Appearing in 1st story
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Ophelia Vermis (Death in main story and appears in flashback)
- High Evolutionary (Herbert Wyndham) (Apparent death)
Antagonists:
- Numerous unnamed Miriam Drew Clones (Death of several)
- Octavia Vermis (Main story and flashback)
Other Characters:
- Hydra (Only in flashback)
- Otto Vermis (Only in flashback)
- Miriam Drew (Mentioned) (Deceased)
- Miles Warren (Mentioned)
- Stegron the Dinosaur Man (Vincent Stegron) (Name only)
- Jonathan Drew (Mentioned)
- Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) (Vision or hallucination)
- Michael Marchand (Vision or hallucination)
- War Machine (Jim Rhodes) (Vision or hallucination)
- God (Yahweh) (Invoked)
Races and Species:
- Humans
- Human-Kree Hybrids (Vision or hallucination)
- Spiders (Vision or hallucination)
- Wolves (Vision or hallucination)
Locations:
- Earth (Main story and flashback)
- High Evolutionary's Volcano Lair
- United States of America (Vision or hallucination)
- New York (Vision or hallucination)
- New York City (Vision or hallucination)
- Manhattan (Vision or hallucination)
- Midtown (Vision or hallucination)
- Marchand Pharmaceuticals (Vision or hallucination)
- Midtown (Vision or hallucination)
- Stark Safehouse #B22 (Vision or hallucination)
- Manhattan (Vision or hallucination)
- New York City (Vision or hallucination)
- New York (Vision or hallucination)
- Europe (Vision or hallucination)
- Transia (Vision or hallucination)
- Wundagore Mountain (Vision or hallucination)
- Transia (Vision or hallucination)
Items:
- Spider-Woman's Suit
- Captain Marvel's Suit (Vision or hallucination)
- War Machine Armor Model 9 (Vision or hallucination)
Synopsis for 1st story
After waking up from a nightmare, Jess is guided by a Miriam clone to Octavia and Ophelia, sparring in a dojo room talking about the latter's schoolwork, and Jess's arrival distracts the young girl for Octavia to wound before ending the training. Alone, Octavia recounts her origin as Otto Vermis' child undergoing experimentation, not dissimilar to Jess's childhood. Like Jess, Octavia chooses to have a child and lead a different life with a happier meaning. Finishing her story, Jess is finally brought before the High Evolutionary, who corrects her sardonic comment on the "hundreds of clones" of her mother with an accurate count of 75. He also affirms that Miriam was cloned when she was alive but indeed died by Hydra years earlier.
Wyndham explains to Jess that he owed a debt to Miriam, who came to him since her colleague Miles Warren became unstable, and she needed decoy clones to stave off Hydra. He elaborates that the clones became unstable after she died, conflating loving Jess with hating Hydra, keeping the surplus for a personal workforce with mental inhibitors, and sending one to be the Miriam that would watch over Jess's sleep. Feeling obliged to cure Jess, Gerry, and Rebecca, Wyndham sent Octavia to help Jess acquire the resources to make a cure in an energy array.
However, Jess doesn't trust the procedure, and Octavia uses a sequencer upon hearing Wyndham's code to free the Miriams, who goes into a rage trying to kill everyone present. While Octavia planned to sell the array to Michael Marchand for an untold fortune, much to Ophelia's disgust and anger as she fights to help Wyndham while Jess fights the frenzied clones aiming to kill her. As Octavia backstabs Wyndham, she manipulates Jess with promises of revenge by phrasing Wyndham's involvement as his fault. A mentally-addled Jess agrees with and motions to kill him as Ophelia fights her mother. Still, before she could commit, a group of Miriams attack her and unwittingly send her into the array with their assault.
Now cured, Jess recalls her actions during her sickness and realizes the horrible things she's done to those close to her since she started looking for a cure. As Octavia insults Ophelia as a disappointment for expecting some change in her mother, Ophelia comments on her mother's self-hate with seeing her daughter as her own weakness. Feigning maternal concern, Octavia moves to snap Ophelia's neck, and upon turning to Jess asks if there was a problem, with the hero acting unfazed.