights of Wundagore, kept training. Jessica Drew kept sleeping, and in her sleep, she aged very, very slowly. She had still not fully recovered from her sickness, and the High Evolutionary wondered if she ever would.

Then, one stormy night, a woman on the point of giving birth came to Wundagore and gave birth to twins. The mother slipped away in the night, leaving a note asking for the High Evolutionary to find her newborns a good home.

It was during this time that Chthon attacked, and Herbert/the High Evolutionary came face to face with a fucking Elder God. He and his knights fought back but were quickly overpowered, and Herbert watched in horror as many of his "children" were dashed to pieces in front of him. Luckily, Magnus ended up being able to put Chthon back into his dormant slumber, using a magic book called the Darkholde. However, not before Chthon put a piece of his essence into one of the twin babies: the girl who would grow up to be Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch.

Note: Not related to Spider-Woman: Origin directly, but I have seen other people bring up Bendis' erasure of Wanda's chaos magic (in his Avengers Dissambled Arc) and speculate that he was trying to write Chthon out of the Maximoff twins' backstory and out of the Marvel Universe. This is most likely true. For some reason, Bendis seemed determined to take all the magic away from Wundagore Mountain, which - is something I'm not a fan of.

Back to the story though, one of the surviving New Men, a cow-woman who Herbert named "Bova" (derived from a Latin word for cow) was tasked with taking care of the infants, while the High Evolutionary looked for a new home for them. He ended up placing the infants with Django and Marjya Maximoff, a Romani couple who were unable to have children of their own.

Note: Sorry, another complaint...it’s just super weird in Spider-Woman: Origin that the whole Bova in evolved cow is made out to be a delusion put in Jessica Drew’s mind by Hydra, and that Bova is actually a human woman named Bova????? I'm sorry, but why the fuck would that be her name? Did her parents hate her?

Also, it's just annoying because Bova doesn't have a purpose in the story other than to be a vehicle for the writers to be like "oh, yeah, we are retconning the High Evolutionary and his New Men! Yep, they never existed. Mhm, Hydra made them up entirely to mentally torture one child."

It seems evident that someone thought that this origin was too weird, but I just – aghhhhhhh. Okay, let’s move on.

After this, Magnus departed, saying that his duties there were done and that he had to relinquish Jonathan's body and return to his grave. But he also told the High Evolutionary that he would miss him and tasked Herbert with not neglecting the daughter of the man whose body Magnus had borrowed.

Part 4: Leaving 'Paradise'

It would still be years, though, before Jessica Drew finally woke up well from her prolonged sleeping beauty slumber. When she did wake up, her memories of her parents and her former life were very dim. She had been so young when she had gotten sick that she didn't remember anything clearly from before. So this strange world of talking, anthropomorphic animals and a knight's code of honour and all that - that was the world she really grew up in.

Note: I think that's part of what made me fall so hard for this backstory. Something about how casually and naturally Jess relayed it all to Nick Fury when looking back years later: the "High Evolutionary" promising to raise Jess like his own daughter, animals with the intelligence and faculty of human beings, the desire to recreate Camelot. They were all presented as the most normal things in the world, which is what really gripped me.

Because that is how a child raised in a bizarre environment would take it in - as their normal. And as someone who grew up in a cult, well, I really resonated with that. I mean, there are other ways that Jess's upbringing resembles being brought up in a cult (which I'll talk about a bit more soon) - but even the just talking about bizarre things as if they are completely straightforward (because that was your lived experience) is so interesting to me.

I also really like the idea of Jess being raised in a knight-centred culture, because this actually gives more context/insight into her character. Like why she has more negative emotions around being "a coward" than she does about killing people. Or why one of the things that pisses her off the most is seeing someone attack someone who is weak/defenceless, and why Jess would go in for the kill against the attacker in those situations. Of course, anyone would be upset about that, but there is a such level of anger there that we can see this goes against one of her core beliefs. An honourable knight is going to defend the weak, and hurting someone who is weaker than you is utterly despicable.

And it's just interesting that these values are following her even to this day, even though they were put in place by someone who was neglectful/abusive.

That's getting a little ahead of the story though:

So, when Jess woke up she had only physically aged to around 10 years old (or in some sources her early teens) - even though she had been asleep for over three decades. However, because she'd been in a coma-like state all this time, emotionally, she was still younger.

The High Evolutionary immediately placed Jess in Bova's care. He claimed he would be like a father to her, but he was preoccupied. His confrontation with Chthon had had a huge impact on him. For the first time, he had been come across something he couldn’t explain and was so much more powerful than him. That had rattled him, had shaken him to the core.

