Omissions and Additions: The High Evolutionary and Jessica Drew

 

I always appreciate feedback on the posts I produce, especially if it leads me to learn something new. And so today I would like to make a small supplemental entry to my post about The High Evolution and Jessica Drew. Thanks to Richard at the MC2 A Day blog for pointing out these omissions and additions. Without further ado, let us jump straight into it!

 

As I noted last time, the High Evolutionary blasts off into space with his Knights of Wundagore in The Mighty Thor #135 (1966), while the evolved cow-woman Bova remains behind with the child Jessica Drew as seen in West Coast Avengers Annual #3 (1988). However, we first see Jessica under the care of Bova in a flashback from Spider-Woman #20 (1979) where we see it did not take long for her to realize she was unique among the New Men of Wundagore who ostracized her, keeping with her earliest origin story. This is where we first see a young Jessica alongside Bova watching the High Evolutionary’s ship leave earth. We also first learn that Bova raised Miss Drew to maturity before she was sent to an orphanage in a nearby village to be nurtured by her own kind. From here, the events play out similar to previous depictions, with Jessica being ostracized even among humans before her deadly bio-electric venom-blast leads the villagers to attempt to destroy her.

 

Jessica is rescued by the leader of Hydra’s European branch, Count Otto Vermis. Outfitted with a special costume and trained, Drew was brainwashed into believing she was an evolved spider in order to alienate her further, ensuring her loyalty to Vermis. Jessica recalls how she escaped Hydra’s clutches and learned more of her past from Mordred and a magician named Magnus, noting she only knows what these men had revealed to her. This issue also marks the inevitable meeting between Spider-Man and Spider-Woman, with Peter Parker giving Jessica’s super heroic alias the benefit of the doubt in a burglary case due to his own storied history of misunderstandings and bad publicity (Spider-Woman #20).  

 

Jumping back just a few short months to Avengers #186, published in May 1979, Bova recounts her own origin to the Avenger named Pietro Maximoff aka Quicksilver, beginning with the High Evolutionary evolving her as one of his first projects and tasking her with the caring for the children his New Men. Bova notes that the High Evolutionary was preoccupied with matters coinciding with the unexplained return of his assistant Jonathon Drew. Via these flashbacks we see that while Jonathon and the High Evolutionary were occupied, the pregnant woman Magda arrived seeking asylum and the two became very close over the weeks preceding the birth of Magda’s twins: Pietro and Wanda, later known as the Scarlet Witch. During their birth, Bova noted Wanda’s tiny form mirrored the mysterious lights which filled the sky that night. These strange lights, of course, relate to the manifestation of Chthon.

 

Shortly after the twins are delivered, Magda disappears, leaving only a note expressing fear that her unnamed husband might force the revelation of her children’s existence from her if she remained alive. This is a direct reference to Uncanny X-Men #125 and the master of magnetism himself, Magneto, but we will save talking about him for another time. We then glimpse the subsequent tragic events involving Madeline and Robert Frank and their own stillborn child, followed by the High Evolutionary appearing before Django and Marya Maximoff to entrust them with Wanda and Pietro. With Pietro unable to recollect his childhood clearly, Bova relates her own sense of emptiness when she elected to remain behind ‘for…personal reasons’ as the High Evolutionary’s Wundagore Citadel left for the stars. This is evidently in reference to the aforementioned Spider-Woman #20 and Bova’s duty as carer for the young Jessica Drew (Avengers #186).

 

It must be noted that all these interconnected and overlapping characters and events were woven together by the writer (or co-plotter) of Avengers #186, Spider-Woman #20 and the various ‘Evolutionary War’ Annual’s back-up stories which detail the history of the Herbert Wyndham aka the High Evolutionary; none other than the keeper of continuity himself, Mark Gruenwald. Rest in Peace, Mr Gruenwald.

 

Until I become miraculously infallible like Mobius M. Mobius, I remain

 

frogoat

The Drew Family Tree

This time around I thought I'd shine a little 'spotlight' on the first Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew and her family. The best part about doing these little projects is it gives me the chance to read and discover new facets of the Marvel Universe. In delving into the family history of Jessica Drew, I discovered that her mother and father (Meriem and Jonathan Drew) are deeply entrenched in other areas of Marvel lore.

Jessica first obtains her powers as a result of exposure to radiation when she was a child living with her parents on Wundagore Mountain. The reason her parents were there? Jonathan Drew was a scientist specializing in arthropods who partnered with the man who would become the High Evolutionary. Together, they moved to the nation of Transia onto land inherited by Meriem Drew from her maternal Uncle and, after discovering a vast deposit of Uranium, build a futuristic scientific laboratory to further their research. When Jessica is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation, she is placed into cryogenic stasis and injected with a serum derived from Jonathan's spider research.

Oh, and then Meriem is killed by a Werewolf (who just so happens to be the father of Jack Russell) and Jonathan eventually becomes possessed by the sorcerer Magnus due to exposure to the Elder God Chthon before later becoming involved with a group called the Pyrotechnics who brainwashed and later killed him on the orders of a Congressmen. So yeah, pretty well connected, and that's not even mentioning Jessica's connection to the Puppet Master. Seriously, look into it.

On the MC2 side of things, it appears that following a loss of her powers, Jessica pursued her private investigator career before marrying an old boyfriend (apparently Gerald 'Jerry' Hunt, a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent she encountered early in her costumed days). Two years later, Jess gave birth to her son Gerald 'Gerry' Drew who was soon diagnosed with a rare and apparently fatal blood disease. Hunt blamed Jessica for Gerry's condition and abandoned his family but Jessica never gave up on her son, using her own father's old research to recreate the process that saved her I hopes of saving Gerry.

The process was painful and long, so to distract Gerry, Jessica would entertain him with stories of various heroes including Spider-Man, who would become Gerry's favourite. Gerry emerged from the treatment with spider-powers and become obsessed with replicating his hero Spider-Man. Despite giving him superhuman abilities, the process had not cured him of his blood disease and Gerry was still, in fact, dying.

A few tidbits that don't really fit anywhere: Jessica's mother's name is spelt various different ways including Meriem, Merriam and Miriam, sometimes in the same story. I've gone with Meriem for the family tree, as that is the original spelling from Spider-Woman #1. Also, you may have noticed I mention that Meriem inherited land from her maternal Uncle, despite not including him in the Family Tree above. I am aware. Curiously, there is a slight discrepancy regarding the timeline of events surrounding when Jerry Hunt abandoned his family, as he is seen in a recounting of Gerry's treatment, but absent in another telling. Considering both are told by people who either weren't present (Julia Carpenter) or were too young to remember (Gerry himself), it's unclear whether Jerry left before or after his son began the experimental treatment. Spider-Girl #42 gives Gerry his full first name of Gerald and also mentions that his surname was legally changed after his mother  divorced his father. So, Gerry was formerly Gerald Hunt, after his father.

Until I find a more succinct and streamlined method of pawing through Marvel Minutia, I remain

frogoat