JESSICA JONES

Jessica Jones was created in 2001, but Alias Vol. 1 #22 (2003) retconned her into the oldest corner of Spider-Man history. As schoolgirl Jessica Campbell, she attended Midtown High School with Peter Parker, shared classes with him, and nursed a crush she never voiced. On the day she finally resolved to ask him out, she followed him to a science exhibit at the New York Hall of Science — and was about to approach him when the radioactive spider bit him instead, replaying the origin from Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962) with Jessica standing in the scene.

The near-miss did not end at the exhibit door. Jessica followed Peter out, lost sight of him, and was nearly run down by an Ajax Atomic Labs truck before a passer-by pulled her to safety — a second brush, in a single afternoon, with the kind of radioactive accident that made heroes in that era. Her own powers came separately and tragically: a later car crash with a military convoy carrying experimental material killed her parents and younger brother, left Jessica in a coma, and left her with super-strength, durability and flight.

The cruel punchline arrived years later. When Peter's identity became known to his fellow Avengers, Jessica finally told him about Midtown — and learned that he and their classmates had only known her, after the accident, as “Coma Girl.” The girl who had stood beside him at the exact moment Marvel's most famous origin happened had been, to its hero, essentially invisible — a connection retold in New Avengers Vol. 1 #51 and revisited in Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 2 #601.