Spider-Woman was born Jessica Miriam Drew, daughter of Jonathan Drew and Merriam Drew, in London, England. At a young age, her family moves to a lab built by her father and Herbert Wyndham near Mount Wundagore in Transia, where she becomes gravely ill from months of uranium exposure. To save her life, her father injects her with an experimental serum based on irradiated spiders' blood. Because the serum requires a month's incubation, Wyndham places her in a genetic accelerator. Shortly after, her mother dies and her father leaves for the United States, leaving Wyndham to care of her. While in the accelerator, she ages at a decelerated rate. When she is finally released, decades later, Drew is only 17 years old.