Making Spider-Woman work in the MCU

[Mr. Dent]

A thought occurred to me while reading some comics the other day. Every one is always asking when, say, Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, etc will get movies as they are major Avengers...but one of the most prominently used Avengers in the comics right now, Spider-Woman, is never brought up. She's literally in almost every major Avengers title and is used in most of their appearances in other books, to the point where she is the most used non-movie Avenger right now, but no one ever talks about her in the context of the movies. It might be because of Spider-Man, but I think Marvel could make her work in the MCU.

Here's my idea: Treat her like Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Falcon and introduce her as a SHIELD agent in another hero's movie. Cap or Avengers films would probably be the best place. Update her design accordingly, as they've done with the aforementioned three. Explain that her codename is Spider-Woman. They can explain her as being a victim of a more advanced version of AIM's Extremis virus being experimented with by SHIELD. The tests used a spider venom chemical in the virus that resulted in her gaining super human abilities, including the ability to generate biochemical blasts.

Voila, Spider-Woman now works on the big screen and makes sense even in a world with Spider-Man movies.

So how would you do it, and do you think she should even be in the MCU?

 

[blalex620]

^^^ I think Spider-Woman should get treatment in the MCU. She has an interesting backstory and she has pretty cool powers too. Can she carry a solo film... tough question but there's no doubt she should be introduced. The question is how and when. I think she could best be introduced one of two ways:

1. She could be introduced in the now titled Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show as an agent of Hydra then give her a few episodes arc to establish her leaving Hydra to work for SHIELD.
2. She could be introduced in a Cap movie as an agent of SHIELD first then they explore her background with Hydra in the plot of the film. Kinda like how they introduced Widow but executed a lot better than that.

 

[cherokeesam]

2. She could be introduced in a Cap movie as an agent of SHIELD first then they explore her background with Hydra in the plot of the film. Kinda like how they introduced Widow but executed a lot better than that.

I like this idea better.
One of the strengths of Jess' backstory is that she's an unwilling pawn of both HYDRA and SHIELD, and that they both use her unmercifully. She really requires a *lot* of backstory, though. If she doesn't "deserve" her own movie, I'd rather see her introduced in a 2-parter on "Agents of SHIELD." Or even a series semi-regular.

 

[Mr. Dent]

I don't think her backstory has to be that extensive on film. Taking from wht I said in the OP, they can easily just explain she's the result of SHIELD tests with AIM technology and that handles everything. Would take less than 10 minutes to explain her background.

But like Blale said, introducing her is also a matter of timing. When would be the right time and when would it make sense? I'm thinking an Avengers movie more do than a Cap film, because she's more associated with Avengers than Cap, unlike Falcon.

 

[Artistsean]

Code Named: the Spider, A.K.A. Arachnia.
Real Name: Jessica Drew.
I Redesigned Spider-Woman because I thought her movie could be a real spy, Espionage, political, terrorist thriller, Marvel movie. It could be all about her being a SHIELD agent who is actually a Spy for Hydra, but she is actually spying on Hydra for SHIELD. And it be this big spy drama, all about who can she trust and who can trust her. And It would be darker and grittier than Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, or Spider-Man. More in the style of the Bourne movies, or Patriot Games, Salt, Mission Impossible 1, movies like those. Maybe cameos by Maria Hill, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Nick Fury, or Agent Coulsen. And to cut the confusion about her being related or connected to Spider-Man, her name is changed to a code name, the Spider or Arachnia. The concept is that in a world with Superheroes and Super Villains, of coarse the government would use, or create in her case, a super powered covert agent to send at the bad guys. So she lives in the same world as Thor and Captain America and Iron Man, but dwells in a part so dark they usually don't get there. She is also so undercover that you can't be sure where her alliances are.
There could also be a scene, to get the Spider-Man confusion out of the way, where someone asks her Are you related to Spi... and she interrupts "NO!" (Or not.)
I redesigned her costume to look more like a spy outfit. The Black stripes were changed to straps. I was considering even making the black stripes outlining her yellow design to be straps too. All straps all the time. But wasn't sure it would look good. Plus Hawkeye has this purple arrow design for no reason on his costume. The red on her suit I made darker. The idea is that its more like a dark uniform that is sort of red. I just haven't finished the coloring yet. The wings currently look like a cape because they aren't extended in flight. But they are meant to be wings and not a cape. Maybe the straps are like a harness for her wings. Her mask and Spider-Man eyes were changed into goggles.
Her left arm might be a little long. I drew this design based on a Marvel cover featuring the new Phantom X, who is a woman, and she was holding a large gun in her left hand. (I wanted to get my idea on paper fast.) I changed it and it turned out too long.
So a very quick character history movie plot concept idea thing:
Jessica Drew (if that is her real name) was an agent for M-13 in England's spy game. She was recruited by SHIELD and went under cover in Hydra. Hydra turned her into a super powered assassin and sent her into SHIELD as their spy. Something like that. Her code names are the Spider and Arachnia.

