The CONFUSING HISTORY Of SPIDER-WOMAN

greetings comic lovers and welcome back to casually comics the channel where we chat all things comics reviews of comics new and old to history to anecdotes to really wherever our women's take us and today history Spider Woman history because I can't stop won't stop I also listened to some of your comments about the backdrop which ranged from I like it to it but there was no it's horrible so that's always a very good thing but some of you wanted to see more stuff in the back so I've been working on getting more stuff back there there was an attempt to get stuff on the other side but it wouldn't balance they got real intense I was trying to get ill here to sit up and he wouldn't because he's in character his little legs don't do that I actually broke into a sweat so I was like it's time to stop but should not be sweating trying to get L to sit up he's here so he says hi today I wanted to take a look at the hot Massa as the history of Jessica drew now we already talked about why she was created what's was simple enough to protect copyright but the effects that had in her gin and the struggle she had the characterization for years during her entire solo run really that's fascinating to me and it all stems from the stars we've only skimmed over it but personally I find it really fascinating so we're gonna go a little bit deeper so let's go back in time Spider Woman had been created she debuted Marvel spotlight number 32 and the issue sold way better than expected initially she was just supposed to be a one-and-done I kind of take that DC now you can't write a Spider Woman actually it was now you can't put a Spider Woman on TV because we have one case in point this comic and then really shortly afterwards after a great big promotional push in the TV series but then there were some decent sales and some interest and so the mood changed it became mm maybe we could actually make this a thing but this then meant examining what had been published visa vie her backstory and taking a look at whether or not they felt it would work with modern audiences at the time modern meant that we were done with the Silver Age we had been out of it since at least 1973 and now we were firmly inside when it's referred to as the Bronze Age what that meant some of the cheesier sillier camp e'er plots of that era were no longer accepted there had been a lot of zany scientific creation going on back in the 60s and not all of that flu anymore these plots were perceived as being no longer sophisticated enough or believable so her first origin where she was a spider turned into a woman by the High Evolutionary shunned by his other creations and driven into the arms of Hydra over her confusion over just what she was and her powers which killed the first man she ever loved were reexamined it was decided that people wouldn't buy that she was a spider who had become a woman it was just too much of a leap so some tweaks were made she would be human with a father who was a scientist obsessed with spiders as the savior of mankind she would be injected with his spider serum after getting radiation poisoning her father would then leave just cuz and leave her with the High Evolutionary who would then continue to experiment upon her and from there a lot would remain the same she still wouldn't fit in with the high evolutionary's other creations the new men and she would still end up with Hydra and being brainwashed by them so you could also still keep that pathos of what am i but it didn't have quite the same punch is not a spider but it was still there her arc reestablishing her and a 4-story appearance over in Marvel two and one did well too and introduced her to Marv Wolfman who would also be for series writer for eight issues that is at the start everything looked okay Spider Woman was selling pretty well but what we would later admit that he had no idea what to do with her what direction to take her in this she kind of just been dumped upon him in a way even though when he left he would cite workload what he would do while he was working on her would be to establish a dark tone to try and take her as far away from spider-man as possible she would fight the supernatural she would have this struggle as to what she was it's basically anything to differentiate her also this was an obvious choice for Marvel at the time since supernatural stories were selling like hotcakes since the lifting of the supernatural creatures ban and a loosening over scrutiny of the macabre this happened because by this era the comics code Authority which had been established in the silver aids are actually kind of started the Silver Age was beginning to loosen its grip the comics code Authority had been the result of the industry self regulating as a result of the moral panic surrounding comics following the end of World War two and the end of the Golden Age and in that era there is a rise of horror and sci-fi comics and people were concerned that they were leading to deviancy and juvenile delinquency still Wolfman would struggle with many of the same things that certain Marvel fans did who was Spider Woman why did she exist in short the biggest question why do we need a Spider Woman feel like dawn of Justice do we need Superman so Wolfman would leave for other projects and indeed his legendary run on New Teen Titans was just around the corner that began in 1980 in his place would enter mark Grunwald while artist carmine infantino would remain for now mark Grunwald was in my opinion a super cool uber nerd he got into comics because he had a fanzine that he self-published called omniverse and it was all about continuity and canon and why it mattered and how things had to tie together which is so endearingly nerdy to me after getting to marvel he would begin instantly working on an official Marvel Handbook even though they hadn't asked him to but he would start it and it would be a project that would come to fruition eventually and they still published those handbooks hooray his encyclopedic knowledge of what his colleagues called trivial details would allow him to rise in the ranks and eventually become an editor and while he would