ARACHNE

 

ARACHNE

Real Name: Julia Cornwall Carpenter

First Appearance: Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #6, October 1984 (as Spider-Woman); Ms. Marvel (Vol. 2) #6, October 2006 (as Arachne); The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #637, July 2010 (as Madame Web)

Powers: Julia Carpenter was injected with an experimental serum derived from spiders. As a result, she gained many of the same powers as Spider-Man. As Spider-Woman II, her powers included superhuman strength, speed, agility, endurance, reflexes, and the inter-atomic bonding power responsible for their wall-crawling abilities. Julia is also capable of materializing psionic webbing, formed out of her own mental energy. These psi-webs are woven by her mind and can take the form of simple strands and lines or shaped into more elaborate web designs. They have an elastic physical quality, allowing them to bend and flex without breaking. She can use her webbing to swing on like a rope, to surround and bind an opponent, to block off hallways and paths, etc. The psi-webbing conducts her own inter-atomic bonding power, allowing her to make anything that touches the webs to cling to them. Because they are composed of energy, they can also interact with pure energy forms, such as lassoing the normally insubstantial electrical form of the Living Lightning. She can dissolve her psi-webs with a thought. Later on, a secondary exposure to her original serum boosted her strength and stamina.

Julia lost her powers for a time and was crippled after a fight with the third Spider-Woman (Charlotte Witter). After regaining her powers and mobility, she renamed herself "Arachne". She has learned how to use her psi-webs to increase her natural sensitivity as well as for physical grappling. Like a spider can sense vibrations from the center of their web, Arachne can sense thought patterns passing through the aether and psionically reverberating off of her webs. She cannot read minds, but she can sense the presence of other sentient beings within a given radius, and pinpoint their location with some degree of accuracy when they are in range. The "death" of Madame Web connected Julia to the Web of Life, giving her clairvoyance, precognition, and teleporting abilities.

POLTERGEIST

 

POLTERGEIST

Real Name: Michael Silk

First Appearance: Spider-Woman (Vol. 1) #49, April 1983

Powers: Michael "Mickey" Silk's mutant power generates psychokinetic energy when he is angry, anxious, scared, or excited. He was gradually learning to trigger his power when calm and suppress it when agitated and to focus it, rather than radiate outward randomly. His psychokinesis most often produces powerful vibrations or waves of psychokinetic force that smash metal, uproot trees, or collapse architecture, and often sparks explosions or fires. With concentration, he can produce less destructive effects such as levitating or hurling small objects. Mentally unstable, Poltergeist is sometimes prone to paranoia and hallucinations under stress.

SPIDER-WOMAN

 

SPIDER-WOMAN I

Real Name: Jessica Drew

First Appearance: Marvel Spotlight (Vol. 1) #32, February 1977

Powers: Jessica Drew developed spider-powers after a unique combination of a serum derived from spider enzymes, a radiation treatment to catalyze the process, and a period in suspended animation so that the process could take effect. Ultimately she emerged, possessing many of the same proportionate abilities of a spider that Spider-Man has. Spider-Woman has superhuman strength, agility, reflexes, endurance, hearing and recuperative powers, and the ability to cling to solid objects and scale walls and vertical surfaces with only her hands and feet. She has a natural resistance to the adverse effects of all kinds of poison, pathogens, and radiation. One exposure can temporarily weaken her, but her body will build an immunity so that any subsequent exposure will leave her completely unaffected. Jessica's body naturally builds up a supply of bio-electricity, which she can generate out from her hands as "venom blasts". She requires some time to regenerate this energy between bursts, depending on how intense of a blast she projects. Spider-Woman also has a natural gliding ability, allowing her to leap into the air and soar for short periods of time. This limited ability is bolstered by the air foils she wears under her arms in costume, which catch updrafts and aid her in controlling her flight direction and maintaining altitude. Finally, Jessica emits intense pheromone levels from her pores, which had an initially random and uncontrolled effect on others. Many people go completely unaffected by her pheromones, while others experience an extreme, unnatural level of physical attraction to her, and still others with perceive her as giving off a uncomfortable feeling, making them fearful and unnerved by her presence. Men typically experienced the attractive effect and women the repulsive effect, but each person was affected differently.

For a time, Jessica took inhibitor drugs to dull the effect her pheromones had on others, but eventually realized that the drugs were dampening her other powers as well, particularly her venom blasts which she could only access about once a day. After abstaining from the drugs, her powers returned to their previous levels. During her career, Spider-Woman lost her special immunity when she gave a blood transfusion to Giant-Man II, who was dying of radiation poisoning, and lost her venom blasts after an encounter with Morgan le Fey left her with a temporary case of being dead. Some years later, a mystical rite in another dimension ended up restoring these lost powers. She lost her powers again once the evil Spider-Woman stole them from her. While they eventually returned, her powers remained in a state of fluctuation until Hydra exposed her to an enhancement process to restore and augment her powers. This was actually a ruse which allowed the Skrull Queen Veranke to sample her DNA and duplicate her appearance, powers, and genetic structure. Veranke demonstrated enhanced version of all of Jessica's powers, including high-voltage electro-blasts and the ability to outright fly. Veranke has since been killed and Jessica restored as Spider-Woman. Jessica has demonstrated greater conscious control over her pheromones since, creating the attractive or repulsive bio-chemistry on command.

Jessica Drew has extensive combat training from HYDRA and is an experienced detective with espionage skills.