DRIVER REESE

Real Name: Unrevealed (possibly Driver Reese, I suppose...; see comments)

Identity/Class: Human mutate (mutated by extraterrestrial virus)

Occupation: Unrevealed; employed by Winsor to seduce (or at least entice) Wolverine (Logan/James Howlett) to come to his party);
    she's otherwise something of a hedonist

Group Membership: None known

Affiliations: Technonecrotic virus (and thus presumably some connection to the Technarchy and/or Phalanx?)
    formerly Contagion (Winsor), Wolverine (Logan);
        indirectly the Unkillables (Marjorie Brink, Mortigan Goth, Madcap, Scavenger (Robert Nicolle), Harry Sikes, Vic Slaughter, Suicide (Chris Daniels), Yi Yang)

Enemies: Paradox, Monark Starstalker, Ulysses

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None (but "Driver Reese" may be an alias)

Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
    she formerly lived in a house presumably not far from the coast of San Francisco, California;
    she spent some time at Winsor's warehouse in Hunter's Point, presumably just north of San Francisco (see comments);

First Appearance: Wolverine: The Best There Is#1 (February, 2011)

Powers/Abilities: Driver Reese was a fun-loving woman, willing to do a lot for a good time. She was a reasonably skilled driver, dancer, and drinker (no evidence she drank and drove at the same time, though!).

    Infected by the technonecrotic virus, she existed an unliving form. Her severed head continued to speak, while she released technonecrotic "tissue" from both head and body, which took the form of a massive spider. The spider incorporated all matter it encountered to grow progressively larger, and it infected anything it touched with its virus.

Height: Unrevealed (she looked to be shorter than the 5'3" Wolverine, but artistic license often portrays him as a lot bigger than that; nonetheless, assuming she was a bit shorter than Wolverine, I'd put her at 5'1")
Weight: Unrevealed (based on the above, she may have been short, but she was quite curvaceous, which might put her like 120-125 lbs.)
Eyes: Green
Hair: Black

History:
(Wolverine: The Best There Is#7 (fb) - BTS) - Driver Reese attended some of Winsor's large parties at his warehouse base, in which he piped in the Corruptor (Jackson Day)'s sweat, making the people behave without inhibitions.

(Wolverine: The Best There Is#7 (fb) - BTS) - Winsor instructed Driver Reese to drive down a particular stretch of highway 37 at a particular time, knowing she would encounter and pick up Wolverine there. She was to bring him to a party, and she agreed to do so, not realizing his intent and thinking only that Winsor wanted an X-Men at his party.

(Wolverine: The Best There Is#1 (fb) - BTS) - Driver Reese picked up Wolverine as a hitchhiker after Wolverine had slaughtered the Griz and some hillbillies that Winsor had arranged to kidnap Wolverine; he was wearing a tuxedo tee-shirt he had taken from one of his former captor's agents.

(Wolverine: The Best There Is#1 - BTS) - Driver asked Wolverine what was up with his shirt, and he gave her an abbreviated version of how he had been captured and how he had taken down his captors.

(Wolverine: The Best There Is#1) - When Driver complained that she still didn't understand why he had the the shirt, he explained it was either that shirt or a girl's bikini...and he hadn't been waxed lately. Pretending she still wasn't sure he was Wolverine, she asked for further proof, and he suddenly trimmed her bangs with his claws. Momentarily surprised, she then complimented him on his skills and told him he could have a second career, calling his salon "Claws."
    She next invited him to a party, promising there would be an ample supply of bourbon, scotch, beer (see comments) and reminding him he was dressed for an occasion (with his tuxedo tee, of course). After he agreed, she queried whether he was more upset at his former captors for being speciesists or because of their general cruelty, but he clarified that it was that they had called him "dog," (a reference to his half?-brother, Dog Logan).
    Later, at that party, Driver and Logan discussed whether some of the attendees were naturally lacking in class or whether they just didn't give a "####." Taking another swig from her bottle, Driver appreciated the latter option as a rare trait, then wondered why he hadn't called any of his teammates to rescue him. When he said he liked to get himself out of his own jams, she reminded him he had flagged her down for a ride, but he countered that maybe he was looking for another jam to get into. She then invited Logan to dance with her; when he declined, she seductively reminded him that she thought he didn't give a ### what other people think.

(Wolverine: The Best There Is#1 - BTS) - Driver told another woman Logan had done her hair. She asked Logan to do her hair, too, and Logan, who had just gotten a wiff of Corruptor sweat, mangled her hair and moved on.

(Wolverine: The Best There Is#1) - His inhibitions lowered, Logan danced with Driver , who remarked that he was indeed a terrible dancer. She then introduced Logan to Winsor, who had coated his hands in Liquatex to protect himself, then coated the Liquatex with Corruptor flesh. Complimenting Driver on being luminous, Winsor then touched both Driver and Logan and sent them into an uninhibited frenzy. As Driver encouraged him to come with her to the roof, get crazy, and howl at the moon, he began to lose himself in berserker mode, and he stabbed himself in the abdomen and ran outside to prevent himself from hurting others.

