History:
QUEEN
Real Name: Adriana "Ana" Soria
Identity/Class: Human mutate (World War II-era to modern age)
Occupation: Would-be conqueror, terrorist;
former soldier
Group Membership: None;
formerly US Marine Corps, Women's Auxiliary Army
Corps
Affiliations: Abby-L,
Ai Apaec;
formerly Hercules (Heracles), Jackal
(Miles Warren), Spider-King (Steve Rogers), Tarantula (Kaine)
Enemies: Avengers (Luke Cage, Captain America/Steve Rogers, Iron Man/Tony Stark, Jessica Jones, Ms. Marvel/Carol Danvers, Red Hulk/Thaddeus Ross, Spider-Woman/Jessica Drew, Wasp/Janet van Dyne), Arachne, Black Cat (Felicia Hardy), Cloak (Tyrone Johnson), Dagger (Tandy Bowen), Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic/Reed Richards, Thing/Ben Grimm), Hercules (Heracles), Immortal Weapons (Bride of Nine Spiders, Dog Brother #1/Sihing, Fat Cobra, Iron Fist/Danny Rand, Prince of Orphans, Tiger's Beautiful Daughter), Professor David Jaffe, Kaine, Madame Web (Julia Carpenter), Shang-Chi, SHIELD (Nick Fury Sr., others), Shroud (Max Coleridge), Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Venom (Flash Thompson), Mary Jane Watson, X-Men (Cyclops/Scott Summers, Emma Frost, Gambit/Remy LeBeau, Nightcrawler/Kurt Wagner, Professor X/Charles Xavier, Storm/Ororo Monroe, Wolverine/James Howlett), Young Allies (Firestar/Angelica Jones, Gravity/Greg Willis, Spider-Girl/Anya Corazon)
Known Relatives: Spiderzons (clone "daughters," all deceased)
Aliases: Spider-Queen
Base of Operations: Abandoned Project: Rebirth base
beneath Central Park, Manhattan, New York;
formerly the Hive, beneath Manhattan
First Appearance: Spectacular Spider-Man III#15 (August, 2004)
Powers/Abilities: The Queen had superhuman strength
(lifting one ton), telekinesis, telepathy, and a deadly sonic scream.
She could control the minds and motor functions of any arthropod, and
any human who carried a so-called "insect gene." Her aging was greatly
slowed, making her appear youthful well into her nineties. She could
produce organic webbing, and form cocoons out of it that preserved
subjects in suspended animation; she could also shift her eyes into
pseudo-compound form to enhance her vision. All her powers were greatly enhanced by a harmonic frequency
designed to reactivate Spider-Man's spider-sense. As the
monstrous Spider-Queen, she was an immense, 300-foot-tall monster, with
eight spider-like limbs, four eyes, and powerful jaws, while possessing
all of the powers she had in human form, albeit magnified to correspond
with her size. She was a trained United States Marine, and occasionally
carried a handgun.
Height: (human form) 5'10"; (monster form) 300 feet
Weight: (human form) 125 lbs.; (monster form) thousands of tons
Eyes: (human form) Brown (monster form) solid red
Hair: Black
History:
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#16 (fb)) - Ana and Steve Rogers dated a couple of times in 1945.
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#17 (fb)/Spectacular Spider-Man III#18 (fb)/)/Spectacular Spider-Man III#20 (fb) ) - Major Ana Soria was a member of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps during World War II. One day, she was drafted into a special unit of the Marines, where she became the first woman to be put into combat by the US military; unbeknownst to her, this was part of the US government's attempts to create super-soldiers, under the direction of Professor David Jaffe. She had been selected because she carried the "insect gene," a gene that originated when arthropods and chordates diverged on the evolutionary tree. Ana responded well to the testing, better than any of her male compatriots. In 1946, she and her squadmates were taken to the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, where they were exposed to a nuclear bomb test. The radiation mutated her and shattered her mind, and ultimately the program was shuttered. Ana was sent to a military asylum near Miami, Florida.
