Spider-Woman Fact — November 5, 2026

Today's Fact

Jessica Drew’s strangest job title was never Avenger. It was alien hunter, hired out of her own wreckage.

AFTER A SKRULL QUEEN STOLE HER LIFE, SPIDER-WOMAN TOOK A PAYCHECK TO HUNT SKRULLS FOR S.W.O.R.D.!

The Featured Fact

Jessica Drew came home from Secret Invasion to a reputation in ruins: the face the world had watched lead an alien invasion was hers, worn by the Skrull queen Veranke. In Spider-Woman Vol. 4 #1 (2009), by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev, Abigail Brand of S.W.O.R.D. offers her a grim form of therapy — a salary, alien-detection technology, and a list of leftover Skrulls to hunt down.

Her first assignment sends her to Madripoor, where the opening target turns out to be a Skrull impersonating Spider-Man. Jessica, who had been impersonated longer and more thoroughly than almost any hero alive, gets to return the favour with venom blasts — against the species that stole years of her life, her face and her good name in a single campaign.

The job made her the most motivated alien hunter on any payroll: nobody else at S.W.O.R.D. could recognise an impostor’s hollow life from the inside. The seven-issue series also travelled beyond the page, adapted by Marvel as a motion comic released alongside the print run — Jessica Drew’s revenge, published in two media at once.

Why It's Obscure

Post-invasion, Marvel’s most replaced hero got paid to make sure nobody else stayed replaced.

Abigail Brand

The recruiter — S.W.O.R.D.’s director chose Jessica precisely because her fury at the Skrulls made her the agency’s most reliable hunter.

Madripoor

The first hunting ground — Jessica’s debut mission drops her into Marvel’s most lawless port city, chasing a Skrull wearing Spider-Man’s face.

A licence and a list

Tools of the trade — Brand equips her agent with an alien detector and mission briefs delivered by phone: bounty-hunter gear for an interstellar war’s leftovers.

The real Jessica

What the job repaired — every Skrull she caught was public proof that the woman the invasion blamed was back, and that she was not the queen who wore her.

Gallery

The agent, her first rooftop debrief, and the director who pointed her at the Skrulls.

Spider-Woman telling Spider-Man she is an agent of S.W.O.R.D. in a comic panel page — **Straight from the agent’s mouth**A rooftop panel in which Jessica tells Spider-Man she is an agent of S.W.O.R.D. now — and that aliens are exactly her department.

Spider-Woman comic cover art crouched in a web with a Skrull face behind her — **The hunter and the haunted**Cover art of Jessica in the web, a Skrull’s face looming behind her — the species that impersonated her, now the species on her list.

Abigail Brand, the recruiterBrand front and centre in S.W.O.R.D. green — the director who looked at Jessica Drew’s ruin and saw a weapons-grade job application.

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against at least two independent sources before publication.

Bullpen Bulletins

Spider-Woman — Marvel.com Marvel’s official reading guide confirms that in Spider-Woman (2009) #1 Jessica travels to Madripoor under Abigail Brand’s orders to take revenge on the Skrulls as an agent of S.W.O.R.D.
Spider-Woman: Agent of S.W.O.R.D. — Wikipedia Summarises the Bendis and Maleev series: Brand recruits Jessica after Secret Invasion, and her first Madripoor mission targets a Skrull posing as Spider-Man.
Spider-Woman — Comic Vine Comic Vine’s S.W.O.R.D. arc summary records Brand approaching Jessica in London, the alien-detector equipment, and the Madripoor hunt for remaining Skrulls.