just in time for the prison to activate its black-market AIM Dreadnaughts.
WYSPER
Real Name: Jennifer "Jenny" Stewart
Identity/Class: Human technology user
Occupation: Vigilante;
former mercenary, prison guard
Group Membership: Jury (Bomblast, Firearm, Ramshot, Sentry (Curtis Elkins), USAgent (John Walker));
formerly Cordco
Affiliations: Claire, Gavel, Olivia Lentz, Ryan Stewart, Max Taylor;
formerly Edwin Cord
Enemies: Brute Force (Fieldstone, Fizgig, Hoarfrost, Hoopsnake, Ingot, Loblolly, Scarum, Watchfire), Dreadnaughts, Hybrid (Scott Washington), New Warriors (Justice (Vance Astrovik), Powerhouse (Alex Power), Turbo (Mickey Musashi)), Tarantula (Luis Alvarez), Secret Empire (Cheer Chadwick, Hesperus Chadwick, William Taurey, Shocktroopers), Thunderbolts (Atlas (Erik Josten), Charcoal (Charlie Burlingame), Hawkeye (Clint Barton), Jolt, MACH-1 (Abe Jenkins), Moonstone (Karla Sofen), Penance (Robbie Baldwin), Radioactive Man (Chen Lu), Songbird (Melissa Gold), Swordsman (Andreas Strucker), Venom (Mac Gargan))
Known Relatives: Ryan Stewart (husband)
Aliases: "Jen"
Base of Operations: Mobile;
formerly a base north of Boulder;
formerly an Equity, Inc. warehouse in the Bronx;
formerly an Equity, Inc. plant off the coat of southern California;
formerly the Vault
First Appearance: Venom: Sinner Takes All#1/2 (August, 1995)
Powers/Abilities: Stewart's armored suit provides her with superhuman strength and endurance. Her primary weapons are her sonic gauntlets, which can fire concentrated blasts of sound; she can also use them to create electronics-destroying feedback or to create a burst of white noise, destroying an opponent's equilibrium. She can fly via built-in boot jets; her original suit required removable flight disks on her feet to fly. Originally, her suit was powered solely by a back-mounted power pack, making it vulnerable to attack; her second suit has power sources distributed throughout it.
History: (Deathtrap: The Vault - BTS/Venom: Sinner Takes All#1/2 (fb)/Venom: Sinner Takes All#4/2 (fb) ) - During the Venom-led riot at the super villain prison the Vault, prison guard Jenny Stewart was separated from her husband and fellow guard Ryan. She could only watch as he was murdered by an escaped inmate - unbeknownst to her, Delvadian terrorist Tarantula. Years later, she applied to join the vigilante organization the Jury.
(Venom: Sinner Takes All#1/2) - Jenny's application to the Jury was accepted, and she rushed off to their headquarters, leaving her roommate Claire with the next month's rent check. Once at Jury HQ, she was given the gear that had formerly belonged to ex-Juror Screech and tasked with playing a game of "capture the flag" with Jurors Ramshot, Bomblast, and Firearm. Firearm blasted her to the ground, and as Ramshot moved in, she launched her flight disk at him, taking him out of the fight. She flew through Bomblast's legs and grabbed the flag, just as he blasted her. The test passed, she was accepted as a member of the Jury; as she neglected to use her suit's sonic gauntlets,, her teammates dubbed her "Wysper". She accompanied the Jury on a mission to Boca del Dios, to retrieve a prisoner (unbeknownst to her, Luis Alvarez, her husband's killer) from their El Caldron prison; shortly before they departed, Max Taylor gave her a few words of encouragement. During the flight, Bomblast tried to impress her, but she fell asleep and dreamed of Ryan's death. Firearm woke her up, and they attacked the prison. Wysper was horrified when she blasted several Bocan soldiers, but Ramshot shook her out of it -
just in time for the prison to activate its black-market AIM Dreadnaughts.
