Aña "Anya" Sofia CorazonAraña

Imbued by blood and magic, teenager Anya Corazon is the last in a 900-year-old line of hunters, on her mother’s side. This legacy allows her to grow protective armor that’s accompanied by superhuman strength and with it, Anya helps defend the world from ancient and modern darkness all while trying to be a good student.

Blood and Magic

In 1099 in the Iberian Kingdom of Castile, benevolent Crusaders—kingmakers hoping to protect the world from the shadows they felt were consuming the Holy Lands—form a secret society. Arab writings lead them to totems granting arcane powers, but internal dissent fragments the organization into two factions: the Spider Society, which retains their original goal, and the Sisterhood of the Wasp, which seeks to accumulate power for its own sake. Through subsequent centuries, the two groups fight a secret war, each side fielding two linked champions, a Mage and a Hunter, against their opposite numbers in the rival cabal. When a champion falls, another has their innate mystic potential ritually activated and as such replaces them, with new champions often being descended from prior ones as the potential passed down family lines.

In modern times, and a little over 16 years ago, Aña “Anya” Sofia Corazon is born in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, a descendant of one of the original Spider Society Hunters through her mother Sofia’s line. At a young age, Aña‘s family moves to Mexico City where her father Gilberto is a successful investigative journalist. Gil begins an exposé of crimelord Felix Jade (pronounced ha-day) when Aña is six years old; warned to back off, Gil refuses, and the next day Sofia perishes in an unexplained house fire. Believing (apparently erroneously) that Jade is responsible, Gil takes Aña back to Brooklyn rather than risk further reprisals against his family.

Over the next decade, Jade becomes the target of several failed assassinations, which he thinks are arranged by Gil. Aña grows into a sassy teenager, her life revolving around friends, gymnastics, field hockey and generally unreciprocated crushes on boys. She grows tired of people constantly mispronouncing her name, so she Anglicized the spelling to Anya. Her refusal to back down from confrontations often leads to trouble at school.

One day as a freshman at Milton Summers High School in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, she’s bullied and in coming home that afternoon, her father calls her “Arañita” but it’s embarrassing for her and she keeps the day’s events from him until he reveals that he received a call from the principal about the incident. Before she can defend herself, Gil received another call that takes him away. Meanwhile, the Spider Society’s Hunter dies as a result of giving the hunter spirit within him total control. His Mage partner Miguel Legar is supposed to bond with fellow Society member Nina Smith, making her the new Hunter, but Miguel has a vision of both of them dying in battle, ending the Spider Society lineage. Secretly in love with Nina, Miguel instead searches for another Hunter candidate. Pursued by Wasp agents wishing to deny the Spiders their Hunter, Miguel is drawn to Fort Green Park, where he cast a summoning sigil; Anya, in the park after being taunted by a school bully into a late night fight, stumbles into Miguel’s battle with the Wasps. Concluding that Anya was the new Spider initiate, a Wasp agent fatally stabs her. To save her life, Miguel bonds with her, healing her and triggering the dormant powers she carried within to slowly activate, visibly manifesting as a spider-like tattoo on her right arm. Though his superior Mr. Sanderson and the Society board disapproves of Miguel’s choosing such a young and untrained Hunter, having no alternative they reluctantly accept Anya.

After initial uncertainty, Anya agreed to become Miguel’s partner, hiding her new role from her father behind the façade of an internship with WebCorps, the Spider Society’s front. To hasten the full emergence of her powers, Miguel abandons Anya in Mexico’s Yucatan desert, hoping to cleanse her system of the city’s pollutions and waken the Hunter within. After several hours, a wolf pack attacked the thirsty and exhausted Anya, but she experienced a vision of her dead mother, who draws her powers fully out; a carapace armor grew from her tattoo, protecting her while she defeated the wolves. Though this armor, which no prior Hunter had manifested, confirms to Miguel that Anya was not the true Hunter, he keeps this information from her. He informs her that each Hunter chooses their own name, so Anya picks her mother’s maiden name, Araña (pronounced “ah-rahn-ya,” meaning “Spider” in Spanish), and designs herself a costume. She and Miguel disrupt Wasp Mage Vincent’s ceremony creating the Wasp’s new Hunter, denying them Araña’s counterpart for a year, until a new ceremony could be performed.