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#17 (fb) ) - Captain America visited Ana in the asylum (see comments).
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#18 (fb)/Spectacular Spider-Man III#20 (fb)) - At some point in the '50s, Ana escaped from the asylum and captured Professor Jaffe (see comments).
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#18 (fb)) - Decades later, Ana, who had dubbed herself the Queen, stole a device from the US government; the device was capable of emitting a chemical and radiological burst that shuts down every human brain within a six-hundred mile radius, save for those with the insect gene.
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#15) - The Queen exited a limo in downtown Manhattan and began to emit a subsonic cry that drew followers to her. When an unaffected cabdriver honked at her, she tossed his car into a building. As some of her followers rioted in the streets, she entered a bank and told her minions to clear a path to the top floor for her. On the top floor, she was borne on a makeshift throne; when a police helicopter asked her if she had any demands, she swatted it aside with her telekinesis. Before long, Spider-Man and Captain America arrived on the scene, but she incapacitated Spider-Man with her sonic screech and swarmed Captain America with her drones. She hit Cap with his own shield, then knocked him out with a kick to the face. As Spider-Man struggled with her followers, she hit him with another scream, then kissed him, claiming him as her mate.
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#15 - BTS/Spectacular Spider-Man III#20 (fb)) - The kiss transferred a serum into Spider-Man's system; designed by Professor Jaffe, it was intended to transform Spider-Man into a monstrous spider that would give birth to his and Soria's offspring.
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#16) - The Queen webbed Spider-Man and Cap to the walls with Spider-Man's webbing. She kissed Spider-Man again, but reacted violently when he refused her. As she turned to taunt Captain America, he freed himself; evading her drones, he freed Spider-Man, as well. She ordered her drones to kill Cap but leave Spider-Man alive; Spider-Man fought through them, driving the Queen to the roof. She ordered several of her followers to jump of the building's roof as a warning to Spider-Man, then exerted her control over him as he writhed in agony. He still refused to submit, however, and the Queen soon had to deal with a missile fired from a SHIELD fighter jet. She deflected it harmlessly away, but was then charged by Captain America, who knocked her off the side of the building.
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#17) - Surviving, the Queen had her hair styled downtown, then was taken by her drones to the subways, where she set a swarm of angry bees on a transit cop. She proceeded to the Hive, an underground base her drones were in the midst of constructing for her. Later, in the Hive, she held court, telling her mesmerized subjects her origin.
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#18) - In the Hive, the Queen tried to engage one of her drones in conversation, but found that he was unable to, due to her control over him.
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#19) - The Queen tracked down Spider-Man, who had mutated into a spider-like humanoid; he resisted her control, and she brutally battered him with her telekinesis, all the while telling him that he loved her. She took him back to the Hive, where he continued to mutate, as SHIELD, the Avengers, and the X-Men combed the city for her. She sent a video message to SHIELD, giving them the chance to evacuate the cities within range of her device (including New York, Boston, Washington, and Montreal); she promised to activate the device Thursday morning, however, and to rule the resulting wasteland. After finishing, she commanded her drones to leave her, then visited Spider-Man, who had completely mutated into a massive spider.
(Spectacular Spider-Man II#20) - As SHIELD, the Avengers, and the X-Men combed Manhattan for any trace of the Queen, Ana took the mutated Parker to meet Jaffe, who told him that he was pregnant. Shortly afterwards, Parker began to convulse, and seemingly died, enraging Soria. Moments later, the X-Men breached the base, and a human Parker emerged from the spider's corpse, complete with new powers. She ordered one of her men to activate the device, but Spider-Man knocked him out and used his new powers to learn how to defuse the bomb from the Queen's minions. She apparently perished in an explosion immediately afterwards (see comments).
