Appearing in "Things That Go Flit in the Night"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- ⏴ Gypsy Moth ⏵ (First appearance)
Other Characters:
- ⏴ Priscilla Dolly ⏵
- Guy Balsam (First appearance)
- Joy and Holly (First appearance)
- Marya (First appearance)
- Los Angeles Police Department
- Morgan Le Fay (Mentioned)
- Needle (Mentioned)
- William (Mentioned)
- Jake (Mentioned)
Locations:
- Los Angeles
- Unnamed secluded beach
- Bel Air
- Joy's home
- North Hollywood
- The Dolly House
- Hollywood Club
- Bangkok (Mentioned)
- Citadel of Science (Mentioned), Wundagore Mountain (Mentioned)
Items:
Vehicles:
- Cars
Synopsis for "Things That Go Flit in the Night"
Out on a romantic evening by the beach with Jerry Hunt, Jessica Drew spots a strange woman with wings flying above them.[Continuity 1] This prompts her to change into Spider-Woman and try to go after the woman. However, the strange moth-like girl gets away. Returning to Jerry, Jerry is very upset that Jessica went chasing yet another "freak", and calls it a night and takes her home. Returning to the boarding house she shares with her friend Magnus, Jessica asks their landlady Priscilla Dolly if she's seen her "uncle" around, Dolly tells her that Magnus got a job as a stage magician.[Continuity 2] Going up to her room, Jessica finds a new dress purchased for her by Magnus and an invite to see Magnus's stage show. Jessica goes to the nightclub. but arrives too late to see Magnus perform. Magnus invite her to accompany him to an exclusive party he has been invited to.
Going to the party, Jessica finds that Magnus has made himself quite popular very quickly, but finds herself more or less ignored by the party-goers, although she does meet a man named Guy Balsam who does not have the combination of attraction and fear that most men have for her.[Continuity 3] When Jessica sees the moth-woman again, she is shocked to see that she has some sort of powers that allow her to control thread, as she uses it to turn some of the female party-goers' dresses into cocoons. Not wishing to let this girl get away, Jessica has Magnus turn her party dress into her Spider-Woman costume[Continuity 4] and chases after her. Engaging the super-powered woman, who introduces herself as Gypsy Moth, Jessica is attacked by her strange powers.[Continuity 5] She finds that this woman is not friendly in the least, and is not interested in doing more than fighting. Gypsy Moth uses her powers to take thread from other people's clothing to wrap Spider-Woman up in a thread cocoon and dump her in the pool. However, Jessica breaks free and battles the Gypsy Moth again. Jerry arrives and fires a shot at the Gypsy Moth, hitting one of her wings. Realizing that the wings are part of the Moth's body, Jessica stuns Jerry with a venom blast and takes Gypsy Moth out of there. She decides that to let the Gypsy Moth go, since she didn't really do anything wrong, and isn't interested in making friends, and so Spider-Woman slinks away before the Moth can recover.
Later, Jessica is reunited with Jerry, and the two have another argument about what exactly it was that Jessica was doing.
Notes
Continuity Notes[]
- ↑ Jerry mentions how his mouth has fully healed after being sewn up by the Needle last issues.
- ↑ In Spider-Woman #5, Magnus magically made some flowers appear in front of Mrs. Dolly, and she compared him to TV illusionists. In this issue, he find out that Mrs. Dolly recommended Magnus to find a job as a stage magician, which he did. In the previous issue, Spider-Woman #9, Magnus was "away on business", which is inferred to be related to his job.
- ↑ Jessica does not know yet that this reaction is caused by pheromones she emits; she discovers this in Spider-Woman #16. The sheltered Jessica also doesn't realize that Balsam is homosexual, something that is obvious to the reader. Presumably, Balsam's sexual orientation means the pheromones do not affect him.
- ↑ When the Moth attacks Joy's house, Jessica wants to change to her secret identity but she's not wearing the uniform; Magnus the sorcerer uses his powers to alter Jessica's clothes. After this, Jessica decides to always carry the uniform with her, as would be revealed in Spider-Woman #16
- ↑ Jessica wonders if Gypsy Moth got her powers from Wundagore Mountain like she did. Spider-Woman's origins are were detailed in Marvel Spotlight #32 and Spider-Woman #1. This is not the case for Gypsy Moth who is later revealed to be mutant in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (Vol. 2) #5.