(Venom: Sinner Takes All#2/2) - Wysper forgot to adjust the settings on her sonic gauntlets to battle the inhuman Dreadnaughts, much to team leader Sentry's disappointment. She, Bomblast, and Firearm entered the prison to take Alvarez. They escaped on the Justifier, but Sentry was grabbed by a remaining Dreadnaught. Wysper grabbed Sentry before he could be pulled out; he ordered her to let go, but she held on until Sentry released his gauntlet, sending the robot plummeting to the ground. Once they arrived back at base, Wysper was informed that Alvarez was captured because the Jury found his sentence - life in prison - too lenient.
(Venom: Sinner Takes All#3/2) - After watching Alvarez's trial, Wysper was ordered to report to the armory, where Sentry informed her that she was off the team. She watched as the Jury's judge, the Gavel, sentenced Alvarez to death, only for him to "escape" their gas chamber. Rushing to the armory, she found every weapon but her sonic gauntlets locked up. Back in the courtroom, she found the Tarantula. Joined by Firearm, she moved in to take him down - until Firearm locked the door and told Alvarez (who had been provided with his Tarantula costume and weapons) that if he killed Wysper, he was free to go.
(Venom: Sinner Takes All#4/2) - The Gavel appeared on the courtroom's monitors, and told Wysper that she had to fight Alvarez to the death. The Tarantula slashed her across the chest with his poisoned spikes, giving her ten minutes to live. She fled into another monitor-lined room, but the Gavel berated her, trying to convince her to kill the Tarantula. She used her gauntlets to create feedback, shattering the monitors. She collapsed, but Sentry caught her. He had a vial of the antidote to the Tarantula's poison - and he promised to give it to her as soon as she killed the Tarantula. She returned to the courtroom, where the rest of the Jury had gathered to watch. Suffering from the poisons effects, she was slashed by the Tarantula's poisoned spikes again, but she used her gauntlets to create a white-sound burst, destroying the Tarantula's inner ear. His balance shot, she pummeled him, and trapped him in a headlock, but she couldn't bring herself to kill him - until the Gavel played enhanced security camera footage from the Vault breakout, showing Alvarez to be Ryan's killer. Without hesitation, she snapped his neck, killing him. She was given the antidote and became a full member of the Jury.
(Venom: The Hunted#1/2) - With the Jury, Wysper set up a trap for symbiote vigilante Hybrid in Brooklyn. When he attacked Sentry, Wysper blasted the symbiote off him. Hybrid responded by firing his ambulatory tendrils at her, which tried to pry off her gauntlets. She blasted them off into the streets, alerting the rest of the Jury, who took down Hybrid. They took him to their base in the Bronx, where prosecutor Olivia Lentz tried to separate him from his symbiotes.
(Venom: The Hunted#2/2) - Wysper watched as Sentry recognized the symbiotes' host, Scott Washington, and as his maddened symbiotes grabbed a hold of Sentry. Wysper held her fire, but the symbiotes used Sentry's weaponry to blast her, Firearm, and Bomblast. The Jury split up and circled the symbiote - Wysper shot first, but suddenly found herself blasted with a torrent of air from Turbo as the New Warriors crashed the base.
(Venom: The Hunted#3/2) - Wysper blasted Justice, who was protected by his telekinetic force field. He knocked her aside with a telekinetic blast, but she turned the tables on him, combining her firepower with Firearm and Ramshot until Turbo tossed her out of the fight.
(Thunderbolts I#23 (fb) ) - The Jury lost their support system, but they were hired by unscrupulous businessman Edwin Cord to act as his personal security force in Colorado. Cord also hired USAgent to act as the Jury's new leader.
(Thunderbolts I#23) - In a luxurious apartment suit, Stewart and the Jury watched the Thunderbolt MACH-1 turn himself in to the authorities. USAgent entered with their new orders from Cord - take down the remaining Thunderbolts. Jenny was unimpressed with the Agent's focus on the target, instead of his own team. Nevertheless, she and the Jury tracked the Thunderbolts, now led by Hawkeye, to their base. Wysper took on Songbird and Moonstone; she has the latter on the ropes until an electro-disruptor arrow in the power back from Hawkeye grounded her. With the rest of the Jury defeated, USAgent allowed the Thunderbolts to flee.