(Spider-Island: Deadly Foes#1/2 / Amazing Spider-Man II#673 (fb)) - Having returned to life or faked her death, the Queen located the Jackal in his lab beneath the old Shea Stadium. She telepathically set the Jackal's failed Gwen Stacy clone, Abby-L, against him, hoping to test him. After he and the mutated Parker clone, Kaine (now dubbed the Tarantula) defeated Abby-L, she accepted his worth. She offered the Jackal a sample of Steve Rogers' blood, and formed an alliance with him. Giving him a sample of the husk Parker had left behind after his metamorphosis, they formed a plan to infest the city of New York with mutated bedbugs carrying a virus that mutated humans into spider-people.
(Amazing Spider-Man II#670 (fb)) - The Queen set the Jackal up in an abandoned Project Rebirth base beneath Central Park. Before long, Steve Rogers, who had been keeping tabs on the old base, noticed the power drain coming from it; investigating, he was ambushed and subdued by the Queen.
(Amazing
Spider-Man II#666) - The Queen presented Rogers to the Jackal, and
insisted that Warren mutate him, as he'd mutated his failed clone Kaine
into the Tarantula. The procedure was successful, and the Queen was able
to bend Rogers, now the Spider-King, to her will. She could feel her
power growing, as Warren's virus infected more and more New Yorkers,
giving them spider-like powers...
(Spider-Island: Deadly Hands of Kung Fu#2 (fb)) - The Queen enthralled the Bride of Nine Spiders, a supernatural martial artist, and contacted the South American spider god Ai Apaec. She offered him the Bride if he would help spread her virus; he agreed, but was eventually defeated by Shang-Chi.
(Amazing Spider-Man II#668) - The Queen complimented the Jackal on his plan to spread the virus by outfitting criminals with Spider-Man costumes and encouraging them to go on a crime spree. She watched as he implanted thousands of embryonic virus-carrying spiders inside the Spider-King.
(Herc#7 (fb)) - The Queen could feel the Greek demigod Hercules (currently a human) become infected, and was most impressed by him. She reached out via her psychic web, and deemed him her champion...
(Herc#7 / Herc#8) - The Queen invaded Hercules' mind and commanded him to stop the attempts to foil her. Obeying her commands, he attacked the X-Men, who were attempting to set up spider-sense jammers around Manhattan. Despite beginning to mutate, he was overwhelmed, and she summoned more of her spiders to aid him - until she was attacked by the mythological figure Arachne, who demanded she release Hercules. Unable to counter Arachne's godly powers, the Queen did so, unaware that she had merely been a pawn of Anansi, who had arranged Hercules' infection so he could steal a tapestry from Arachne.
(Amazing Spider-Man II#669) - The Queen and the Jackal watched as surveillance cameras captured Peter Parker and his girlfriend, Carlie Cooper, investigating the Jackal's old lair. She was concerned that Parker was closing in on them, but he assured her that the Spider-King would soon be releasing his spider-embryos in another city. Soon, she could feel the virus progressing to its next stage, as more infected humans began to mutate into giant spiders...
(Amazing Spider-Man II#670 / Venom II#7) - The Queen emerged from her lair to walk in Central Park, accompanied by the Jackal and Tarantula; the Jackal questioned the wisdom of going outside, but she dismissed him, and was soon approached by her subjects - a number of fully-mutated New Yorkers! Soon, she was greeted with the apparent return of the Spider-King, who'd completed his mission - but unbeknownst to her, the mission had failed, and the "Spider-King" was actually government agent Venom, using his symbiote's camoflage abilities to disguise himself as her minion. Learning from one of Warren's clones that Anti-Venom had the ability to cure victims of the virus, she killed the clone for giving her bad news, then dispatched the "Spider-King" to go kill him. Later, she felt New York Mayor J. Jonah Jameson approach Alistaire Smythe, his late wife Marla Madison's killer, about combating the virus. She manipulated Jameson, impersonating the spirit of Madison to exhort him to seek revenge - and accelerated his mutation in the process. As Smythe tried to explain the key to stopping it, the monstrous Jameson tore his throat out...