quit this position to go back to writing which he preferred many still consider him to be one of the best editors they ever had because he remembered absolutely everything is that guy wearing a t-shirt or a sweater at mark why does this matter well this matters because it means when he got onto spider-woman at the time still a newcomer he decided that he was gonna maintain would have been set up by Wolfman he was gonna keep that tone he was gonna keep everything he was just gonna expand it and solidify it he was gonna bring things together he was gonna add some supporting characters he was just gonna try and build on it basically so the tone remained the same and so the themes although they got a little Greenwald II he likes to go a little outlandish I'm a fan so all that sounds good right well except for two things the book was no longer selling and the cartoon which was successful and launched during Greenwald's time bore little resemblance to the comic and only heightened the negative fan perception that Spider Woman was just derivative of a Spider Man especially because she hung out with spider-man the series a decent now this was exemplified by the fact that not all the fans knew about the copyright stuff so it just kind of looked like a cash grab but all of a sudden like oh you like spider-man will here Spider Woman I have receipts aka quotes my favorite thing Roger stern the editor at the time stated they saw her and later the she-hulk as running a good idea into the ground much as DC had done in the 60s with its then ever-growing families of super and back characters shots fired I like what he came and gave a quote without taking a shot at DC distinguished competition my foot well issue 20 would see the removal of green walls also infantino answered time for an entirely new direction we're done with it put and by that I mean they decided it was time to make Jessica like everybody else the problem was that she was too different we need her to be the same blend into the crowd this writer was Michael Fleischer who would later have an interesting lawsuit against Harlan Ellison no more magic jessica was now a bounty hunter with your standard dual life and relationship troubles because being Spider Woman was a secret she was also now firmly established as just your own typical vigilante this would alienate pre-existing fans who said that now they were taking away the things that made Jessica special and unique this change would also just drop a bunch of her ongoing plots like her mentor was missing Charles Magnus and they were just left who cares he's going through every ghost and now of course the book started to get a reputation like why so many writers why you trying to force Spider Woman well we only has a deal with that till issue 30 - because then we changed again now our writer would be Chris Claremont he was famed for having revitalized the x-men in the 70s by completely revamping their roster in fact the x-men only became popular at this point when they started in the 60s they were not a popular team people tend to think they were because of like what they agree to be but that was largely because of him and how he changed a team with storm and Colossus and Nightcrawler and Wolverine not the original lineup not even close now Jessica was a bounty hunter no more no now she was a private investigator again a motivational and tonal shift also of course since he was known for the x-men the x-men would appear she would have team ups meet the x-men it was a thing but clearmount what only stayed 13 issues than him and the artist would leave or it changes matter - it can completely change the tone even if the writer stays the same if you really like the art and then the art style completely changes I'm not gonna lie I've stopped reading things because of what have you let me know down below by this point enough was enough with the higher ups editorial and they decided that they were cancelling this book at issue 50 it was over we tried it's it's done it's been two years people but then who should return but Grunwald this time as the editor and he decided that the series needed to go back to its roots to what was working with fans in the first place the people who had stuck with it the entire time so he decided to do what he did best look at the continuity he was gonna tie it all back together so he decided to pick up the drop plots and also take a chance on some newcomers and the centi as a writer and Brian postman for pencils this was actually Anne's first regular comic book assignment and she decided that she was gonna go hard or go home and Greenwald backed her so together they decided that issue 50 they were gonna kill off Spider Woman she had a rationale her rationale was these are licensed characters and you want them to have a forever life at the same time they live in a violent world and occasionally you feel like someone has to die otherwise it's too unreal this was super poorly received with fans who felt like they were being slapped in the face yes it wrapped up all of spider woman's plots but also killed her like thanks for sticking with us and giving us all your money we appreciate your thirty-five cents but I'm turn around so we can kick you Grunwald and no Cindy would regret this decision especially after they saw the response so Grunwald would actually have Spider Woman Jessica drew brought back to life less than a year later this would occur in Avengers number 240 and 241 in 1984 here's the thing not only was Jessica drew solo run all over the place but it kind of put her in a bit of a limbo because of everything that went on with it future writers just weren't sure what to do with her where to put her where did she belong that had never been dealt with during the entire 50 issue run so you would have other characters emerge who would take on the mantle some related to her some not you had the villainous Charlotte Witter who stole her powers you had her kind of protege Matt Franklin you had the unrelated Julia carpenter Jessica would only find her footing again in the 2000 specifically 2005 underwriter Brian Michael Bendis who would then kind of Asuma I know all the things there are to