Prelude: Spider-Girl vs Jolyne Cujoh

Let’s take a trip back to the late 80’s, the era of large hair, keytars, and the start of Nintendo’s rise in gaming. And for the Joestar family, it was also the era in which their long-standing feud with the Brandos finally ended, all thanks to the efforts of the Japanese delinquent, Jotaro Kujo. Following a trek that had led him, his grandfather, and their friends across the globe, Jotaro eventually uncovered the location of his family’s longtime rival, Dio Brando. And after a final battle across Cairo that pushed Jotaro to his limits, he triumphed, using his newly discovered power of stopping time to put an end to the vampiric menace.

With his arch nemesis finally slain, Jotaro’s life seemingly returned to normal. He finished high school, became a marine biologist, and even got married and had a kid. Everything seemed to be looking up for him… until he discovered a secret in his grandfather’s will. As it turned out, Joseph Joestar had unintentionally fathered a child with a Japanese woman, and that kid was next in line to receive his inheritance. This, alongside a picture containing an ominous figure, prompted Jotaro to head to Japan, leaving his wife to take care of their fever ridden daughter. This would be the last his wife and daughter would see of him for years, causing friction between them.

With no father to take care of her, Jolyne Cujoh grew up with a chip on her shoulder and a growing rebellious streak. She became involved in a biker gang known for jacking cars and motorcycles, but as time went on, she eventually cleaned up her act. She left her gang, went back to high school, and began studying books instead of what parts she could steal. She was becoming a promising student, and had even begun dating a fellow student (and resident rich boy) Romeo Jisso. 

And on October 28, 2011, all of that changed. 

While riding with Romeo, his car swerved in the middle of the street and fatally struck a pedestrian. Despite initially trying to get the man to a hospital, Romeo eventually convinced Jolyne to just dump his body in the trunk so no one would notice. This seemed like a good plan at the time, until a few days later when the police showed up at her door. As it turned out, they’d found Romeo’s car and a bottle with her fingerprints on it, leading them to believe she had pulled a hit and run while DUI.

After being arrested and placed in jail, Jolyne met fellow prisoner Ermes Costello, and they quickly struck up a friendship after roasting another inmate over her masturbation habits (yes, really). She also met up with her lawyer, who explained that her bail had been refused and she’d be sentenced to Green Dolphin Street Jail. He also gave her some of her belongings, which included a pendant from her dad, which she accidentally pricked herself on. She didn’t think much of this at first, but while heading to the prison, some odd things started to happen.

Thanks to a mysterious string coming from her finger, Jolyne began hearing people’s conversations from afar, and when she heard the guards threatening to beat Ermes, she put a stop to it in a pretty gruesome manner.

A few days before her trial, her lawyer discussed the possibility of a plea bargain to reduce her sentence, but when the trial came and she plead guilty, the judge revealed additional evidence that her lawyer hadn’t disclosed to her. Apparently, she wasn’t being charged with a hit and run, but active murder, and she was believed to have tampered with evidence to hide the body. Instead of being sentenced to 5 years like she’d been promised, Jolyne was now condemned to prison for the next 15 years of her life.

As it turned out, Romeo had paid her lawyer off to save his own skin and throw Jolyne under the bus. After overhearing this, Jolyne swore vengeance, using her strings to strangle her attorney to death.

She wouldn’t have the chance to ride this high for too long, because shortly after she met with her new roommate, a violent, manipulative psychopath named Gwess. She’d quickly learn that Gwess had some… interesting quirks, like the ability to shrink people down, and her weird habit of treating these victims as her pets, which Jolyne experienced firsthand. Using her as a replacement for her latest “pet,” Gwess tricked Jolyne into trying to escape while sicing the source of her power, Goo Goo Dolls, onto her. But when the monstrous spirit tried to attack Jolyne, it was repelled by the arrival of a stringy, blue fist.

The discovery of this new arrival would be followed by Gwess herself appearing and begging Jolyne for mercy, and upon being double crossed, Jolyne immediately showed her who’s boss. With her new companion at her side, Jolyne christened this stringy spiritual being as “Stone Free,” a symbol of her vow to escape the stone ocean she was trapped in.