It's also possible that witnessing so much death and having his friend effectively abandon him a second time had resulted in Herbert becoming more emotionally detached. When he did interact with Jessica, it was mostly to examine the abilities he and Jonathan had given her.

One of the darker implications from around this time is that Jess has an ability to be resistant to toxins, but the way the power works is that she has to be exposed to a poison, endure the effects of it, heal from it, and then she will have an immunity to it. The fact that she already has a very clear understanding of how that power works in her first solo series suggests that multiple poisons were tested on her before it.

Looking back at this time in her life, Jess also expressed that she mostly felt like a labratory animal (which could be one reason why she has such a strong affinity towards characters like Logan/Wolverine or even the Hulk.)

Note: I will say that Spider-Woman: Origin does also have Jess be a test subject (although Jonathan is the perpetrator instead of The High Evolutionary.) I also do think the writers of the mini did enough research into Jessica Drew that they did try bring forward some of the same themes.

Sadly, one thing that was lost in this new origin was Jessica Drew seeing her father/father figure as a god/God. It's just one of my favourite things in stories where parental figures are lifted up onto this worshipful pedestal, and in this case, it makes a lot of sense. The High Evolutionary did save Jess's life, and he had cared for her even after her biological father abandoned her. He was her saviour.

Also, all these people around her - the New Men - they saw the High Evolutionary as God, because he was the one who had brought them to this new level of consciousness, and if he wanted to, he could also take that away. The New Men had also basically been taught that their whole purpose in life was to serve the High Evolutionary. This was readily accepted by most of them, and while others, like Bova, would go on to ponder if there was more to their existence, no one at this time was really questioning the High Evolutionary's authority. He was their king, their God, their everything.

And this does remind me of how cult members are "supposed to" and how many people in cults do view cult leaders. Add to this that the High Evolutionary did not allow outsiders (with very exceptions) into Wundagore, and that he forbade the New Men and Jessica Drew from ever leaving, and you have a very isolated and insular environment. Which is very, very cult-like.

There is also something about how the High Evolutionary can and later does devolve New Men - whether that be as punishment, or because he thought it was a mistake to evolve them up in the first place, or just because he was tired of a particular New Man - that makes me think of the dehumanisation that often takes place in cults. How personhood can be given or taken away.

Not that this is the only way to view the High Evolutionary, especially since he does eventually become more and more actually godlike in power and is even referred to as "God" at some points - you could also see the High Evolutionary as critique on God or how God is perceived, or well, something else entirely I suppose.

However you want to look at it, being "God" isn't always easy. Which Herbert was starting to realise.

Because the New Men saw him as this omniscient being, the High Evolutionary was getting flooded with questions. So, to bear the brunt of that barrage, the High Evolutionary recruited Jane Foster (yes, that Jane Foster) to be the New Men's new teacher. That way he could concentrate on what was really important to him.

Which, if you thought that would be spending some quality with his adopted daughter...well, no, that wasn't even on his radar. What he wanted to do was work on his genetic accelerator, with the hopes of making more advanced New Men.

It was just the hand that fate had handed him, his duty to make a perfect world, yada yada

Now Thor (Jane's love) happened to see Jane being taken off to an isolated location and thought she had been kidnapped. He came down to Wundagore, and basically walked into an ongoing battle.

The High Evolutionary had been making adjustments to his genetic accelerator, and had beamed a different type of isotope at the wolf he was evolving up. The wolf ended up coming out more "advanced" than the other New Men: smarter, more capable, but also filled with hate - towards the High Evolutionary and all of humanity. Declaring himself to be the "Man-Beast," the evolved wolf quickly took control of the genetic accelerator, and made new New Men - ones who would be loyal to him and help him overthrow the High Evolutionary.

A battle ensued, with Thor joining forces with the High Evolutionary, the Knights of Wundagore, and Jessica Drew to put down the Man Beast's rebellion. (This would be the first time Jess would use her venom blasts in a fight.) The Man-Beast and his underlings were defeated, but the High Evolutionary was again shaken. For the first time, he wondered if he had made a mistake tampering with evolution. Thor certainly thought so.

Finally, the High Evolutionary decided that humanity and his New Men couldn’t peacefully coexist. So, taking all but a handful of his New Men into his spaceflight-capable citadel, he took off for the stars.

Jessica Drew watched in Bova's arms, as her home lifted off the ground and disappeared into the sky.

