Somewhere in a green, lush, suburbia. Stanley Roberts, 55, waters his flowers. He smiles as he watches the water soak into the ground. He feels something bite the back of his neck. He reaches up and pulls a feathered dart out of his skin. Bewildered, his face freezes in the position. A man steps in front of him and identifies himself as the lone survivor of a convoy left in Vietnam. He calls himself Kraven and smiles as he shoves the hose down the submissive Mr. Roberts throat. Roberts lays on the ground behind Kraven with water gushing out of his mouth and nose. Kraven pulls out a list and crosses Lt. Roberts' name off of it. Jessica Drew is next.
Later, Jessica Drew patrols New York City on her own. Finally having returned comfortably to her role as Spider-Woman. She perches herself on a gargoyle with a great view of the city. From her vantage she spots what looks like gunfire inside an apartment. Quickly she makes her way to the tenement to see what's going on. Inside she spies one man holding a smoking pistol. He is laughing and apparently he had fired through the roof. The family of the tenement is huddled in a corner and the man with the gun yells orders to two others that are going though the families belongings.
Suddenly, Spider-Woman smashes through a window, knocking one of the thugs to the ground. She loves the exhilaration of leaping into melee combat, noting that her upper body strength is greater than most, as she knocks out a thug with one punch by accident. After taking out those two, only the leader - the gunman - remains. She can see it in his body language that he intends to shoot the family.
Thinking on her feet, she blasts the leader's wrist with her venom. Angrily, he tackles her, launching both of them out the window. He winds up dangling at her mercy in fear as she secretes a fear pheromone into his face, and she ties him to the balcony before securing the others and leaving the scene. Screaming for his life.
That night, Jessica dreams of the past. She was once the Spider-Man's star pupil, but one night, she answered her door to find Cletus Kasady, he was going by Carnage at that time, standing there with a gun pointed at her. He shot her, and the bullet went through the first lumbar of her spinal cord, paralyzing her from the waist down for three years.
She wakes from her nightmare, and remembers where she is. Fortunately, she regained her ability to walk, since that night. She walks in on her father, James, enjoying a cup of coffee. He informs her that it is actually evening, and she has slept all day. She has plans to move out today; to move into her own place, and "stretch her legs."
Jessica's new place is in a building called Cherry Tree Hall, and her roommate is a bartender by night and painter by day. Despite her new roommate's quirky personality and penchant for activism, Jessica thinks they will get along well. She offers to help Jessica move in. At Sacred Hands of God Hospital, the thug that Spider-Woman injured with her Venom is receiving treatment, and remains under watch by Detective Stacy and his partner. In the same hospital, Kraven asks to see a Theodore Rankin before punching the receptionist in the face and shooting a security guard in the head. Stacy and his partner hear the shot, and prepare to face whatever awaits them.
Jessica has rigged her phone to receive her father's messages, so that she can follow up on any calls for police assistance. Discovering what's happening at the hospital, she gets her motorcycle out of her van, and rides to the scene. She rides her bike right into the building and onto the elevator.
As Kraven makes his way to their room, Stacy and his partner warn that if he doesn't get away from the door, they will shoot. In response, Kraven blasts through the door, shooting Stacy and his partner in the process. Stacy survives, but his partner is not so lucky.
Kraven approaches the injured thug, claiming that he should have fallen to his death during the altercation with Spider-Woman, and that has put him on the list. Jessica reaches the scene, and attempts to intervene, but Kraven aims his gun at her in just the same area that Kasady had when he crippled her. Lost in her memory, she freezes long enough for Kraven to shove the patient's bed out the window, into a long drop to the street below. Having watched the whole scene, Stacy accuses Spider-Woman of being a murderer as she stood there and did nothing to stop it.
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