And she’d get the chance to test its power shortly after this, when a mysterious boy warned her that a visitor was coming the next day and she shouldn’t go. Not sure what he was talking about, Jolyne didn’t listen, so the boy, Emporio, gave her a bone and cryptically told her to hold onto it. Understandably confused, Jolyne pocketed the bone and headed to the visitor’s room. But instead of finding her mom like she expected, the one visiting her was none other than her father!

Furious that her dad only just now decided to show his face, Jolyne got ready to leave, but it turned out Jotaro had good reason for being here. He had been investigating the hit and run Jolyne was charged with and discovered the true culprit: a follower of DIO named Johngalli A. Johngalli had framed Jolyne for murder and purposefully thrown himself in jail so he’d have a better shot at killing her, all as a way to get back at Jotaro. 

Jotaro initially tried to convince Jolyne they’d need to perform a prison break with their Stands, but Jolyne stubbornly refused and said she’d escape on her own. But just as she was about to leave, she was suddenly shot by a sniper rifle. Using Stone Free’s powers, she was able to save herself and reluctantly worked with Jotaro to fight Johngalli A’s Manhattan Transfer. However, as the fight dragged on, Jolyne began to notice strange inconsistencies slowly adding up, causing her to realize she was in a hallucination.

It turned out Johngalli A. had a partner, another follower of DIO known as Whitesnake. Since the distance between the male and female prisons was too wide, Johngalli had Whitesnake trap the Kujos in a dream-like hallucination while he made his way over. After breaking out of it, Jolyne and Jotaro confronted Johngalli, and while Jolyne managed to take him down, Whitesnake got what he wanted, using his powers to steal Jotaro’s memories and Stand.

As Jotaro slowly drifted into a coma, he revealed that he was proud of Jolyne and that he did love her. With this revelation, a newly motivated Jolyne left Jotaro’s body in the care of the Speedwagon Foundation as she stayed behind to search the prison, hoping to locate her father’s memories, his Stand, and Whitesnake’s owner. And she’d be aided in these efforts with the help of her own Stand.

Inherited through her family’s bloodline, Jolyne has the ability to summon a Stand, a physical manifestation of her own fighting spirit and soul. Stands are normally only visible to other Stand users, and the same goes for their powers. Each one is unique to its user, and when it came to her, Jolyne’s is easily one of the most unorthodox.

Taking its namesake from the Jimi Hendrix song, Stone Free allows Jolyne to unravel any part of her body into string. While this may not seem impressive on the surface, once unraveled, Jolyne can freely manipulate the string however she wants, and it’s surprisingly versatile. She can hear sounds and communicate from up to 24 meters (78 feet), stretch herself for a longer reach, dodge attacks by opening holes in her body, or swing through the air like Spider-Man. She can even use the string to enter another person’s body or form more complex items like handcuffs and nets, which are tough enough to withstand bullets and strong enough to support her own body weight, even letting her walk on water.

These strings also grant her a minor healing factor, letting her reattach severed limbs and restore parts of her body that were turned inside out, even doing so multiple times simultaneously!

Note: In addition to this, Stone Free’s strings can affect intangible beings, as seen when one of them remained wrapped around Whitesnake despite it phasing through a wall.

However, her Stand’s abilities aren’t just limited to strings. By forcing the string to clump together, Stone Free can take on a more humanoid, 3D shape. While this shortens its range to only two meters, the power and speed behind it more than make up for it! It’s strong enough to crush a coin in its grip, bend metal with its punches, and can uproot several feet of airplane metal!

But Stone Free’s advantages don’t end at strength. It’s also surprisingly fast, able to throw a baseball 1,000 times in seconds, punch bullets out of the air, and once formed a protective barrier around Jolyne the instant she was shot. It’s even reacted to meteors that were being pulled from orbit and destroyed them before they could hit Jolyne. Considering the distance the meteor had to travel and the timeframe Jolyne had to react, this would require a reaction speed of Mach 1,075, and destroying it would require an energy worth over 500 tons of TNT! 

Note: This level of strength is backed up by Chapter 140’s explanation of Stone Free, where it’s stated to have the strength of a small, incredibly fast meteor.

Even without Stone Free to help her, Jolyne’s shown off some impressive feats on her own. She’s knocked out a prison guard with a single punch, kicked hard enough to break arms and draw blood from Stands on par with Stone Free, and could dodge attacks from C-MOON; which speeds up its user’s reactions to the point of letting him dodge attacks from Star Platinum, and it could catch Jotaro off guard in its inferior form.