Drew her with guns because I wasn't sure if she should have the energy bolt powers or not, but the guns aren't manditory, just in the drawing.

 

[Mr. Dent]

Really nice concept, I like it.

I'd make the "cape" that you gave her more like the gliders from the comics though, since I think they could pull that off on a SHIELD outfit considering what they're doing with Falcon. Also not sure if it would make sense for her outfit to be that red in SHIELD...I imagine it would be predominantly black with a little red in it similar to the purple in Hawkeye's costume. Wouldn't mind them keeping it predominantly red though. Anyway, besides those things it's perfect.

 

[blalex620]

Yeah that concept is pretty cool. I like the redesigned suit and the red in her outfit looks better than the all black. Though I'd rather her be a Hydra agent first who's sent into SHIELD as a spy and then is found out and turned into a double agent because they appealed to the fact that she never wanted to be an agent of Hydra but was forced to because her parents where Hydra agents too

 

[blalex620]

Thinking about it it would rather her get a solo movie. It could be a true spy film like Artist said. If they did her in that concept then they could definitely make a solo film work for her. I still like the name Spider-Woman though. A working title could be Jessica Drew: Agent Unknown

 

[Artistsean]

Really nice concept, I like it.

I'd make the "cape" that you gave her more like the gliders from the comics though, since I think they could pull that off on a SHIELD outfit considering what they're doing with Falcon. Also not sure if it would make sense for her outfit to be that red in SHIELD...I imagine it would be predominantly black with a little red in it similar to the purple in Hawkeye's costume. Wouldn't mind them keeping it predominantly red though. Anyway, besides those things it's perfect.

Yeah, I actually intended it to be a glider thing and not a cape. But with her arms at her side I tried to draw the glider webs still visible and blowing in the wind a little. My mistake was drawing it like Batman's cape. But it is meant to be like you said.
The red in her costume, I imagine, would be more like a dark color. Almost like a blackish red. I just didn't find that color I guess. Almost black with a hint of red in it was my original goal.

I don't know which she would be 1st, SHIELD or Hyrda or what, but my intent was that she goes back and forth, a spy for SHIELD on Hydra and a Spy for Hydra on SHIELD, and that its so deep and so many double crosses that you aren't sure what her true mission is, where her allegiances are. Of coarse she is a hero, but one idea or small plot concept was that the audience (or maybe just people in the film) wouldn't know if she was to be trusted, good or bad.

Another concept I came up with, sort of, was after initially people reacted badly to this concept. Another idea is that she is made a flashy costumed "superhero" by Hydra in order for her to join SHIELD and the Avengers to get close to Nick Fury to kill him. And that is why she has powers and a flashy costume. Which would mean it would look less like a spy uniform and more like a superhero costume, and her story would be less espionage, but still some.
But I like the spy movie thing better personally.

Thanks, glad you guys like it.

 

[Spuzz]

Someone explain to an absolute Spider-Woman layman what makes her an interesting character and not just Spider Man with ovaries?

