Julia Carpenter is the awkward fit that makes Freedom Force's arrangement harder to excuse. Once she is standing beside the former Brotherhood, it becomes impossible to treat th…

Julia Carpenter is the awkward fit that makes Freedom Force's arrangement harder to excuse. Once she is standing beside the former Brotherhood, it becomes impossible to treat the whole team as people who have always been comfortable doing this sort of work. Julia joins after the original government lineup has already been established. This is the black-and-white-costumed Spider-Woman, not Jessica Drew. Putting Julia into an attempt to arrest the X-Men creates an especially strange encounter when Jessica herself becomes involved. The shared name doesn't mean they share the same assignment or loyalties. Julia brings strength, agility and psionic webbing. Her webs are a versatile means of restraining people, which ought to suit a team whose official business includes making arrests. She offers something different from smashing the pavement or surrounding a target with flames. In principle, this can be an apprehension team rather than a destruction crew. The trouble is the people and orders around her. Freedom Force's government status asks Julia to accept actions she has reason to question. Working beside someone is also an invitation to become responsible for what the group does, even when you aren't the person choosing the target. Her time with the team is brief, and she leaves rather than settling comfortably into its methods. By the time the veterans are brought aboard in #223, Mystique is still using Spider-Woman as an example of a recruit who did not work out. That tells us plenty about what Mystique values in a teammate. Julia's place in this history shouldn't disappear just because the familiar Brotherhood faces dominate the group image. She is evidence that joining a government operation and believing in its conduct are separate decisions. Freedom Force could offer her a position. It could not guarantee her loyalty to everything that came with it.