Arachne
Spider-Woman I
Adventurer
Bounty Hunter
Espionage Agent
Private Investigator
Los Angeles, California
Madripoor, East Asia
New York, New York
San Francisco, California
Excellent hand-to-hand combatant trained in espionage and the martial arts.
Note: Drew emits a pheromone which causes heterosexual men to be attracted to her and heterosexual women to be repulsed by her. She controls this pheromone with chemical treatments.
Brothers Grimm
Morgan Le Fey
Avengers Vol. 4
Spider-Woman Vol. 1
Wolverine Vol. 2
Jonathan Drew and geneticist Herbert Edgar Wyndham, the future High Evolutionary, purchased a parcel of land to build a scientific research center on Wundagore Mountain - a place of great mystical energies. Discovering uranium during construction, the two scientists used their wealth to expand their dreams and build a more ambitious citadel of science.
Five years after discovering uranium, Jessica became deathly ill with radiation poisoning. To save his daughter's life Jonathan Drew injected her with an untested serum derived from spider's blood, because of arachnids' higher immunity to poisons and radiation. Jessica slowly recovered and was cared for by Dr. Wyndham after her mother apparently died and her grieving father returned to England.
Drew remained in partial cryogenic suspension for decades causing her to age at a slower rate. When the now physically teenaged girl emerged from stasis she was mutated at the cellular level, empowering her with spider-like abilities and an immunity to all toxic substances and radiations.
Now known as the High Evolutionary, Dr. Wyndham left her in the care of a mutated humanoid-cow named Bova. When Drew became an adult she left for a local village where she fell in love with a young man. Startled by the boy's father while in the midst of a passionate embrace, Drew accidentally discharged her bioelectricity, apparently killing her lover.
Fleeing from the villagers, Drew was rescued by Count Otto Vermis - the head of an European splinter group of the subversive espionage organization HYDRA. Exploiting Drew's unique abilities, Vermis brainwashed and trained her to become a special agent. Equipped with a special glider-wing enabled costume Drew was codenamed Arachne, and directed to assassinate S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury. Discovering the true nature of HYDRA, Drew betrayed the organization and fled to England. Eventually immigrating to the United States, Drew utilized her powers and skills to track criminals as the Spider-Woman.