Carapace Armor

Anya possesses superhuman strength (lifting 3 tons), endurance and speed. She can climb walls and do a 25' standing high jump. Anya’s skeleton is incredibly flexible, allowing her to conceal herself in tiny cavities.

The spider-tattoo on her right arm is invisible except when it senses danger. Anya can generate a carapace armor from it that would instinctively expand to block attacks, even ones she’s unaware of; Anya could also consciously control the thickness, coverage, and shape of it. At its thickest, it was resistant to small-arms fire, but when armored even partial immersion in water paralyzed and asphyxiated her, forcing her to retract it. The Doomsday Man ripped the carapace off Araña and it is uncertain if it will regrow.

The Hunter spirit grants Araña exceptional fighting prowess before its departure; Araña is trained by expert martial artists Nina Smith and Batroc the Leaper. She is a skilled mechanic and designed a spider-bola weapon useful as a swing-line or for tripping and binding opponents. As her father and mother are of Puerto Rican and Mexican descent, respectively, Araña is bilingual, speaking English and Spanish.

Frequent Foes

The Sisterhood of the Wasp becomes Araña’s enemy when she joins their opposition, the Spider Society. She comes up against their potential Hunter, teenage Egyptian assassin Amun, and battles him until he is offered respect that the Sisterhood did not, and agrees to protect her identity. Though makes it clear that he would fight her again if the Sisterhood demanded it of him.

Believing for the large part of her life that the crimelord Felix Jade killed her mother, Amun faces off with him, nearly killing him in their first encounter. They meet again and Jade controls her with telepathy though Araña’s mother’s spirit helps her overcome it. Amun reveals to Araña that Jade is not her mother’s killer and Jade escapes.

Alongside other Spider-Heroes, Anya battles the Inheritors, a vampiric family who feast on Spider-Totems, and interdimensional Electros from across the Multiverse.

Family Ties and Heroic Allies­

Araña’s father Gilberto “Gil” Corazon raises her on his own after her mother Sofia Araña Corazon is killed and they have a healthy relationship. He supports her after discovering her superpowers and allows her to train with Carol Danvers, AKA Ms. Marvel (later Captain Marvel) and Simon Williams, AKA Wonder Man.

Araña joins the Spider Society, an ancient order that protects the world from the shadows using powerful totems, and goes up against its opposing group, the Sisterhood of the Wasp who seeks the power for themselves. She bonds with one of the leaders, Miguel Legar, and he hopes to awaken the Hunter spirt within her but knows she is not meant for the position. He admits it to her eventually and says that her armor is a gift from her mother.

In going up against the Sisterhood, the Spider Society enlists another Spider-Totem, Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, and they successfully stop their Hunter ceremony, though Araña loses Miguel in the process.

Araña joins the Initiative after the Superhuman Registration Act (SHRA) is enacted and becomes Ms. Marvel’s protégé and works closely with Wonder Man. During this time, she also becomes friends with Rebecca Barnes, AKA Nomad. While it bothers her to see families separated by the SHRA, she continues fighting against Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America’s anti-registration team.

She also gets recruited by the Avengers Academy and learns combat techniques from some of the best fighters in the Avengers. She helps Earth’s Mightiest recover Terregenesis cocoons during the time of the Terrigen Cloud bomb.

The Web of a Tangled Life

Working alongside Miguel, Nina, and WebCorps computer hacker Ted Mankowski, Araña captured corrupt Judge Thomas Bander, who had been selling insider information to the Wasps. She found information on him that the Wasps were considering hiring the teenage Egyptian assassin Amun to fill in for their incapacitated Hunter. Vincent lured Miguel into a trap, an audition for Amun to prove himself by slaying the Spider’s Mage, but Araña intervened, seeing Amun’s face before she and Miguel fled. Aware Amun maintained his anonymity by killing anyone who could identify him, Anya was horrified when the new boy in her class proved to be the assassin she had fought the night before; worse, he recognized her by her tattoo.

Later, the Wasps attacked when the Spider Society was transporting Binder to a safe house; Araña and Amun’s battle was witnessed by Gil Corazon, who was investigating the Binder corruption case for the New York Herald. Seizing the advantage, Amun threatened to target those closest to Anya if she did not let him slay her; Araña grabbed her father and fled, but doing so left Miguel vulnerable and Amun stabbed him.

