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History

Dr. Rita Clarkson was a scientist who worked for New U Technologies,[1] a pharmaceutical company which provided high-end medical solutions using cloned organs that was in reality the front of the new Jackal's operations.[2]

Having been called by Jay Jameson's doctor after he collapsed due to a disease, Dr. Clarkson approached Peter Parker and J. Jonah Jameson to offer the services of New U. As Parker wanted to know more about their procedure before submitting Jay to it, Dr. Clarkson gave him access to documents about it.

After an explosion at the Parker Industries Chemical Plant in Oklahoma, Dr. Clarkson was contacted by Peter Parker to have her team do their procedure on one of the injured workers, Jerry Salteres, who was left in a critical state after the chemicals he breathed danified his internal organs, making him need multiple viable transplants to survive. After the Jackal allowed the procedure to take place, Clarkson sent her team to operate Salteres.[1] He was instead secretly abducted and reaplced with a healthy clone that possessed all of his memories.[3]

At New U Headquarters in San Francisco, Dr. Clarkson met with a desperate J. Jonah Jameson, who was willing to do anything to save his father, but still had his doubts. To demonstrate what New U was capable of, Clarkson called in his reanimated wife, Marla.[1]

When the Jackal's enterprise collapsed after Spider-Man stopped him from cleansing the Earth with the Carrion Virus and bringing everyone back as clones, Rita came forward and offered her help in order to redeem for her crimes. She first revealed Spider-Man a secret basement where New U kept all of their patients that had been replaced with clones in stasis tubes,[3] and later shared with S.H.I.E.L.D. the list of all of New U's known patients.

Later while sulking at the bar she frequented, Rita was approached by the Jackal, who had previously faked his own death and asked her for money to resettle. Rita initially declined to help him, until the Jackal saved her life from two attackers, one of whom was the husband of one of New U's patients who had been replaced with a clone that eventually died during the Carrion Virus outbreak. After Rita gave the Jackal all of her savings as a way to repay him, he revealed he had staged the attack, having tipped off the grieving husband to Rita's location so he could save her and she would feel the need to repay him. Rita brushed off the Jackal's revelation as the joke it appeared to be, unaware it was actually true.[4]

Notes

Ben and Rita’s last interaction is a kiss. Since Ben is at this point infected with the Carrion virus, this may be fatal, though Rita is alive when last seen.

See Also

Links and References

References

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