(Amazing Spider-Man II#671) - Although Jameson failed to kill Smythe, the cyborg was unable to explain his plan further. The Queen read Jameson's mind, learning that Horizon Labs was working on a cure. She reached out to Sajani Jaffrey, an infectee who was working there, and accelerated her transformation, but Reed Richards injected her with his experimental cure, restoring her humanity and cutting her off from the Queen's influence. Already angered that the Spider-King had been cured, she vented her fury to the Jackal, who sent the Tarantula to take down Horizon. However, Spider-Man both defeated the Tarantula and restored him to humanity. The enraged Queen turned her sonic screech on the Jackal - and was shocked that it killed him, blasting the meat off his bones! Thanks to the retuning of the spider-sense jammers to reactivate Spider-Man's then-lost spider-sense, her powers had been amplified, stronger than ever.
(Amazing Spider-Man II#673 (fb)) - The Jackal the Queen killed was actually a decoy clone.
(Venom II#8) - The Queen killed most of the other Warren clones staffing the base, leaving only one, who was mutating into a man-spider. As she watched news coverage of the "Spider-Island" crisis, she had the Warren clone file her nails. When he broke a nail, she prepared to kill him, only to be attacked by Agent Venom. She was easily able to handle him with her sonic powers, but as she prepared to land the killing blow, the mutated Warren clone attacked her. While she was busy killing him, Venom escaped outside, and ambushed the Queen when she pursued him, but her enhanced powers once again proved too much for him. Aroused by his imminent death, she was distracted before she could kill him, and was attacked by a now-human Steve Rogers. She immediately turned her attention to her ex-lover and defeated him as well; as she was distracted however, Venom plunged Cap's fallen energy shield into her back, seemingly killing her. However, her new power returned her from the brink of death, instead mutating her into a building-sized arachnid monster, the Spider-Queen!
(Amazing Spider-Man II#672) - The Monstrous Spider-Queen rampaged through New York City, intending to march across the globe and infect all life with her spider virus. The city's heroes rose up to stop her, led by Steve Rogers; meanwhile, Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson sneaked away to equip Doctor Octopus' deactivated army of miniature octo-bots with the Anti-Venom cure. Broadcasting from the Empire State Building, Spider-Man used Octopus' control helmet to send the octo-bots out and begin curing the Queen's victims by the thousand, sapping her power. Enraged, she began to march on the ESB. Desperate to stop her, Kaine, now cured and equipped with Spider-Man's anti-sonic stealth suit, had Ms. Marvel slingshot him towards the Spider-Queen. With his Other-granted wrist stingers extended in the presence of a spider-totem, he shot right through her sonic blast and stabbed her right through her cavernous mouth, allowing the other heroes to finish her off.
(Amazing Spider-Man II#673) - Damage Control cleaned up the Spider-Queen's immense corpse. However, among the cleanup crews was one commanded by the real Jackal and made up of Warren clones - they secured a segment of the Queen's corpse rich in bone marrow, and spirited it away to use in the Jackal's future cloning experiments.
(Amazing Spider-Man II#693 - BTS) - The Jackal used the Queen's genetic material to clone a number of humanoid "Spiderzons."
Comments: Created by Paul Jenkins and Michael Ryan.
Talk about making a purse out of a sow's ear. The Queen's introductory story is flat-out bad - the Queen's powers and origins are muddled, and the new powers Spider-Man got out of this whole mess are goofy. Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos really made her into a compelling villain - and a better character design, to boot.
Spectacular Spider-Man III#19 states that Ana was exposed to the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests, but in Spectacular Spider-Man III#17, the test area is described as "the desert." The former comes from Captain America, and the latter comes from Soria; I'm going to say Cap is the more reliable source.
The Queen's account of Captain America visiting her in the asylum doesn't fit in with his chronology - he was frozen in ice in 1945, where he would remain for decades, but the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests took place in 1946. So either a) Ana hallucinated that visit, or b) she was visited by a later replacement Cap - William Nasland, Jeff Mace, or William Burnside.
When did Ana escape the asylum? In Spec #18, says 1957, but in #20, Ana says she abducted Professor Jaffe in 1954. They can't both be right.