know about Spider Woman asked me how she speaks ask me what she likes to eat I know all the things she has a British accent now because I said so I mean incredibly if she could but also there was the whole Hydra brainwashing thing for her to blend in I feel like some humility when it's not a character that you created you know but that's just me and probably my soul about some of the more recent Bendis things Superman doesn't need a secret identity she would be included as a core member of the New Avengers and this would breathe new life into her it would also firmly establish her connection to other heroes this was something that haven't started in her solo series but hadn't fully crystallized however it would turn out that during less run she was a scroll Bennett's claims he planned this from the beginning you can go back to issue one and see hints now you know why the Spider Woman series didn't happen we thought about doing it and having her revealed as a Skrull in the first issue her series I wrote it but in the end I just thought it wasn't selling somebody what they thought you were selling them okay here's the thing I don't know if you can see hints of a character being off for a character that has only been used sporadically since 1984 I mean I I guess if they do something really sketching the issue like phone a home but at the same time that's expecting a pretty hardcore level of like Jessica following like I follow Jessica true and I know what she would wouldn't do for a lot of people this could have been their first encounter with Spider Woman Jessica drew because again there were other Spider Woman at this point so expecting them to be able to tell that she wasn't herself might have been a bit of a lot I don't know however activist she would appear consistently the real Jessica would take down her strong counterpart and be seen amongst the Avengers all the time it must be noted that Bendis will do an entire redo of her origin from huge things like her now getting her powers in the womb after being hit by a laser beam full of different DNA traits including spiders also bye-bye high evolutionary instead this is all Jessica's parents and even though wounded or is involved with the she's tenuous Jessica's parents also mysteriously vanish and she would then be recruited to Hydra who had turned out have been funding her father's research also her father worked with miles Warren aka the jackal from the spider-man Clone Saga so we're tying her a bit closer to the spider-man mythos oh and little things like her mom's name is Miriam now with an eye rather than Miriam with an E and she was trained and mentored by the taskmaster her next big arc would be the Dennis hopeless one the pregnant arc hopeless has been praised for his female perspective and a lot of feminist critics really really enjoy this book I am but one woman and a woman are not a monolith we all have different opinions and different experiences so let me take a personal moment to say as someone who has been pregnant and is currently very pregnant that there was a lot about this run that rubbed me the wrong way a lot but again that is just me we all have different relationships that works for many reasons if you love this arc and it brought you something that really stuck with you or you think it's really important to see them keep loving it whatever makes you love comics keep loving it there are parts of it that I did enjoy but on the whole most of it just wasn't for me I also hate being told that something is accurately representing the female perspective or the perspective of motherhood as if there is only one perspective or only one correct perspective and this comic has done it we found the one perspective don't tell me how to feel Marvel because you don't know me after this Jessica but kind of go back to being a bit more of a support character again but she has a new number one as of 2020 so we'll see what happens with her Spider Woman is now an established part of Marvel canon but it took her a while to get there because of how abruptly and unceremoniously she was dumped into it still for me I am glad there is a Spider Woman well Jessica drew as much of a mess is a lot of her history it's been I think she brings us something unique to the table I'm glad for the stuff I read with her at least I also like Julia carpenter a lot too however useless fact about me you don't need to know in these universes though people had gotta get their own names if I was a superhero or more realistically a supervillain I would want my own name and anybody who took my name would pay they would pay the ultimate price it's my name mine I can hear my cat running around yes I have a cat see I'm already ready for supervillainy Siamese cat to x-ray so that was just a little history and overview of Jessica drew because I'm on a Jessica drew kick and I will be forever notes how long and then I'll be off of it do you guys get like that you just read or binge read a certain character or arc and then you're done you're like it's time for the next thing that I'm binge reading if you have any other characters you'd like to know a little bit more about let me know down below I'm also gonna get some padding for this room so it should be less echoey next time it is official I love this new setup I think it can be seen the fact that I just feel like I have so much more energy it's largely because now I'm in a secret area so my daughter can't hear me so I can be loud loud and proud anyway that's enough of that thanks so much for watching commenting casually comics in it's always fun for me I hope it's fun for you too and I'll see you again soon bye bye [Music]

Channel: Casually Comics

Views: 81,115

Keywords: casually comics, spider-woman, spider woman, spider woman cartoon, spider woman jessica drew, spider woman jessica drew pregnant, jessica drew spider woman origin, spider-woman origin, classic comics, marvel comics, marvel history, spider-woman comics, spiderman, spider woman history, comic book history, mark gruenwald, confusing history, the confusing history

Id: MbZ9W-apG_E

Length: 16min 32sec (992 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 31 2020