Appearing in "La Morte de Jessica"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- ⏴ King Arthur ⏵ (Illusion/Flashback)
- Sir Lancelot (Illusion or holographic simulation)
- Gwynevere (Illusion or holographic simulation)
- Merlyn (Mentioned)
- God (Mentioned)
- Chthon (Mentioned)
- High Evolutionary (Mentioned)
- Hydra (Mentioned)
- SHIELD (Mentioned)
- Magnus (Mentioned)
- Judas Man (only foreshadowed)
- Unnamed armed man (only foreshadowed)
Locations:
- Avalon (Mentioned)
- United States of America
- Wundagore Mountain (Mentioned)
- United Kingdom
Items:
Vehicles:
- Lindsay McCabe's car
Synopsis for "La Morte de Jessica"
Returning to her office, Jessica Drew sees the image of Morgan le Fay and attacks, not realizing it's an illusion cast by her foe. As a result, Jessica ends up striking her friend Lindsay McCabe down by mistake. Lindsay dismisses an explanation, accepting the fact that strange things happen when she's around Jessica. The two then leave to participate in Camelot Fair, an annual Renaissance festival just outside of San Francisco.[Continuity 1]
At the Camelot Fair, Jessica once more becomes the target of Morgan le Fey, who attacks her with illusions, making her relive the life of Guinevere during the time of the court of Camelot.[Continuity 2] Fighting off the illusions' influence, Jessica runs for her Spider-Woman costume and finds Morgan waiting for her. With Morgan magically changing Jessica into her Spider-Woman costume, the two fight. During the combat, Morgan puts Lindsay at risk of a faux Camelot witch burning. However, Spider-Woman saves her friend. During the fight with Morgan, Morgan reveals that Jessica's time in suspended animation linked her to the demon Chthon, and thus linked her to the dreaded Darkhold.
Spider-Woman fights off an attack by the hordes that Morgan le Fay has summoned, and when Morgan grabs Lindsay and holds her hostage, she demands that Spider-Woman join her, because she is the only one who can grant her salvation from Chthon's machinations.[Continuity 3] However, Spider-Woman throws a sword at Morgan, impaling her and causing her to disappear to her own time and reverse her spell. Afterward, everything resumes as normal. Jessica changes back to her civilian guise, perplexed that everyone around her has acted as though nothing ever happened.
Notes
- Morgan says that Jessica had been born in Wundagore. Jessica was confirmed to have been born elsewhere (later revealed to be specifically London in her profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #14) and moved to Wundagore with her family when she was a child, as seen in Spider-Woman #1. Morgan may have been speaking metaphorically.
Continuity Notes[]
- ↑ The year in this story is stated to be 1981. This should be considered a topical refrence per the Sliding Timecale of Earth-616.
- ↑ Although the Camelot scene is all presented as an illusion, it is depicting actual events that happened in Camelot during the reign of King Arthur as clarified in the Merlin and Morgan le Fay entries in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (Vol. 2) #8–9. Jessica recalls her dream in Spider-Woman #39 wherein Lindsay was burned at the stake.
- ↑ During this battle, Spider-Woman recalls her last battle with Morgan le Fay. That was in Spider-Woman #6.
Trivia
- Jessica is seen using many books to research on Morgan. Those books include: Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485); Merlin Stone's When God was a Woman (1976); Robert Graves' The White Goddess (1948); T.H. White's The Once and Future King (1958; collected from shorter novels 1938-40); Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave (1970); John Steinbeck's unfinished The acts of King Arthur and his noble knights (1976); and three other books named Les Celtiques; Arthur, King of Britain; and Færies (which may have been Brian Froud and Alan Lee's Faeries, 1978), the last of which flies when Jessica leaves.