Arana - She's Not Just A Spider Girl

Arana was Marvel's first Latin superhero and they made a point of announcing that - Loud and Clear.

I suspect someone in the Marvel bullpen looked around one day and noticed one of the fastest growing areas of population in the United States and decided they needed to cash in.

That in itself is a strike against the character. Stories need to start with good characters. They don't need to spring forth from someone in marketing trying only to hit a demographic.

Because of this Arana could have been a really terrible comic, but surprisingly it turned out pretty well.

Arana Covers Pictured - by Mark Brooks

Written by Fiona Avery, Anya Corazon is a fifteen year girl with an attitude. She doesn't take much from anyone and she has something of a short fuse, which means she tends not to listen very well either.

One evening Anna stumbles into something called The Spider Society and is endowed with the powers of a spider.

Hmm. Been there done that, you're saying.

Not really, unlike Peter Parker she doesn't spin webs and she lacks anything resembling a spider sense.

What she does gain is strength, agility and an exoskeleton that even if it wasn't pretty effective as armor, would probably scare the bad guys away. It's not exactly what you would expect your average fifteen year old girl to wear.

Speaking of wearing, I have to admit I like Arana's costume. Let's face it most superhero tights are fairly ridiciculous. Yellow spandex anyone?

One of my favorite scenes consists of Arana considering costume options. As she tries on a variety of garish outfits you see her in a spoof of Supergirl, Invisible Woman, Wonder Woman, Sailor Moon, The Matrix, Kill Bill and even Spider-Man.

Arana Cover by Mark Brooks

Arana's eventual costume choice consists of a tshirt with spider logo, black pants, tennis shoes and a pair of oversized goggles. She accessorizes with a backpack and a variety of pouches to carry her assorted hero gizmos and a lip gloss or two. As for gizmos, she carries a bola (think Daredevil) to allow her to swing from buildings and bonk the occasional villain with.

After discovering her new abilities, Anya is asked to join WebCorps, which is the company that her future mentor Miguel works for. She explains to her father that she has taken an  internship to explain her absences. In actuality she's a vigilante who takes out criminals from the underworld. The intership thing is a stretch, especially when she dissapears all hours of the night, but how else do you explain away the time a young teen is off fighting crime?

Some of the supporting characters and other members of the WebCorps team consist of Ted Mankowski, the resident hacker, a young punk kid who dropped out of high school and Miguel Legar, Anya's partner in crime-fighting and also her mentor. Miguel is a mage that helps her fight for WebCorps and tries to guide her as she learns to control her powers. 

Marvel tried very hard to make Anya a "real" teenager and they do a pretty good job. Everything from the non-spandex costume to the dialogue is tuned to an audience more into Manga than a typical superhero comic.

Arana first appeared in issues 1-6 of Amazing Fantasy before being given her own title. Unfortunately Arana never achieved significant sales and ran only another twelve issues, for a total of eighteen.

These eighteen issues have been gathered in three digest sized books, The Heart of The Spider, In The Beginning and Night of The Hunter. I'm a big fan of the digest format and it's nice to be able to read the entire series at far less than the cost of the individual comics.

After issue twelve of her own series, Arana's next feature appearance was in a one-shot comic Spider-Man, Arana, The Hunter Revealed. In this story Marvel breaks Anya free of Web-Corps and kills off some significant characters from the first eighteen issues.

Apparently unsatisfied with the response to their teenaged crime fighter, the powers that be at Marvel decided it would be better to wipe the slate clean and start over.

Who knows what the future holds for Arana, but Marvel assures us there is a future. I hope this is true and that they don't abandon Anya Corazon. Realistic teen heroes(Runaways) are few and far between in the Marvel Universe, Arana is one worth developing.

I'm going to add this to the recommended reading list.

'til Arana joins the Avengers

Keep the Adventure Alive,

AT