Scorpion: Poison Tomorrow

Comic Info

Amazing Fantasy (3) #10

Reprints Amazing Fantasy (3) #7-12 (June 2005-November 2005). Carmilla Black thought she was a normal girl.  When Carmilla discovered she had superhuman powers by almost killing her prom date, Carmilla’s life turned upside down.  Someone has killed her adopted parents, both S.H.I.E.L.D. and A.I.M. want her, and her birth mother is a super-villain.  Taking the name of the Scorpion, Carmilla finds picking a side in the fight might be harder than she ever expected.

Written by Fred Van Lente, Scorpion:  Poison Tomorrow is a Marvel Comics superhero collection.  The volume collects the second storyline of the Marvel anthology series Amazing Fantasy (following the collection Araña Volume 1: The Heart of the Spider), and features art by Leonard Kirk and David Ross.  The collection does not include the back-up Vampire by Night stories which began with Amazing Fantasy (3) #10.

I love an anthology series, but they are extremely hard to maintain in the competitive comic book market.  Generally they include freshman characters or characters who can’t carry a series themselves.  Amazing Fantasy went on the route of introducing new characters, and both Araña and Scorpion were interesting attempts to launch characters.

Amazing Fantasy (3) #12

While Araña had some minor success, Scorpion struggled.  In reality, Scorpion is maybe the more interesting character since she is walking a tightrope between being good and bad, but Araña had the added benefit of being a “Spider” character plus the added new coverage of a female Hispanic superhero when diversity in comics was really being studied.  Scorpion however was a rather generic and typical character.

Despite being more mainstream, the storyline is full of angst and action which is fun.  Scorpion finds herself questioning who to trust and having doubts about her past.  The jaded teen is a bit over-the-top in her ability to fight, skateboard, and ride motorcycles (she’s a bit too good).  The comic’s best aspect is Scorpion’s relationships with the people trying to use her.  It feels more like espionage spy comic than a superhero comic.

Scorpion never took off (it doesn’t help that she has the same name as the more famous Spider-Man villain).  The character has floated around for years and it is always nice to see her show up.  With such infrequent appearances, Scorpion has been hard to follow which also hasn’t benefited the character.  I still think Scorpion might be a nice (and unusual) addition to one of the bigger teams as a means to change up the status quo of Marvel heroes.