To put into perspective how impressive that is, a rusty Jotaro was said to be able to keep up with a light speed Stand, and Star Platinum has been stated to be faster than light. It’s even shown the ability to match Silver Chariot, which could slice through a beam of light. This feat’s been calculated plenty of times throughout the years, with results ranging anywhere from 184 times FTL to over 1,300, but regardless of what end you go with, it’s a testament to the fact that Stands with A rank speeds are insanely fast!

Note: There are other feats to support this level of speed, such as Silver Chariot reflecting rays of light from Arabia Fats’ the Sun, or Joseph Joestar- whose Stand has a C rank in speed– dodging a laser long before he gained a Stand. These feats get 76 times FTL and 2.3 times FTL, respectively.

The only thing more insane than that is Jolyne’s pain tolerance! She’s taken punches from Star Platinum, a Stand strong enough to destroy artificial diamonds, and was only pissed off. She’s kept fighting despite her knuckles being busted open and having chunks of her shoulder, arm, and leg torn off. She’s shown no signs of pain after setting herself on fire, and survived impalement from a Stand that harvested her organs. She’s even survived having her heart outside her chest long enough to force it back in!

But by far one of Jolyne’s biggest advantages is Stone Free’s ability to evolve. When she first gained it, it couldn’t break through prison bars and its strength was limited to crushing a coin. But as time went on, both its strength and the power of its strings grew. And part of that was thanks to the very man she was trying to stop.

Despite initially viewing her as just another pawn in his grand scheme, the prison chaplain and owner of Whitesnake Enrico Pucci soon realized the danger of Jolyne pursuing her father’s discs. Within her first days of being imprisoned, she’d already located the shack where he’d hidden his Stand discs and defeated its guardian, the sentient plankton colony Foo Fighters. And thanks to her kind nature rubbing off on it, Foo Fighters joined Jolyne and Ermes, turning one of Pucci’s closest allies against him.

Wanting to keep them from going any further, Pucci deployed any inmate he could find, from the gambling fanatic Miraschon, the gravity manipulating assassin Lang Rangler, to even Sports Maxx and his army of invisible zombies. But try as he might, nothing worked. Whether she was exploiting a rigged game of catch by using Miraschon’s body as a rebound board, redirecting Lang’s bullets with her strings, or creating an intricate web to find and restrain invisible zombies, her ingenuity let her come out on top each time!

Even after taking two gunshots and getting caught in a rain of poisonous dart frogs,  she still persisted by creating a barrier around herself, buying her enough time to get her father’s Stand disc to the Speedwagon Foundation.

With her father’s recovery now fully ensured, Jolyne and her friends- Ermes, Foo Fighters, Emporio, the enigmatic amnesiac Weather Report, and the murderer turned comic relief Narciso Anasui- continued fighting off Whitesnake’s forces, all while coming close to uncovering his true identity. Yet at the same time, Pucci’s plan of obtaining Heaven was slowly come to fruition. 

Using the resurrective powers of Limp Bizkit and the distractions of a few other Stand users, Pucci isolated Jolyne from the bone Emporio had given her. As its form slowly evolved, the bone gained an infectious power, slowly transforming any who touched it into disgusting, half-sentient plants. As it drew nutrients from its victims, the bone slowly morphed into its own being, a strange homunculus known as the Green Baby.

Upon discovering the creature, Jolyne managed to gain its trust and regrouped with her friends to see what they should do next. Unfortunately, their plans hit a snag when it was revealed the “Weather Report” they were seeing was a disguised Whitesnake, who promptly took Foo Fighters and Anasui out of commission. Though she was injured during the attack, Jolyne forced Pucci into a corner, and was only stopped from ending his threat when he threw Jotaro’s memory disc into the dying Anasui.

Torn between ending the threat to her family line and saving her father, Jolyne ultimately chose to ensure Jotaro’s safety by rushing to save Anasui, allowing Pucci to escape. Though Anasui ultimately survived, Foo Fighters had to sacrifice herself, and Pucci escaped, now merged with the Green Baby.