With Miguel in critical condition, Araña quit WebCorps, unwilling to make anyone there a target for Amun. A chance encounter with Spider-Man convinced Araña to be proactive, taking the fight to Amun. Meanwhile, Mankowski tracked Araña down to tell her that Miguel would die if Araña wasn’t by his hospital bed, as their life forces were interlinked; both Ted and Amun found Araña within moments of one another. Battling Amun without Miguel’s stabilizing influence, the Hunter spirit took over and Araña nearly slew Amun before Ted, not wanting her to become a killer, held her back long enough for Amun to flee.

Visited by Araña, Miguel awoke from his coma. To prevent anyone else identifying her as Amun had, Miguel magically dimmed Araña’s tattoo until it was only visible in danger’s presence. The Amun situation became further complicated when Lynn, Anya’s best friend, asked Amun out; unwilling to leave her friend alone with the assassin, Anya tagged along, the two enemies maintaining a shaky truce for the sake of their secret identities. When a nearby argument exploded into violence, Anya reluctantly saved Amun from being shot; she explained to a perturbed Amun that there was a difference between being enemies and letting him die. Finding it ironic that unlike his employer she had shown him real respect, Amun reciprocated by promising not to share her identity with the Wasps and to drop his personal vendetta, leaving her friends and family alone; however, he would still fight her if his employers required it.

Learning that the Sisterhood of the Wasp was hosting an international crimelord conference, the Spider Society targeted the conference members as they arrived in the United States. They easily captured Lady Chi of the Clan Fei, despite Vincent and Amun being tasked to protect her, but the next arrival was Jade; determined to avenge her mother, Araña nearly killed Jade in their first encounter. During their next fight Araña was controlled when Jade used hidden telepathic abilities; she attacked Miguel and helped Jade escape. The mesmerized Araña, however, was freed from Jade’s control by her mother’s spirit; overpowering Jade, Araña tied him up and pushed his car over a cliff into a river. Moments later Amun arrived to tell her he had learned Jade was not her mother’s killer. Her conscience awoken, Araña leapt into the water to rescue Jade but found the car empty.

Anya began having regular dream visitations from her mother urging her to release the Hunter, and Miguel informed her that she was not meant to have been his partner and that her armor was her mother’s gift. Meanwhile, the Spider Society learned that the Wasps had hired an unidentified being, a “totem,” who could awaken the Wasp Hunter before the full year was out. Balancing things out by enlisting their own totem, Spider-Man, the Spider Society forces attacked the Wasp ceremony. Miguel realized that the battle was the one he had long foreseen; he took a fatal blow intended for Nina, but the Wasp totem slew her seconds later. Araña relinquished her Hunter, which merged with and revived Nina, who swiftly killed the Wasp Hunter. Angry at Miguel’s death, Nina told Araña to leave; no longer tied to the Spider Society, she was now free to find her true destiny.

The Superhuman Registration Act passed just before Araña’s 16th birthday, and she was tracked down by Ms. Marvel and Wonder Man, who convinced her to register and become a trainee with the federal Initiative program. Despite Araña’s faith in the Act being shaken early on when she witnessed unregistered hero Julia Carpenter, AKA Arachne, being forcibly separated from her young daughter, Araña nonetheless joined other registered heroes in battling Captain America‘s anti-registration resistance forces.

With her father now aware of her dual identity, Araña became Ms. Marvel’s protégé, but her apprenticeship was cut short after the Doomsday Man peeled off her carapace, hospitalizing her. Shortly after being discharged, Araña was confronted by Arachne, who was hunting for her daughter; Araña overpowered her, but then helped Ms. Marvel and Wonder Man reunite mother and child. Araña recently fell under Philip Masters, AKA Puppet Master’s control but was rescued by Ms. Marvel’s Lightning Storm squad.

Along with other Spider-Totems, Araña was hunted by the Kravinoff family who hoped to resurrect their fallen family member, Sergei Kravinoff, AKA Kraven the Hunter. She was captured with Arachne and Cassandra Webb, AKA Madame Web, and Mattie Franklin, AKA Spider-Woman, the latter of which was killed. Madame Web was gravely injured and gave her precognitive powers to Arachne, who became the new Madame Web. Arachne passed on her costume. Spider-Man then helped fight the Kravinoffs and Anya prevented him from killing the resurrected Kraven. Anya then joined the Young Allies and fought the Bastards of Evil. During this time, Anya’s ally Jessica Drew, AKA Spider-Woman, called her Spider-Girl on account of her costume, and she started going by the moniker. She vowed to stay true to the principles that drove her hero, the Amazing Spider-Man.

