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"You were meant to do extraordinary things, Jessalyn." It was embedded in Jessalyn Drake's genes to be nothing short of brilliant and extraordinary. Born in London in the Spring of 1983, Jessalyn was the product of renowned surgeon Dr. Benjamin Drake who was a brilliant cardiac surgeon as well as his wife, Theresa Drake who found notoriety and acclaim as a published author in the fantasy genre. Her upbringing was both a blessing and a curse. While the success of Jessalyn's parents in their respective fields never left her aching for anything like other children, the bar had been set high since the day she had exited the womb. The pressure mounted when Jessalyn was the couple's only child due to pregnancy complications and rampant warnings from every doctor for Theresa not to get pregnant again. For better and for worse, all of the Drakes attention was focused solely on Jessalyn. At the age of five, Jessalyn fell ill and she was diagnosed with leukemia. Her parents tightened the leash on her, practically putting the young girl into a bubble even after she had gone into remission. Jessalyn was homeschooled by the best tutors that money could buy and was taught to play multiple instruments rather than being enrolled in dance or gymnastics like some girls. The Drakes thought of their daughter as delicate and after almost losing her, didn't want to let her out of their sight. It was only when the Drake family moved to Boston when Benjamin was offered to be the chief of surgery that Jessalyn fought tooth and nail to actually go to school like any other normal child. Her parents met her halfway, enrolling her in private school at the age of nine, and the young girl was able to skip a grade thanks to all of that tutoring. To be honest, Jessalyn didn't want to be extraordinary or treated like she was fragile. She wanted to be normal, whatever that entailed. After a few parent teacher conferences where the teachers highlighted Jessalyn's academic aptitude but noted her lack of social skills, her mother saw to remedy that by throwing her daughter in every activity that she possibly could for her to make friends and encouraged her to join as many clubs as she could keep up with. The one activity that stuck was ballet where her poise and attention to detail made her a stand out and the one to beat for parts - although it earned her more rivals than friends. Once it was time for her teenage years, enough was enough. Jessalyn was tired of living up to expectations, tired of living in a bubble, and wanted to experience life. So like many elite spawn before her, her life turned into a constant blur of partying that was worthy of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. She may have told her ballet instructor to go pound salt and gave her parents lip but as always, they were too oblivious to know what their daughter was up to when she managed to bring good grades home. Jessalyn put even more distance between herself and her parents when she decided to go to UCLA for college and moved to the west coast. Soon enough, she was a small fish in a big pond and found out that even her pedigree and intelligence wasn't enough to give her clout or attention. So she found it by continuing her reckless behavior well into the first half of her sophomore year before a health scare caused her to ditch the party girl act and dive head first into academia, where she always felt comfortable. Jessalyn got serious about her studies and was moved by a law professor's seminar to declare herself as prelaw. She realized that she too could be great in her own capacity and although these dreams weren't on par with what her parents had laid out for her since the moment they were faced with a positive pregnancy test, Jessalyn took pride in her work and came back to Boston for law school with dreams of making sure justice was served, deciding to focus on criminal law. Hard work paid off as well as summers at the District Attorney's office and other internships and Jessalyn was rewarded with a job post graduation. Her idealism mixed with an adequate amount of ballbusting made her a force to be reckoned with in the court room although Jessalyn's idealism has been giving way to a more hardened outlook on the justice system every time she's forced to make a plea deal or has lost a case. It's an imperfect system that has jaded her but she's still got the same tenacity that she did as a law student. Jessica Drew is the daughter of Jonathan Drew, research partner to Dr. Herbert Edgar Wyndham. When young Jessica suffered uranium poisoning in 1931, Dr. Drew was forced to inject her with his untested spider serum and seal her in a genetic accelerator. In stasis for decades, her aging greatly slowed, she awoke with no memories of her own past. Briefly cared for by the Evolutionary's cow-woman assistant Bova, Jessica sought human company in a nearby village where she accidentally killed her first lover with her new bioelectric powers. Fleeing a vengeful mob, she was rescued by Count Otto Vermis, who molded her into the terrorist organization Hydra's newest assassin. As Arachne, she fought S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury, who revealed Vermis as a cold-blooded killer. Jessica returned to England where Modred the Mystic helped her shake off Hydra's brainwashing. She also allied with the sorcerer Magus, and earned the enmity of the powerful time-spanning sorceress Morgan Le Fay. Jessica eventually moved to Los Angeles where she worked as a bounty hunter alongside Scotty McDowell before Nick Fury helped her secure private investigator credentials. She lost her immunity power saving Giant-Man (Bill Foster) from radiation poisoning, and a battle with Morgan stranded Jessica on the astral plane until she was rescued by the Shroud, the Avengers and Doctor Strange. Later, Jessica and her friend, B-grade actress Lindsay McCabe, moved to Madripoor, where they often teamed with Wolverine. Jessica was drawn to New York when her powers were stolen by Doctor Octopus' Spider-Woman (Charlotte Witter). Following Charlotte's defeat at the hands of Mattie Franklin (herself a self-styled Spider-Woman), Jessica once more regained her uncanny abilities accepting an offer from Hydra while working as a double agent for Nick Fury. After seventeen months of procedures, she emerged more powerful than ever, now capable of fully flying (rather than just gliding on air currents). After serving with Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Luke Cage as the Avengers formed in the aftermath of M-Day, Jessica left the team after the Superhuman Registration Act divided the heroes. She ultimately decided to ally herself with Captain America's anti-registration team, and is currently part of the unsanctioned Avengers.
courtesy of marvel.com. • superhuman strength • superhuman speed • superhuman stamina • superhuman durability • superhuman agility • superhuman reflexes • superhuman flexibility • superhuman hearing • contaminant immunity • wall crawling • venom blasts • pheromone secretion • skilled martial artist • skilled spy • skilled acrobat • dimension travel watch • motorcycle • spiderwoman suit • avengers tower • memories of childhood • memories of hydra • memories of spiderwoman • memories of the avengers • same initials: jessica drew vs. jessalyn drake. • both born in london. • both fell ill during their childhoods (jessica got uranium poisoning, jessalyn had leukemia) • both are multilingual (jessalyn speaks english, spanish, latin, and bits of mandarin) • both fight crime in their own ways. jessica drew is spiderwoman while jessalyn is an assistant district attorney. • jessica drew's father is a geneticist, jessalyn's father is a cardiac surgeon. • despite being americanized, jessalyn still thinks it's insane that the united states refuses to use the metric system and will often fall back on the metric system when quoting measurements. she still uses british spellings of words when not in an academic nor professional setting. • has a reputation for being an unrelenting ballbuster in the courtroom and has made her fair share of enemies. she is there to uphold the law, not make friends. • enjoys her morning jog than any normal person should. • owns three cats. • is a trust fund kid, technically, and absolutely hates this fact. she's thankful to have all of her school loans paid off thanks to mom and dad but lives mostly on her assistant district attorney salary with the exception of emergencies. she lives in a very modest apartment and is very stingy with her money. • has the tendency to act like a mother hen to all of her friends. she is caring yet not afraid to dish out tough love if needed. • took ballet from ages nine until fifteen. ceremoniously quit in the middle of rehearsals for "swan lake" and never looked back. does not look back on her ballet days fondly. • doesn't care much for doctors and hospitals after spending her childhood in them. will only go to the doctor for her yearly physical or if she thinks she's dying. however, she doesn't mind the dentist's office which people find strange. |
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