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Painkiller Jane - Comic Number 1

• Published by Dynamite Entertainment
• Story by: Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti
• Written by Jimmy Palmiotti
• Art by Lee Moder
• Colors: Pilvi Kuusela of Imaginary Friends Studios
• Letters: Simon Bowland
• Cover: Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti (wraparound), Amanda Conner, Billy Tan, Lee Moder

Painkiller Jane is the story of Jane Vasko, a DEA agent who is recruited by a covert government organization tasked with capturing "Neuros"—genetically enhanced individuals who possess superhuman powers of the mind. During the course of her first investigation with the team, Jane inexplicably discovers that she, too, possesses extraordinary abilities, which render her impervious to injury . . . but not pain. She develops miraculous regenerative powers, heals from every injury, and finds herself stronger than she had been before.

The comic series has been adapted as a television series, and will premiere on The SCI FI Channel in 2007, with Kristanna Loken in the title role.

First Issue Synopsis by Marc Mason

In a dark room in Spicer Memorial Hospital, an alarm clock goes off at the stroke of midnight. It is snowing in New York City, but for Jane Vasko, also known as Painkiller Jane, it is time to wake up and go to work. She struggles to get up and around; her narration explains that she had a battle with Russian gangsters the previous night, and she got cut up badly. However, she notes, even though her wounds would have killed a normal person, she’ll be just fine. Without going into detail, she describes herself as a human Timex watch: she can take a licking but keep on ticking.

Jane has fallen into a routine. She wakes at midnight every day now, reads the newspaper, starts drinking, and contemplates attempting a suicide she knows will not work… even if she bothered to load the gun. But Jane’s reverie is interrupted when her cop friend Fernandez leaves the Sleepy Hollow Retirement Center and immediately calls her; she wants to meet with Vasco immediately in their normal location. Fernandez arrives late, but keeps it simple; sliding a piece of paper with an address across the table, she asks Jane to go there and “clean house”. Satisfied with Fernandez’ track record to date, Jane agrees without questioning.

Vasco takes a cab to the address, a neighborhood that has recently become gentrified. There are two guards out in front of the building, and when they attempt to block her from getting inside, she shoots them dead. She enters the house, and all appears quiet, but she is startled when a woman at her from a nearby closet. The woman is completely shaved, dressed in bondage gear (which includes a ball-gag), and chained around the neck to something within. Vasco attempts to free the girl but her squirming annoys Jane, causing her to knock the girl out and leave her lying on the floor.

Jane follows the chain, and it leads down a set of stairs to a dungeon. A man dressed in bondage gear is pulling the chain, believing he is retrieving the escaping girl, but instead, he draws Vasco into his lair. Spying another girl and a large number of surgical implements, Jane shoots and wounds the man, allowing her to free the other girl. Her first move is to motion towards a second room and utter the word “more”, and when Jane investigates, she finds a large number of beaten and mutilated women in the same circumstances as the first two. She stalks back to the wounded man and he engages her in hand-to-hand combat, ramming a knife through Jane’s foot. However, she takes the upper hand, putting out one of his eyes with her fingers. She demands answers as to where the girls came from, but when he refuses, she kills him.

Aggravated, Jane takes her time before getting up and moving on, but before she can leave, another man sneaks up behind hr and draws a gun on her. She avoids the shot and threatens the man, telling him to call the police and an ambulance for the girls, and that if he doesn’t, she will come back and kill him, too. It takes some time, but the police eventually arrive, and things suddenly get much more complicated: the men at the house know the cops and seem to be intimate friends.

Back at the hospital, Dr. Seth patches up Jane’s wounds. He is responsible for putting her up in her hospital attic room, and for bringing her the paper every day. Jane knows that he treats her like a girlfriend because he has a crush on her, and she feels sorry for him for that very reason. After completing his exam, she drinks herself to sleep.

The next night when the alarm rings, Jane again begins her routine, but the paper brings some shocking news. The headline reads that billionaire Johnny Fitzgerald has been murdered and that a manhunt for his killer is underway, and that two cops were also killed. Her name is absent from the paper, meaning that she knows they know it was her, and that they have to take her out to clean up the mess of corruption surrounding what was happening in that house. Jane also realizes that they will also kill the girls. Taking up her guns, Jane vows that isn’t going to happen.

Also See

• Painkiller Jane - Number 1 Official creator page.
• Painkiller Jane - Number 2
• Painkiller Jane - Number 3

External Links

Dynamite Entertainment