Note: I don't know why, but I just find the image of Jess watching her home and her father/God disappear into outerspace never to return to her again particularly poignant. I especially ruminate on this when thinking about her and Carol, and how they see outerspace so differently. Carol having such positive connotations with it, and Jess such negative ones. It would just be interesting if it went all the way back to their childhood. (Even though, of course, a big reason why Jess hates/is scared of space is the whole being kidnapped/held captive by Skrull thing.)

But to return to the story, Jess and Bova and the rest of the New Men have to go on and adjust to life without their "God." Now none of the New Men, besides Bova, had really shown Jess any love or acceptance. They had tolerated her presence because the High Evolutionary had called her his daughter. However, now that the High Evolutionary was no longer there, well, things were different. The New Men started to become more and more vocal about their dislike for Jessica Drew.

The reason why they disliked her basically came down to two things. 1) at this point time Jess was instinctively/subconsciously giving off alarm pheromones that upset people around her 2) the fact that she had both human and spider DNA upset the New Men's sense of order. The High Evolutionary was fully human. They were animals brought up to personhood, but Jess was neither of those things, so they did not know how to view her.

Also, now that the High Evolutionary was gone, Jessica Drew was the only none New Man around, and though she begged and pleaded for their acceptance, the New Men just became more and more hostile towards her.

Finally, Bova decided that this was getting way out of hand, and she and Jess agreed maybe it would be best if Jess left and tried her luck among humankind. At this point in time, Jess was physically around seventeen, but because she was still catching up from spending a chunk of her childhood unconscious and had lived such an isolated existence, she came across as younger and was certainly very naive.

Despite this, Bova did not go with the child she had been ordered to take care of. Not that I actually exactly blame her in this situation. It had never been her decision to have or take care of a child. Also, she probably thought that Jess had a higher chance of being accepted if she weren't with a talking cow. Bova would have also wanted to stay with the people/community she knew and cared about, and would not want to go to some stranger place where she knew she would be shunned.

This did lead, however, to Jess going out into the world alone, a child among strangers. And in very mutant backstory fashion [even though Jess is not mutant - well, at least, not as of yet] Jess ended up accidentally killing a human man with her powers. (She was suddenly startled and hit him with a venom blast.) This led to the village turning against her, and a terrorist organisation - Hydra - coming to her "rescue."

Part 5: Hydra

After this point, this origin and Spider-Woman: Origin become a lot more alike. In both origins:

Jess joins Hydra when she is physically seventeen but emotionally/mentally younger (because in both origins she spends a sizable chunk of her childhood unconscious.) She is lied to/brainwashed in some way. She is then trained to be a spy/fighter/assassin. A guy named Jared starts a manipulative relationship with her, as he becomes her boyfriend and handler. Jared allows himself to be captured by S.H.I.E.L.D., so that Jess will come and rescue him and kill Nick Fury. Jess breaks into Fury's location, but while she is there, it is revealed to her that Hydra - and Jared specifically - have been attacking innocent/defenceless people. Jared tells Jess that their relationship was fake/that he never loved her/that he found her disgusting - before he ends up dying by her hand. Jess then ends up killing Otto Vermis. Fury tries to recruit her to S.H.I.E.L.D., but she slips through his fingers.

Some differences include:

In Spider-Woman: Origin Taskmaster is shown to the one who trained Jessica Drew. This is more an addition than a contradiction to anything that was previously canon. And it's something I do actually like/have no problem with.

Well, the one nitpick I have is Taskmaster taunting Jess's costume - which would not bother me in isolation. It's just that Bendis put her back in this costume, only to have multiple people make fun of it, so whenever I see a character doing that, I hear it in Bendis' rather than the character's voice.

I also would have kind of preferred if Chris Claremont's addition to the costume's history was included. Basically Claremont had it be Jess's idea - that she fought for - to have the costume be not the usual Hydra green.

The brightly coloured costume is not great for stealth work, but I would say that it could speak to Jess's character. The colours are interesting because they are typical of poisonous animals, so the costume is like a warning sign. It could speak to Jess's sense of fairness or even her cockiness to go after her enemies in red and yellow and black.

It would also make a lot more sense to why she kept using the costume after leaving Hydra, even though that wasn't the smartest decision. If she chose the colours and felt like this was her first successful rebellion after being controlled all her life, yeah, that would give a lot more emotional/sentimental value to the costume.

I also like this idea because the person who designed Spider-Woman's original costume was actually a woman, the Marie Severin.

In previous versions Otto Vermis was the Hydra general Jess was serving under, and who she killed by bending the wing of his plane and making it crash. But because Spider-Woman: Origin plays musical chairs with the characters, Wyndham (instead of being the High Evolutionary) is the Hydra general, and Vermis (instead of being the general) is just a Hydra guy Jess sleeps with for information about her father's whereabouts and then kills after he tries to kill her.