(Wolverine: The Best There Is#7 (fb) - BTS) - The morning after the party, Driver Reese realized how bad the party had been. She was worried  about Wolverine, but didn't know what to do.

(Wolverine: The Best There Is#7 (fb) - BTS) - Winsor infected Driver Reese with a technonecrotic virus (similar to techno-organic virus, but affecting both organic and inorganic material) that would only fully activate with Wolverine's DNA in close proximity to her.

(Wolverine: The Best There Is#7 - BTS) - Wolverine largely recovered from the immense physical, mental, and psychological trauma he had undergone. He tracked down Driver Reese, who feared he was going to kill her; upon learning he wasn't, she was only partially relieved, as it would be a tremendous relief from the head cold from which she was suffering. She invited him inside and explained that Winsor had only told her to drive down that particular stretch of highway, and Wolverine told her (erroneously, obviously) that Winsor was dead. She explained how she had no idea of Winsor's motives and she would do anything she could to help; she felt bad because she enjoyed her time with Wolverine and liked him...as a drop of techno-organic fluid dripped from her nostril. Suddenly, Monark Starstalker's falcon, Ulysses, crashed through the window and decapitated her. As her head began floating and extending tendrils towards Wolverine, Monark blasted them away with his laser pistol, after which a techno-organic spider was formed from tendrils released from her corpse. Paradox and Monark confronted Wolverine, telling him to back off and leave things to the professionals.

 

 

 

 

 



(Wolverine: The Best There Is#8) - Driver Reese's disembodied head continued expressing her affection for Wolverine, while tendrils from her body extended into the techno-organic spider. After Wolverine was skewered through the chest by a tendril while leaping at the spider, Paradox silenced her head with his wrist blaster, and Monark severed the tendrils piercing and ensnaring Wolverine. As the spider progressively enlarged, Wolverine continued to savagely fight it even as it engulfed him, while Paradox and Monark made their exodus. The immense creature burst up from beneath the streets, now too big for a containment grenade, but Wolverine then cut himself free of the creature, continuing to resist its infection, and Paradox instructed him to help make it smaller. As the three men trimmed off the creature's appendages, Paradox was penetrated by a number of tentacles and infected, but they had gotten the creature small enough, and the grenade contained the creature's stem servers, leading it to replicate the containment protocol in all infected materials, neutralizing the creature. Briefly taking Mercurian form, Paradox burned the infection from his system.

(Wolverine: The Best There Is#9) - Wolverine correctly suspected Driver Reese had gotten the technonecrotic virus from Winsor's place. Since he believed Winsor to be dead, he incorrectly figured it had to be one of his agents that infected Driver Reese.

 

Comments: Created by Charlie Huston and Juan Jose Ryp.

    She only got named a couple times...in #1, Winsor said, "Driver! Driver Reese, my dear. Driver, you're glowing. Luminous."
    In #7, Wolverine went to visit her, and when he saw Ulysses flying straight for her, he exclaimed, "Driver!"
    She isn't identified in the summary pages that I saw. Title or real name...it's all we had to go by.

    Driver Reese was quite the Betty. Too bad she met such a rotten end.

    One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer. Sheer musical poetry, whether it's Amos Milburn, John Lee Hooker, or George Thorogood...written by Rudy Toombs.   

The technonecrotic virus:

    Hunter's Point is a town/location in Long Island (New York), San Francisco (California), and probably several other cities. I believe the story took place after the X-Men had relocated to San Francico, but before the move to Utopia...and it was apparently walking distance for Wolverine (he collapsed and asked for help at the end of #6, but was back with the X-Men in #7). Additionally, when Monark or Paradox (I forget who) said they had lost contact with the technonecrotic virus north of San Francisco, the fact that it was north of there made Wolverine suspect Winsor was involved.

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
No KNOWN connections to:

    Driver Eight...REM song

images: (without ads)
Wolverine: The Best There Is#1, pg. 9, panel 3 (face, pre-cut);
        pg. 10, panel 2 (face, post-cut);
        pg. 15 (full, dancing);
    #7, story pg. 20, panel 3 & 4 (infected, decapitated by Ulysses)
    #8, story pg. 1, panel 2 - decapitated, bonded to techno-spider
        pg. 3, panel 3 - spider

Appearances:
Wolverine: The Best There Is#1 (February, 2011) - Charlie Huston (writer), Juan Jose Ryp (artist), Jody Lehup & Sebastian Girner (assistant editors), Axel Alonso (editor)
Wolverine: The Best There Is#7 (August, 2011) - Charlie Huston (writer), Juan Jose Ryp (artist), Sebastian Girner (assistant editor), Axel Alonso (editor)
Wolverine: The Best There Is#8-9 (October-November, 2011) - Charlie Huston (writer), Juan Jose Ryp (artist), Sebastian Girner (editor)

Last updated: 10/01/13

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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