As Spider-Girl, Anya battled Onslaught alongside the Secret Avengers. While cracking down on crime, Anya overheard a television broadcast that the Fantastic Four were faced with a widespread tragedy at the City College where her dad was located. She rushed to the building where he would be but it collapsed. She entered it and found many people injured and her dad dead under fallen rubble. Suddenly an out-of-control General Thaddeus Ross, AKA Red Hulk, rampaged towards her while the Fantastic Four tried to hold him back. Angry that he had caused her father’s death, Anya attacked the Red Hulk but the FF told her to clear the area while they contained him. Though their efforts were hopeless and the Red Hulk chased after Anya. After dodging several attacks, Anya suddenly stood her ground as the Red Hulk mumbled something about “Raven” and burning blood. She led him to water and it restored him to his less-rampaging self, though she hoped he drowned for killing her father.

It turned out that Red Hulk was mind-controlled by a mysterious group called Raven, so Anya reluctantly teamed-up with him to investigate. Meanwhile, Anya’s neighbor Kurt Godwin, started aggressively checking in on her and her roommate Rocky, whose father became Anya’s legal guardian after the death of her father. Anya soon learned that Godwin was a top agent of Raven as was Emeline Foster, another agent after her.

During this time, Anya also ended up going toe-to-toe with Kraven the Hunter’s daughter, Ana Kravinoff, AKA Kraven, and a new Hobgoblin. Continuing her investigation, Anya and Red Hulk found that Raven had countless warehouses and scientists working for them, plus a group of goons called American Ninjas, who kidnapped Rocky and her father. Anya’s powers then returned and in tracking them down, she eventually got help from Red Hulk and Spider-Man, but not before she found out that Godwin had actually killed her father by poisoning his coffee. She wanted to kill him but she stopped herself, thinking of her father’s ethics.

Anya soon found out that a virus infected New Yorkers, including herself, and given them Spider-Powers and mutated many into giant spider-creatures. Crime boss Wilson Fisk, AKA Kingpin, was no exception and offered Spider-Girl a spot in his organization to fight the Society of the Wasp, a monstrous race out to kill all of Manhattan. Spider-Girl refused but the psychic Madame Web prophesied that she would have to team up with her enemy to save the city. The All-Mother, the leader of the Wasps, planned to release a poison to kill all Spiders in Manhattan, so Spider-Girl reluctantly made a deal with the Kingpin to save everyone. She also proposed a truce with the All-Mother to fight the mutated Manhattanites, but not to kill them, which allowed other heroes, including Spider-Man, in Union Square to destroy the Queen controlling the spiders.

In the end Hobgoblin slayed the All-Mother and when Kingpin went to kill him for the act, Spider-Girl put a stop to it, having seen enough death for the day. Mister Fantastic created inoculations which turned everyone back to normal, even Anya. She met up with Kinpin who wanted her to join him against their mutual enemies, but she refused seeing him on the side of the devils. Despite declining, he appreciated her help and, having learned her secret identity, promised to forget who she was under the mask.

The Avengers Academy then recruited Anya and when the Inhuman’s Terrigen Cloud spread across the globe, Spider-Girl investigated her missing teacher, who was kidnapped while enveloped in a Terrigenesis cocoon. She enlisted the help of the Avengers, including Spider-Woman, Natasha Romanoff, AKA Black Widow, Bruce Banner, AKA the Hulk, James Howlett/Logan, AKA Wolverine, and Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, who all had ideas about how Spider-Girl could be a better Super Hero. Spider-Girl and her allies got stuck in a Mad Science War brewing between Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) and Dr. June Covington, AKA the Toxic Doxie. They discovered that A.I.M. was behind the kidnapping and had sold the cocoon of Spider-Girl’s teacher, and Toxic Doxie wanted it. Spider-Girl was pivotal in stopping Toxic Doxie from getting the cocoon, and she and the Avengers rescued her teacher.