Now back in solitary confinement, Jolyne found herself victim to the sadistic warden Miuccia Miuller, who tormented her by affecting her short term memory with Jail House Lock. Despite only being able to remember only three things at once, Jolyne ultimately overcame this and forced Miu Miu to turn it off, then pulled off her escape.

With Ermes and Emporio in tow, as well as a surprise visit and blackmail to Romeo, Jolyne made her way to the coordinates she’d discovered from Pucci, only to find the priest had coerced the sons of DIO into joining his cause. Now forced to partake in the next gen rehash of the Joestar-Brando family feud, Jolyne managed to fend off each one, all while resorting to risky, unorthodox maneuvers like setting herself on fire, using an airplane’s wind resistance to perform a sneak attack with her hidden pen, or unraveling most of her body and stuffing herself inside Ermes to survive a plane crash.

While these strategies did ultimately lead to her victory, they also highlight one of Jolyne’s major downsides: she’s a massive risk taker, and a stubborn one at that! It doesn’t matter what grievous injury comes her way. If there is even a chance she can build a strategy to exploit it, she’ll take it! Unfortunately, this also includes any injuries inflicted when Stone Free or its strings are damaged, which will reflect onto her. And speaking of her strings, while they’re certainly useful, she can only safely unravel up to 70% of her body. Anything more and the results may prove fatal.

But even with all those odds stacked against her, Jolyne and her friends (except Weather, who died and was separated from his Stand disc) made it to Pucci’s hideout in Cape Canaveral. There, in the Kennedy Space Center, Jolyne would discover and do battle with Whitesnake’s evolved form, C-MOON.

Now wielding the ability to invert gravity and any surface it touched, C-MOON engaged Jolyne in a close-quarters fight, subjecting her to such lovely injuries as having her fingers turned inside out and her leg being crushed and ripping itself apart, both of which she then had to sew back up.

The fight would seemingly end when C-MOON landed a direct punch to her chest. However, Jolyne’s quick thinking allowed her to turn her body into a Mobius strip, cancelling its effects and letting her continue the fight. To make matters worse for Pucci, Ermes and Jotaro had entered the scene and rescued Jolyne before he could gain the upper hand.

Even though he was completely surrounded with nowhere to run, Pucci didn’t show any signs of fear. In fact, he was completely ecstatic! As it turned out, by backing him into a corner, they’d unintentionally given him just what he needed to pull off his plan.

Using C-MOON’s gravity powers and the aid of a display space shuttle of all things, Pucci entered the position he needed to fulfill the requirements DIO had given him all those years ago. C-MOON evolved once again, now ascended into the nigh-unstoppable Made in Heaven.

Under Pucci’s command, time began to accelerate, growing more unstable with each second that passed. With the surrounding land eroding into the sea and her friends picked off one by one, all Jolyne had left was Emporio.

Despite bleeding out from a knife in her stomach, Jolyne did what she could to ensure Emporio’s safety. Tying him to a nearby pod of dolphins, she entrusted the boy with their future as she stayed behind, facing off against Father Pucci one last time. Though she did what she could to hold him off, Jolyne ultimately fell like her father and the rest of her friends.

The Joestar bloodline was completely extinguished, and Pucci’s plan had come to fruition. The universe was reborn, and in this new world everyone was now aware how their entire life would span out.

However, there was just one small problem: Emporio still lived. Believing him to still be a threat to his “salvation,” Pucci pursued Emporio through Green Dolphin Street, only to fall victim to his own tunnel vision. Using the Heavy Weather disc Jolyne had given him, Emporio turned Made in Heaven against its user, forcing Pucci into a condensed space where he could breathe nothing but pure oxygen. 

With his body going numb and his vision blind, Pucci was unable to fight back as his brother’s Stand crushed his skull, killing him. Without its user to regulate the acceleration, time sped up once more, and the universe was reset again.

Thanks to Pucci’s premature death, his existence in this new world had been completely erased. And with no one left to prevent it, the ones he’d barred from entering this world could exist once more. Now free from the curse of the Joestar bloodline, Jolyne was reincarnated as Irene, a young, carefree romantic about to marry her boyfriend. And through either fate or coincidence, Irene would go on to meet and befriend the other reincarnations from the old world.

Though the rest of the world may have forgotten her existence, the ripples of Jolyne’s actions, through a roundabout way, were able to give everyone peace.

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