(Thunderbolts I#28) - Now equipped with improved armor suits, courtesy of Cord, Wysper and the Jury trained in their new base. Wysper, especially, was eager to go after the Thunderbolts, but USAgent insisted they keep training. When he received word that the Thunderbolts were battling Graviton in San Francisco, he ordered the team to mobilize - until Cord personally ordered them to stand down, as Cord's interests weren't in danger.
(Thunderbolts I#32) - Citizen V alerted the Jury to the Thunderbolts' presence at the subversive Secret Empire's Cornwallis Base, and were shocked to find them in battle with the Empire's Brute Force superteam and their Shocktrooper henchmen. The Jury and Thunderbolts worked together to hold off the Empire's forces while Firearm and Hawkeye rewired the Empire's sonic cannon, rigging it to destroy the base. Wysper and the Jury remained behind to hand the Empire over to the authorities while the Thunderbolts escaped.
(Civil War Battle Damage Report) - Tony Stark considered Wysper as a potential Initiative recruit.
(Thunderbolts: Breaking Point#1) - Having ended their relationship with Cord and USAgent, the Jury became vigilantes again. Refusing to register with the Super-Human Registration Act, they became fugitives, and were targeted by a new, hero-hunting incarnation of the Thunderbolts. Wysper attacked Venom, who protested that he wasn't the same Venom the Jury had been founded to battle. Songbird hijacked Wysper's radio frequency, tricking her into taking out Sentry, then took Wysper down herself. She and the rest of the Jury were taken into custody.
Comments: Created by Dan Slott, John Calimee & Greg Adams.
Man, are the Jury ever jerks in Wysper's introductory story. I mean, they're usually jerks, but forcing Jenny to kill a guy (admittedly, a really bad guy) or die herself is a new level of jerkishness. She seems to have forgiven them, though.
Wysper's weird color scheme in Thunderbolts I#23 may not be intentional - several of the Jury members have weirdly-colored armor in that issue, and Firearm, who is African-American, somehow turned into a white guy for that issue.
Profile by Minor Irritant.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Wysper should be distinguished from:
(Deathtrap: The Vault - BTS/Venom: Sinner Takes All#1/2 (fb)/Venom: Sinner Takes All#4/2 (fb) ) - During the Venom-led riot at the super villain prison the Vault, prison guard Jenny Stewart was separated from her husband and fellow guard Ryan. She could only watch as he was murdered by an escaped inmate - unbeknownst to her, Delvadian terrorist Tarantula.
--Venom: Sinner Takes All#1/2 (1/2, 4/2
(Venom: Sinner Takes All#1/2) - Jenny Stewart's roommate, Claire handed her the letter that informed her that she had "jury duty"; she was surprised by how excited Jen was.
--Venom: Sinner Takes All#1/2
images: (without ads)
Thunderbolts I#28, p14, pan2 (main image, current armor)
Venom: Sinner Takes All#1/2, p30, pan1 (unmasked)
Venom: Sinner Takes All#4/2, p38, pan2 (original armor)
Thunderbolts I#23, p19, pan4 (original armor in Cordco color scheme)
Venom: Sinner Takes All#1/2, p32, pan1 (Ryan)
Venom: Sinner Takes All#1/2, p24, pan2 (Claire)
Appearances:
Venom: Sinner Takes All#1/2-4/2 (August-November, 1995) - Dan Slott (writer), John Calimee (pencils), Greg Adams (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Venom: The Hunted#1/2-2/2 (May-June, 1996) - Evan Skolnick (writer), Jim Calafiore (pencils), Mark McKenna (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Venom: The Hunted#3/2 (July, 1996) - Evan Skolnick (writer), Jim Calafiore (pencils), Mark McKenna & Pete Palmiotti (inkers), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Thunderbolts I#23 (February, 1999) - Kurt Busiek (writer), Mark Bagley (pencils), Scott Hanna (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Thunderbolts I#28 (July, 1999) - Kurt Busiek (writer), Mark Bagley (pencils), Scott Hanna (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Thunderbolts I#32 (November, 1999) - Kurt Busiek (writer), Mark Bagley (pencils), Scott Hanna (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Thunderbolts: Breaking Point#1 (January, 2008) - Christos S. Gage (writer), Brian Denham (artist), Molly Lazer (editor)
First Posted: 03/05/2010
Last updated: 11/13/2013
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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