When the vampiric Inheritors—a family that fed off the life force of Spider-Totems—traveled across the Multiverse hunting Spiders, Anya joined Billy Braddock, AKA Spider-UK of Earth-833 and his team of Spiders to defeat them, and soon, the larger Spider-Army. The Inheritors were after Cindy Moon, AKA Silk, of Anya’s Earth, and she alongside Earth-65’s Gwen Stacy, AKA Spider-Woman (later Ghost-Spider), were tasked by, to keep her safe. Though Silk, not wanting to put anyone else in danger, snuck off on her own, bouncing from universe to universe. Anya and Gwen rejoined Spider-UK’s team and fought the Inheritors while Silk found a universe that would be toxic to the Inheritors, and so that’s where the Spider-Army made their final stand and in trapping them, defeated their ferocious foes. However, the Spider-Army was not without its casualties and other worlds needed Spider-Heroes to protect them. Anya volunteered to be part of the Web Warriors and help mend the severed skeins across time and space.

Anya was second-in-command to the Web-Warriors leader Spider-UK. The team included several Spider-Heroes from across the Multiverse including, May “Mayday” Parker, AKA Spider-Woman (Earth-982), Peter Porker, AKA Spider-Ham (Earth-8311), Peter B. Parker, AKA Spider-Man Noir, Pavitr Prabhakar, AKA Spider-Man (Earth-50101), Ghost Spider, Maybelle “May” Reilly, AKA Lady Spider (Earth-803), and the Inheritor enemy-turned-ally Karn, AKA Master Weaver (Earth-001). With this team of Spider-Heroes, Anya was tasked with patrolling and protecting the Web of Life and Destiny—a gateway to all of reality—located on Earth-001, AKA Loomworld.

Anya and the team went up against an army of interdimensional Electros and at one point, though Anya doubted herself, Spider-Woman and Spider-Ham were right there encouraging her. She made a hard call and directed the team to prevent the Electros from destroying the whole Web, but they lost Spider-UK and Spider-Woman in the process.

Anya and the team set out to bring their missing teammates home, but learned that they had damaged the Web in doing so, causing realities to bleed together. So they set out to repair reality itself. But the team’s teleportation devices, which allowed them to travel the Web, were also damaged and after a reality quake separated them all, they had to find their way back to each other on their own. Anya ended up stranded with Lady Spider in the anarchic hellhole of Earth-138, Hobie Brown, AKA Spider-Punk’s reality, who had also become an ally of their team. Anya, knowing Lady Spider was a brilliant mechanical engineer, encouraged her to recreate their communicator and they soon allied with another Spider-Man who wore a giant mechanical spider suit.

Anya and the others reunited with their teammates, who were under attack by escaped Electros. But the Electros’ leader, the Battery, soon infiltrated the robotic spider suit. But the team’s recent ally Ben Parker, AKA Spider-Man (Earth-3145) merged his mind with a tele-consciousness helmet that helped alter the Battery’s intentions and stopped the Electros in their tracks. The team soon received word from Karn that an alternate reality Harry Osborn posing as his world’s Spider-Man was attempting to destroy the Web. Anya listened to her teammates who formulated a plan against him. Using the altered Battery, they combined Spider-Punk and Ghost Spider’s musical talents and zapped Osborn from afar, saving reality with rock and roll. The Web-Warriors resolved to reunite any time the Multiverse called.

Anya returned to life of juggling college studies and her responsibility as Spider-Girl when her tattoo suddenly returned and knocked her unconscious while she was swinging through the city. She dreamt of the clairvoyant Madame Web, now Julia Carpenter, who sent an ominous warning. Anya awoke with her costume in tatters and feeling like her powers were half of what they were. She went about her business, and even saved people from an army of vermin and collapsed again, but not before she caught a glimpse of their leader. Anya awoke to Madame Web in the flesh, who informed her that her powers were in transition, returning to their true totemic-self and that the Sisterhood of the Wasp were back with a new hunter, Delilah, the seeming leader of the vermin. Madame Web contacted Web-Weaver, who designed a new costume for Anya and with her powers restored, she returned to using her alias Araña.

Madame Web also had a vision of a concert where Delilah would be and when Anya showed up, the pair fought. Still transitioning, Anya struggled in hand-to-hand combat. But then her powers suddenly returned in full and she defeated Delilah. Just then, Madame Web appeared and said that this battle was just the beginning, and whisked her through a portal.

Anya then helped Madame Web to recruit Spider-Army members to go up against a new threat, and added an unlikely ally to their ranks, the Inheritor Morlun.