 

[blalex620]

^^^ The spy espionage film is a better fit I think for her character and backstory.
A small concept I came up with was:
The film opens with a little girl being told by her parents that HYDRA is going to change the future and she's lucky because she's going to be a part of that. Cut to the film in the present it's 19 years later and a 25 year old Jessica Drew is seen sparring with a man around her age. From there we'd find out that HYDRA took her from her parents, who have never been seen again, because of her unique powers caused by her mother being exposed to the rays of one of their spider experiments gone wrong when she was pregnant. Jessica's now being trained to become the ultimate agent for HYDRA. She's finally given her assignment, Infiltrate SHIELD and kill Nick Fury. As the film progresses we see Jessica Drew start to struggle with her given assignment. She's been found out by Fury to be an agent of HYDRA and in exchange for becoming a triple agent for SHIELD, Fury will help her look for her missing parents. Some of the things that happen during the film include an "instruction lesson" by Hawkeye and a mission or two dealing with HYDRA. By the end of the film Jessica finds out HYDRA killed her parents and now she vows to destroy them and continues working for SHIELD as a result. The main villain would Taskmaster who taught her how to fight as a child and is the villain in the end who tells her what HYDRA did.

 

[blalex620]

Someone explain to an absolute Spider-Woman layman what makes her an interesting character and not just Spider Man with ovaries?

One, her powers don't have anything to do with shooting webs. She has the ability to fire bio-electricity blasts out her hands and has increased senses strength etc. Plus she has the cool backstory of being a HYDRA turned SHIELD turned back HYDRA forced to be SHIELD agent. She's also a kick*** hero too.

 

[Spuzz]

Huh. Interesting. Thanks

 

[M-2]

I think a cool way to introduce her, would be in a Black Widow film or SHIELD film... Now I know we have a SHIELD TV series coming soon, but that deals more with the little guys, the SHIELD film could deal with Fury's big guns, aka Black Widow, Hawkeye, Agent 13, maybe even a redesigned Misty Knight (not a Shield agent though, just a freelance mercenary, an associate of Fury)

Whatever the case, Jessica Drew would be one of thee primary antagonist. She would not only be working for Hydra she would be one there primary leaders. She would have been raised as one of them. As a child she had some rare disease that could have kill her, however HYDRA went through great lengths (stealing research, kidnappin and torturing whoever didn't want to help) to get a necessary method or antidote to save her life. The medicine and techniques that were used not only pulled her back from the brink of death, but gave her some superhuman abilities. (This being thing the real reason she is alive, she was just an experiment).

This makes her extremely loyal to Hyrda. However, she hasn't always agreed with Hydra's methods, and she is becoming more and more disillusioned by the what they doing. She knows what they doing is wrong, but how can u betray family?

Black Widow makes it her mission to take Drew aka the Spider, down. But after a few confrontations as well as learning more about drew, she realizes that she was in a similar position as Drew is in now. She wants to help Drew the same way Hawkeye helped her. But Barton believes that Drew is all evil, and that things were different with Natasha. (This allows us to find out a little more about Barton and Romanoff's history as well).

In the end, after a internal battle with herself, Drew helps Widow take down the real villain (who ever that maybe), but when Widow tells her to come with her, Drew refuses and escapes through the confusion of Explosions... Widow, Coulson and Hawkeye search for any tips on Drew but they come up short to Fury's dissatisfaction.

Post Credit Scene - Misty Knight and Luke Cage track Drew down, and they make her an offer, join them as a sellsword, a Hero for Hire. Get a client, get paid and let that be that. No politics. No bull*****. Just do a job. And Get paid.


She will inevitably become a SHIELD Agent but u could have fun with it first, especially if Marvel decide that Fury becomes a wanted man, and he goes on the run. Drew could become one his personal agents working her way into SHIELD and HYDRA, pretending to be a spy for both parties when in fact she's really a spy for Fury! Quadruple Agent!!

 

[Mr. Dent]

Someone explain to an absolute Spider-Woman layman what makes her an interesting character and not just Spider Man with ovaries?

