I was surprised to find myself enjoying the first few issues of SPIDER-WOMAN: ORIGIN, especially the empathy Bendis and co-writer Brian Reed generated for Jessica Drew's tragic past. Wasn't so keen on the Luna Brothers' art, which looked to me like awkward stills from rotoscope animation, but the action sequences were well-choreographed. I particularly liked the training sequence with the Taskmaster, and was pleased to see nods to lesser-known characters like Mentallo and the pre-Jackal Miles Warren.

Where I hit a disconnect, and it was a big 'un, was in the next-to-last issue when Jessica's shown to have slept with this bloated, aged Hydra boss as part of some undercover work. And Bendis and Reed even rub it in - when the guy learns his mistress is a spy, he needles her about how low her self-esteem must be to have subjected herself to him. This would never, and I mean NEVER have happened to a male spy in the Marvel Universe! They would have found another way to get the information, or if they went the bed-hopping route, they'd have been paired up with some Pussy Galore-style hottie. But no, Jessica Drew, who's already been given a horrific past to deal with, has to sleep with a dude who looks like ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU-era Marlon Brando.

And that actually broke the book for me.

I also had some issues with Bendis and Reed muddying continuity waters by eliminating the High Evolutionary from Jessica's origin (not terrible in and of itself), which had a domino effect of seemingly eliminating him from Marvel continuity entirely (now we've got a problem). The muddying goes like this: the white-haired commanding officer of Jessica's Hydra brainwashing is, for reasons unknown, given the same real name as the High Evolutionary (Herbert Wyndham). And yet he clearly isn't the High Evolutionary, and unless I'm misremembering, he even dies during the series. Stranger still, Jessica has surreal dreams and visions related to her childhood trauma, and in one of them, an image of the High Evolutionary (in full armor) is shown towering over Wundagore Mountain. Whu huh? It makes little sense, and comes across as Bendis and Reed just being cute - giving a wink to show they know Spider-Woman's origin once tied into the High Evolutionary - even as a man bearing his name is offed and a vision of him seems to be a random dream.

Anyway, retconning a fairly major Lee/Kirby creation out of the Marvel Universe is highly uncool, but it's the victimization of Jessica Drew that really puts me off. I'm sure Bendis and Reed are playing amateur psychologist, and I'll even buy into the notion that someone with Jessica's traumatic background might demean herself sexually as part of a self-destructive spiral...but it's a shit call for reinvigorating one of Marvel's few notable heroines. Just as the story was finally giving her some empowerment...she has to screw her way to the top.

Didn't Bendis already use his Jessica Drew knock-off, Jessica Jones, to play around with these ideas?

Wes:

Slang. An individual who is synonymous with jabs such as dork, idiot, moron, jerk, etc.

1. When used without further adjectives, it is just a friendly jab.
2. When modified with further adjectives, tool can become a negative and harsh:
   "That guy's a f*cking tool."

used interchangeably with toolbox

QUOTE: I'm fairly sure that James Bond slept with women as part of a case millions of times

Yep. One beautiful, glamorous woman after another.

Bond gets the babes, Jessica Drew gets a fat, old guy who calls her out on degrading herself.

It's quite a gulf.

QUOTE: I am sure female spies have had to do a lot of bad things.

Real spies, yes, but in a setting where the premier spy agency is represented by an eye-patched, World War II badass...kept alive beyond his years by the equivalent of a magic potion (the Infinity Formula)...with a headquarters that's a mobile flying fortress...we're not exactly in realistic territory, are we?

I shouldn't be surprised that Bendis (and Reed) are veering away from the glamour of espionage fiction and toward ugly realism, but it's not a trip I'm interested in taking with them. Beyond a general distaste for grim 'n' gritty encroachment, I also think the scene was just overkill. Jessica had already lost her childhood to a coma, been brainwashed by Hydra, been seduced by another Hydra agent, and even believed she'd killed her parents - did she really need one more emotional blow? I'd even add that it was lazy writing. Can't figure out a clever way of having a spy gain information? Why, just cut to a post-coital scene between the spy and some baddie who's in the know (nevermind how the spy worked their way even that far) and drop the information into their lap!

Weak.

Real spies, yes, but in a setting where the premier spy agency is represented by an eye-patched, World War II badass...kept alive beyond his years by the equivalent of a magic potion (the Infinity Formula)...with a headquarters that's a mobile flying fortress...we're not exactly in realistic territory, are we?

****

True.  I haven't read the issue.  In though, the idea of it doesn't bother me.  I think there is a trappings of realism that is different than realistic.

Dave Farabee wrote: Anyway, retconning a fairly major Lee/Kirby creation out of the Marvel Universe is highly uncool, but it's the victimization of Jessica Drew that really puts me off.

Jessica Drew was a victim for most of her young life and this is according to the original origin story by Goodwin, further expanded upon by Wolfman.  She was used and abused by Hydra, used and abused by a Hydra agent specifically pretending to be her lover, all so that they could use her powers for their benefit.  It's not without precedent, then, to see it play out the way it did in Bendis' mini...and believe me, I'm more shocked than anyone that I'm actually defending something written by Bendis!  I also didn't get the impression that the High Evolutionary was written out of the Marvel Universe.  Remember, in the original origin, Jessica wasn't even really human, but the Evolutionary's first female new-man (implied that she was, in fact, created from an animal), but by the first issue of her on going series, she was given parents who brought her to Wundagore Mountain instead.  I dunno.  Color me shocked that Bendis, who is known for messing with the origins of Marvel heroes, got Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman's so right for the most part.  I constantly found myself going back and forth between his mini and ESSENTIAL SPIDER-WOMAN and found that he was, indeed, pretty darn faithful, all things considered.  I'll agree that the Luna Brothers were an odd choice for artist, but I enjoyed the story.