Now I don’t think it's totally out-of-character for Jess to start a sexual relationship with someone she is not attracted to in order to save/protect someone she loves, because the upper limit to what she would do to protect the people in her life is very high, but I still thought this was well, unnecessary.

In Spider-Woman: Origin, Jonathan Drew is killed by Viper because he finally decides he doesn't want to be involved with Hydra anymore. In Spider-Woman (1978) after finally returning to America, Jonathan Drew is killed by an American congressman because Jonathan uncovered the motives of this group he was doing research for.

I will say that Spider-Woman: Origin is neater - is that the word? - more contained with Jessica Drew's parents' deaths. Miriam Drew is killed by her husband in front of her daughter, and then Jonathan Drew is killed by Hydra, specifically Viper. But in my opinion, the addition of having Jess see her father kill her mother in front of her doesn't really add anything to her character. And because earlier in Origin, they also had Jonathan Drew not like Jess from birth, it just kept making me think of Brian Banner, and how this backstory fits Bruce Banner better.

For some reason, it also really irritates me that Merriem/Miriam is made out to be the vastly better parent, and I don’t like how this has continued into newer comics. Maybe this is an overreaction, but I feel like I'm being spoon-fed this idea that all biological mothers are instinctively more loving and nurturing.

Speaking of biological mothers though, I did say I would get back to Viper. So, basically, the story behind Viper and Spider-Woman is just that Chris Claremont wanted Viper to be Jessica Drew's mother, so he made that retcon in Spider-Woman (1978) #44. However, J. M. DeMatteis, who was writing Captain America comics parallel to this, apparently didn’t like this idea, or someone didn't like it, so the retcon was retconned a year later (in Captain America #281.) So now Viper wasn't actually Jessica Drew's mother. Morgan Le Fay had just planted false memories in Viper's mind to make her believe that she was Jessica Drew's mother.

Which I mean I don’t really mind either scenario. I would be cool with Viper being Jess's biological mother, but also Morgan Le Fay did want to be the one to kill Jessica Drew (after Jess refused to swear eternal fealty to Morgan Le Fay and instead skewerd Morgan with her own sword), so I could totally see Morgan fucking with Viper's mind/memory just so that Viper would hesitate and not beat her to killing Jess.

Okay, I am just going to make note of one other difference, and then I'm done, I'm through.

Weird thing: Jessica Drew unexplainably attending San Francisco State University in Origin takes me out of the story more than the not-scientifically sound explanation of being "extensively educated by the High Evolutionary during stasis." I actually find it pretty easy to accept the story logic of Jess learning languages and the contents of books subconsciously.

But not only does Jess attending university not fit with Spider-Woman (1978) or any of Jess's earlier appearances, but it leads to so many unanswered questions, like (if she wasn’t learning anything in the ten years she was in a coma) what was her schooling like up to this point? How did she get into university without a prior education, or transcripts? Like maybe she's just sitting in on a class, but that is not explained either. Nothing is explained.

Okay, I'm finally done now. Thanks for reading, and if you'd like, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject too!

Sources:

Thor #134-135 (Stan Lee/Jack Kirby)

Marvel Spotlight #32 (Archie Goodwin/Sal Buscema)

Marvel Two-In-One #29-#33 (Marv Wolfman/Ron Wilson)

Spider-Woman (1978) #1, #5, #6, #20, #35, #37 (Marv Wolfman/Carmine Infantino; Mark Gruenwald/Carmine Infantino; Chris Claremont/Steve Leialoha)

Avengers #187 (Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant, David Michelinie/John Byrne)

The Saga of the High Evolutionary (Mark Gruenwald/Paris Cullins & Ron Lim), found in:

X-Factor Annual #3, The Punisher Annual #1, Silver Surfer Annual #1, New Mutants Annual #4, Fantastic Four Annual #21, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #22, X-Men Annual #12, Web of Spider-Man Annual #4, West Coast Avengers Annual #3

Collected by bringbackwendellvaughn here:

Scarlet Spider Unlimited (Glenn Herdling/Tod Smith)

Quicksilver #9 (John Ostrander, Joe Edkin/Ivan Reis)

Marvel Atlas #1

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Vol 1 #5

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Vol 1 #14

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Vol 2 #15

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Avengers 2005

All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z #5

FF: Fifty Fantastic Years

History of the Marvel Universe (2019) #4 (Mark Waid/Javier Rodriguez & Alvaro Lopez)

Spider-Woman: Origin (Brian Michael Bendis, Brian Reeds/Jonathan Luna, Joshua Luna)