Yeah, they're absolutely nothing alike really. Other than gaining her powers from a spider, in a completely different way than Peter, they have nothing in common as far as their origin and powers are concerned. Blale already explained some of it. She can also release pheromones that attract males and she can fly. She can stick to walls as well, though through a completely different process from Spider-Man. And like Blale said, no web shooting from her.

She is also more of a spy than a crimefighting super hero, and starts out working for HYDRA before switching sides to SHIELD.

 

[InternetPeople]

She can be anything, just don't call her Spider-woman or you risk losing your audience.

 

[Mr. Dent]

They can call her that and it would be believable as her SHIELD codename.

 

[InternetPeople]

It looks like a Spider-Man rip off. Uninformed people will want to make a connection between the two characters that doesn't exist. Avoid the problem and call her something else.

 

[Mr. Dent]

No it doesn't. They'd be two completely different character, with almost nothing in common, not even their costumes would be similar. Having her codename be Spider-Woman while calling her Jess most of the time works perfectly fine and no one would think anymore of Spider-Man other than a simple acknowledgment.

 

[KangConquers]

Spider-Man is too engrained in the public conscious for her to ever step out of her shadow, regardless of it only being a name.

 

[Mace Dolex]

She can be anything, just don't call her Spider-woman or you risk losing your audience.

Just as long as they don't wind up introducing the She-Hulk into live action, that will just look incredibly bad on screen, imagine a huge muscular women done in CGI.

 

[Shikamaru]

I think Spider-Woman can work in the movies without there being any problems due to Spider-Man but I think it is impossible for her to not come across as a female version of Spider-Man to the general audience no matter how way they write her because as someone else said, Spider-Man is way too ingrained in the public conscious for people to not think of her as a Spider-Man ripoff.

I do think that addressing this in the movie will make that go away though. There needs to be a scene where someone asks her if she is related to Spider-Man and for her to say she is not associated with him at all. That would not only put an end or at least greatly reduce the Spider-Man ripoff accusations but it would also be a cool easter egg for Spider-Man .

 

[Spuzz]

Yeah I think my initial post showing my ignorance regarding the character/myassumption she was just to Spider-Man what Supergirl is to Superman proves that the general audience would be a tad confused. From what I'm reading Spider-Woman sounds very different and very awesome. If used in the MCU films they might want to just refer to her as her real name, a slightly different code name, or maybe combine her traits with another character to essentially represent her/kill two birds with one stone (Like how IM2's Whiplas was essentially both Crimson Dynamo and Whiplash if that makes any sense).

Also am I wrong or was she in Marvel v.s. Capcom 3? That might have introduced the character to a bunch of people not familiar with her if she was.

 

[blalex620]

Yeah I think my initial post showing my ignorance regarding the character/myassumption she was just to Spider-Man what Supergirl is to Superman proves that the general audience would be a tad confused. From what I'm reading Spider-Woman sounds very different and very awesome. If used in the MCU films they might want to just refer to her as her real name, a slightly different code name, or maybe combine her traits with another character to essentially represent her/kill two birds with one stone (Like how IM2's Whiplas was essentially both Crimson Dynamo and Whiplash if that makes any sense).

Also am I wrong or was she in Marvel v.s. Capcom 3? That might have introduced the character to a bunch of people not familiar with her if she was.

She wasn't sadly wish she was in MvC3. I don't like the idea of combining her character with another's. That works for villains(sometimes) but not really heroes. As much as I would hate it they could call her by her old codename Arachne.

 

[Mace Dolex]

Spider-Man is way too ingrained in the public conscious for people to not think of her as a Spider-Man ripoff.

I do think that addressing this in the movie will make that go away though. There needs to be a scene where someone asks her if she is related to Spider-Man and for her to say she is not associated with him at all. That would not only put an end or at least greatly reduce the Spider-Man ripoff accusations but it would also be a cool easter egg for Spider-Man .

I can see them somehow working that bit into the trailer in some humorous corny fashion cliche like scratching of the record followed by a lame response.

I think moviegoers will know what Im talking about.