I have no idea what kills the Queen at the end of Spec #20. Spider-Man defuses the doomsday device, then the Queen is inexplicably caught in an explosion two panels later. Maybe she self-destructed?
Arthropods (including insects and spiders) and chordates (the group that contains all vertebrates, including us) diverged from each other about a billion years ago.
Profile by Minor Irritant.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Ana Soria, the Queen, has no known connections to
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#20 (fb)) - Professor David Jaffe was part of the experiments that exposed US soldiers to nuclear testing in order to unlock superhuman potential in them. The only successful subject was Ana Soria, who went insane and had to be institutionalized.
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#20 (fb)) - At some point in the '50s, Soria escaped and kidnapped Jaffe, keeping him cocooned in a state between life and death, occasionally using his scientific knowledge. In recent years, as the Queen, she had him devise a serum to transform Spider-Man into a spider-creature.
(Spectacular Spider-Man III#20) - Soria took the mutated Spider-Man to see Jaffe, who told him that the mutation had gone too fast, and that he was now pregnant. As predicted, Spider-Man began to convulse and seemingly died. The enraged Queen unleashed her sonic cream on Jaffe, shattering his glasses.
--Spectacular Spider-Man III#20
images: (without ads)
Herc#8, p2, pan3 (main image; Spider-Island costume)
Amazing Spider-Man II#670, p6, pan1 (headshot, with cloak)
Spectacular Spider-Man III15, p3, pan3 (black dress)
Spectacular Spider-Man III#17, p17, pan1 (compound eyes)
Venom II#8, p20, pan1 (mutated Spider-Queen)
Amazing Spider-Man II#672, p22, pan1-2 (death)
Spectacular Spider-Man III#20, p5, pan5 (Jaffe)
Appearances:
Spectacular Spider-Man III#15-16 (August, 2004) - Paul Jenkins (writer),
Michael Ryan (art), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Spectacular Spider-Man III#17-18 (September-October,
2004) - Paul Jenkins (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Wayne Faucher
(inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Spectacular Spider-Man III#19-20 (November-December, 2004)
- Paul Jenkins (writer), Paco Medina (pencils), Juan Vlasco (inks), Tom
Brevoort (editor)
Amazing Spider-Man II#666 (September, 2011) - Dan Slott (writer),
Stefano Caselli (art), Stephen Wacker (editor)
Spider-Island: Deadly Foes#1/2 (October, 2011) - Fred Van Lente
(writer), Minck Oosterveer (art), Stephen Wacker (editor)
Amazing Spider-Man II#668 (October, 2011) - Dan
Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Victor Olazaba (inks), Stephen
Wacker (editor)
Amazing Spider-Man II#669
(November, 2011) - Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Carlos
Cuevas (inks), Stephen Wacker (editor)
Herc#7-8 (November, 2011) - Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers),
June Brigman (pencils), Roy Richardson (inks), Mark Paniccia (editor)
Amazing Spider-Man II#670
(November, 2011) - Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Victor
Olazaba (inks), Stephen Wacker (editor)
Venom II#7-8 (November-December, 2011) - Rick Remender (writer), Tom
Fowler (art), Stephen Wacker (editor)
Spider-Island_ Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #2 (November, 2011) - Antony
Johnston (writer), Sebastian Fiamura & Leandro Fernandez (pencils),
John Lucas (inks), Alejandro Arbona (editor)
Amazing Spider-Man II#671
(December, 2011) - Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Carlos
Cuevas & Victor Olazaba (inks), Stephen Wacker (editor)
Amazing
Spider-Man II#672 (December, 2011) - Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos
(pencils), Victor Olazaba & Karl Kesel (inks), Stephen Wacker
(editor)
Amazing Spider-Man II#673 (January, 2012) - Dan
Slott (writer), Stefano Caselli (art), Stephen Wacker (editor)
Amazing
Spider-Man II#693 (November, 2012) - Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos
(pencils), Victor Olazaba (inks), Stephen Wacker (editor)
First Posted: 08/04/2022
Last Updated: 08/04/2022
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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