Comic Info
Comic Name: Spider-Girl (Volume 2)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Paul Tobin
Artist: Clayton Henry
# of Issues: 8
Release Date: 2011
Spider-Girl (2) #2
Reprints Spider-Girl (2) #1-8 (January 2011-August 2011) Anya Sofia Corazon has everything go for her. Her father is a journalist and now has come to accept that she is the new Spider-Girl. She’s friends with the Fantastic Four and works with other heroes on a regular basis. Anya’s life is about to be turned upside down when her father is killed by Red Hulk during a rampage. Though she has no powers, Anya sets out to avenge her father’s death but learns that a bigger group called Raven might be involved. Now forced to team with Red Hulk, Spider-Girl is on the biggest quest of her life and forced to do it alone.
Written by Paul Tobin, Spider-Girl: Family Values collects the entire run of the second volume of Spider-Girl. The collection features art by Clayton Henry.
Spider-Girl was originally called Arana and first appeared in Amazing Fantasy (2) #1 (August 2004) and was one of the first female Hispanic superheroes. The idea of the character was to be inclusive, but simply using that as an idea isn’t a good idea if she doesn’t have a good “web” of support. She took the name of the original Spider-Girl in this volume (but to be fair, “Spider-Girl” never was the traditional Marvel Universe but M2).
Spider-Girl never really got a chance to do much. Like the first series of Spider-Girl comics, the series attempts to be more connected to the teenage mindset. Spider-Girl is on Twitter and fights villains who post videos on YouTube. She stops a robot by reprogramming it to play Angry Birds. It is all very tongue-in-cheek.
Spider-Girl (2) #7
The problem with Spider-Girl is that it is a bit unclear what is up with her. Though it is stated she has no powers, she still swings rooftop to rooftop with ropes. She fights villains like Hobgoblin to a standstill. For a series trying to live with realism, that doesn’t seem very realistic. Prior to this series, Spider-Girl had been having a lot of interaction with the Young Allies, but after its cancellation, they didn’t really show up much in this series.
The other strange aspect of this series is that all these people around Spider-Girl allow her to fight crime without powers. Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four allow a girl to swing from rooftops and take on villains. Spider-Man tries to intervene at one point, but ends up being “ok do your thing”…I don’t see that happening, especially in the case of Sue Richards.
Following Spider-Girl (2) #8 (August 2011), Anya can be found in the multi-title Spider Island series with new powers, (another) new direction, and her own title Spider-Island: The Amazing Spider-Girl. As of now, Spider-Girl is essentially homeless without her own title. It will be interesting if Marvel returns to give her another shot…until then enjoy Spider-Girl: Family Values.
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