Araña - Heart of the Spider Primer

A popular feature of in the second volume of Amazing Fantasy, Araña got her own series titled Araña - Heart of the Spider in March of 2005. The series was written by Araña creator Fiona Avery with art by Roger Cruz for the first 10 issues with Jonboy Meyers taking over as penciler for the final two issues. The series continues where Amazing Fantasy left off. The series continues to focus on Araña and her work at Webcorps, the enigmatic company that is a front for the Spider Society as well as their conflict with the Sisterhood of the Wasp. The title was also part of the Marvel Next imprint which was an attempt to release a new line of young superheroes that were supposed to be the next generation of Marvel’s superheroes.

There’s not really much I can say about this series. It’s okay. Writer Fiona Avery was working on creating a mythos around her creation. It was a valiant effort but the series was cancelled after 12 issues. This story seems to suffer from the editorial mandate at Marvel at the time that asked writers to try and stretch a plot as long as possible. Ultimately, the series was wrapped up (rather abruptly) in a special one-shot Spider-Man/Araña: The Hunter Revealed #1. For good or for ill, the creative team behind the one shot stripped Araña of everything that made her a unique stand-alone character. No more spider carapace, no more Webcorps, no more Sisterhood of the Wasp. This didn’t leave a whole lot to work with once this hatchet job was completed.

This was evident as, following Civil War, Araña became a secondary character following the end of her series. She went from being a sidekick to Ms. Marvel to a would-be victim of the Kravinoff family during the Gauntlet and Grim Hunt storylines in Amazing Spider-Man. Whatever grand scheme that Fiona Avery had for the character became long forgotten.

By Spider-Island, they turne her into yet another Spider-Girl, web-shooting and all. A character who barely skirted the fringes of Spider-Man’s world was now being shoe-horned into it. However, instead of raising her profile, it made her more irrelevant. Following Spider-Verse, Araña has become even more irrelevant in the grander scheme of things as Marvel moved its focus to other female spider-characters.