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Background
At the time of World War Two, Ana Soria became the first woman to see
combat. Originally a member of the women's auxiliary corps, she was drafted into
a special unit of the Marines to be part of a new super soldier program.
Although none of the participants actually knew this, or why they had been
selected. Ana, a mutant herself, seemed to relish the increasing difficulty of
the training, often to the distaste of her male counterparts. This new super
soldier program had been devised amid fears of how the US Military might stay
the advancement of the Soviets and Japanese as the war drew on.
During the program the subjects were taken to the Island of Bikini atoll, lined
up and blasted w/ radiation from nuclear weapons in an attempt draw out the
latent mutant powers of the subjects. Most of which died, Ana however did
not. After the desired results did not surface, the program was
terminated and Ana found herself in a military asylum outside Miami. During
incarceration, her mind collapsed from the strain of the events. While in the
military she experienced a close relationship with Captain America. Since
he could not come to her aid after being imprisoned, she felt betrayed.
After the war ended Captain America was presumed dead, so they threw away the
key to Ana's cell. She escaped in the late 1950's, but by this time the
military had forgotten about her. Later they came to understand the extent of
Ana's augmented mutant abilities. She became the first mutant able to control a
dormant 'insect gene' present in roughly one third of all humans on earth, left
over from the point in evolution were man split from the insects. In taping
into this long buried gene, she had become a new subphylum- Homo Insectus. This
meant she could now control all insects on the planet and an estimated one
third of all mankind.
Ana, now calling herself Queen, reappeared in New York and quickly
amassed an army of drones from persons carrying the insect gene. After taking
residence in a high rise she easily neutralised an early sabotage from Captain
America and Spider-Man before taking them both prisoner. After waking to find
himself inside 'the hive' Queen forcefully kissed Spider-man and expressed how
she wanted him as her mate. As this happened the military and S.H.E.I.L.D.
where outside waiting to hear word from Steve Rogers. Captain America and
Spider-Man soon escaped to the roof, where they found Soria. Queen sent some
civilians to
their death and the wallcrawler tackled her for a second time. He was
overpowered again before Captain America knocked her off the building.
In kissing Spider-Man, the Queen had passed over a serum which contained
specific genetic material that would incite a transformation within him. Over
the next few days Peter had begun to feel gradually worse. What initially felt
like the flu quickly became apparent as being something far more sinister. A
physical and mental
metamorphosis had begun to take effect on Peter, and soon he had grown a coarse
fur over his skin and his eyes had split into four. During this time an
emergency briefing took place at S.H.E.I.L.D. regional headquarters led by
Captain America, to discuss the threat the Queen posed and how they might deal
with her. As the Queen herself relocated 'the hive' to the New York
underground.
The Queen eventually tracked Spider-Man to an alleyway, half transformed
into a human spider. She told him the change was inevitable, and after
immobilizing him brought him back to the hive. Queen then made a live broadcast
explaining that everyone had a limited time to evacuate a 600 mile radius of
NYC before a chemical bomb that would destroy only human life was detonated. As
S.H.E.I.L.D. and Captain America faltered over evacuation plans, back at the
hive Spider-Man had now become a huge human-sized spider.
One of the captives in the hive was Professor David Jaffe, the man behind Ana's
super soldier program and the serum passed over to Spider-Man from the Queen.
Jaffe revealed that the mutation on Spider-man was never meant to take effect
this fast and that no one could withstand a physical change in such a short
time. Also in a bizarre twist that the Spider was pregnant. Soon
after this the huge spider went into a rage before dying. Angered,Ana
then set the device to go off in ten minutes. As Nick Fury and Captain America
coordinated air support and the movements of members of the X-Men in the
underground, Peter Parker re-emerged in human form from the spider carcass.
Spider-Man dispatched of a drone that was about to detonate the device, and in
the wake of a sonic scream from his foe managed to gather his remaining
strength to defuse the bomb. As Queen was apparently killed in separate
explosion.
The Queen more than any other foe, had a lasting and seemingly permanent effect
on Spider-Man. Specifically his powers. Following his mutation for the first
time his body could now produce an organic webbing from small holes in his
wrists, making his famous web shooters obsolete. His Spider sense had altered
significantly too in that he could now 'hear' or understand all insects or bugs
around him. Finally his strength had been increased and he can now lift a
maximum of 15 tons.
All of this was undone at the end of One More Day, when Peter made a deal with
Mephisto. He lost his organic webs and his ability to talk to insects
(which he never used anyway). Oddly, Peter's powers were altered during "The
Other" storyline (see: Morlun and Ero), much the same way that they had
been in this one. Marvel editorial obviously hadnt been paying attention.
Thanks To:
Some of the above information is extracted from the various
versions of the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe and the more recent
Marvel Encyclopaedias.
The assistance of the
Marvel Chronology Project is gratefully acknowledged.
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