Cast This: Spider-Woman

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

When it comes to super-heroes with arachnid-based abilities, most of us immediately think of Spider-Man, but there are a multitude of other Spider-heroes out there who have followed in the footsteps of Peter Parker, including Jessica Drew, aka Spider-Woman. The cinematic Spider-Verse is quickly growing, with SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME recently kicking off production in England, SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE hitting theaters this December, and Sony developing many spin-off's featuring Spider-Man characters such as Venom, Silver Sable & Black Cat, Morbius the Living Vampire, and Silk.

Spider-Woman made her debut in Marvel Spotlight #32 back in 1977, but her character was initially developed in order to secure a copyright. "I suddenly realized that some other company may quickly put out a book like that and claim they have the right to use the name, and I thought we'd better do it real fast to copyright the name," said Stan Lee in 1978. "So we just batted one quickly, and that's exactly what happened. I wanted to protect the name, because it's the type of thing [where] someone else might say, 'Hey, why don't we put out a Spider-Woman; they can't stop us.'" Filmation was also developing the Saturday morning cartoon series Tarzan and the Super Seven at the time, which was to feature a character called Spider-Woman. They were then forced to change the character's name to Web-Woman. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Jonathan Drew, Jessica Drew's father, was a geneticist who built a research facility near Mount Wundagore in Transia, an area with rich deposits of uranium. However, the uranium exposure caused Jessica to become gravely ill. In an effort to save his daughter's life, Jonathan injected Jessica with an untested serum made from the blood of several uncommon species of spiders and sealed her in a genetic accelerator which kept her in stasis. Emerging decades later with no memories of her past, Jessica was convinced to become an assassin for HYDRA, but she soon rebelled after discovering the true nature of the organization. As Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew possess many abilities similar to Peter Parker's, including strength, speed, stamina, and wall-crawling, but she also has a few unique abilities, including channeling the inordinate amount of bio-electricity within her body through her hands as "Venom Blasts."

Now, who has what it takes to join the ranks of fellow web-slingers Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland? I'm certain that there are any number of actresses who would jump at the chance to suit up as Spider-Woman, but I'll toss out a few suggestions to get you started. Mary Elizabeth Winstead (10 CLOVERFIELD LANE) already has several genre roles under her belt in which she's demonstrated her abilities, both in terms of creating character and kicking ass, and I'd love to see her take on a super-hero like Spider-Woman. Alexandra Daddario (BAYWATCH) certainly has the look of Spider-Woman down, but I'd like to see what she could do when challenged with a starring role. I've been a big fan of Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones) for some time and believe she could do a lot with the character. Plus, it'd be nice to see her break out on the big-screen. I know, Ritter is already a part of the Marvel Universe through her Netflix series, but she wouldn't be the first actor to take on more than one Marvel role.

Remember, you're free to suggest anyone in the comments, so let your inner casting director run wild!

Previously on Cast This, you were asked to pick the next James Bond villain. Not an easy task as pretty much anyone could fit the bill, but you came through with plenty of awesome suggestions for a whole variety of Bond baddies that I wouldn't have thought of such as Josh Brolin (AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR), Emily Blunt (A QUIET PLACE), and Cillian Murphy (DUNKIRK).