How Did Spider-Woman Become a Bounty Hunter?

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Aug 22, 2018

In their latest look at unresolved comic book stories, CSBG explores how Spider-Woman's bounty hunter career was never actually explained.

In Left Unresolved, I spotlight storylines that have been, well, left unresolved.

Reader John W. wrote in to ask what, exactly, was the deal with Spider-Woman's unexplained drastic status quo change in 1979.

Okay, we begin with Spider-Woman #20 (by Mark Gruenwald, Frank Springer and Mike Esposito), which was the final issue of Gruenwald's run as the writer on the book (Gruenwald took over as the writer on the book from the original writer, Marv Wolfman). In the issue, Jessica Drew loses her job and her apartment...

She gets pissed and decides to sneak into her old job as Spider-Woman and steal the back pay that they owe her. She then realizes that that really was just stealing, so she went back to her job to put the money back. Peter Parker was in the area, though, and his Spider-Sense warned him that something was going on. He went to the office and saw what looked to him like Spider-Woman ROBBING the safe and not just, you know, putting the money back. Spider-Woman knocks him out, but he comes to a lot faster than she expects (since she didn't realize that he was, you know, Spider-Man. He once defeated the X-Men nearly as easily as the Wasp. The WASP, people!). So Peter recovered and chased after Jessica as Spider-Man.

They have a little tussle and in the end, Spider-Man realizes that she is telling the truth about not stealing the money. He gives her some sort of weird advice (as doesn't he seem sort of creepy here when he starts talking about how good looking she is? What, exactly, is he telling her to do here?)...

She apparently took it to heart, as the next issue, with new writer Michael Fleisher on board, we see Spider-Woman dressed in an elaborate disguise and tracking a couple of mooks...

She captures them in a nice action piece and then sneaks them all into a police captain's window (why she didn't just bring them to the station in the front door is beyond me. It must have been extremely difficult to get the three guys and all of their loot through the window by herself. In fact, how did that work logistically at all?). We learn that she is now a bounty hunter...

She brings the disguise that she used (which she obviously just left in an alley, so it's weird that she was able to get it back) to a costume shop. Yes, Spider-Woman now owns a costume shop for some reason. They note that we will learn the truth soon...

Next, we see her head back to her home base where we meet, for the first time, her new partner, Scotty McDowell (as opposed to the great comic book artist, Scott McDaniel)...

And so that's it. She is just now a bounty hunter with a partner that we never saw her meet, along with a freaking COSTUME SHOP that she never mentioned buying. I know, it's weird. It really is weird.

And, of course, none of it is ever explained. On the next page, I'll at least show you how they got her out of hunting bounties...