Araña - Heart of the Spider #5
Arriving at Webcorps, Anya Corazon is brought up to the intensive care unit where Miguel has been recovering since being injured by Amun. She and Ted Mankowski find Nina Smith sleeping by his bed the whole time they’ve been gone. Ted clears out the room so Anya can be alone with her partner. She puts her mother’s amulet back around his neck, telling him to wake up since their bond has forced her to return to Webcorps since he needs her to survive.[1] Soon after she does so, Miguel finally wakes up from his coma. After the doctors check on him, Anya tells Miguel that she is not leaving his side until he tells her everything that he has been keeping from her about Webcorps. Since he’s stuck in a hospital bed, he decides that it’s time to tell her everything from the beginning. At that same moment, Vincent has come to visit Amun to tell him his next assignment is to act as security during a summit between the Sisterhood of the Wasp and a number of other criminal organizations. When Amun asks for more information about the Sisterhood and the Spider Society, as his own clan told them that both organizations are incredibly old but that’s all they know.
The Spider Society and Sisterhood of the Wasp both found their beginnings in the year 1099. They were formed knowing that crime would always exist and cradled it from the darkness in order to create the proper surroundings for power. The two agencies worked together in those days. Ultimately becoming wielders of arcane power and learning how to channel totemistic powers that had long been forgotten. The two sides eventually came at odds with each other. However, the ultimate goal of both was obtaining true power, something that would need to be cultivated over the course of centuries, something each side has done in the shadows.
Hearing all of this, Anya asks how she connects to all of this and Miguel says she inherited her destiny from her mother. The two women come from a long line of individuals that descend from one of the first hunters of the Spider Society. This all starts making everything that Anya has experienced since becoming the hunter make sense, particularly the vision of her mother she saw during the final test Webcorps put her through.[2] Thinking about her recent encounter with Spider-Man and how she told him that she was a hunter and that hunters strike first, she tells Miguel that she can’t operate as long as people can recognize who she is from her spider tattoo. Miguel tells her not to worry and casts a dimness spell to make the tattoo invisible unless there is trouble.
The following day, after school, Anya is out with Lynn who bought flowers for Jon Kasiya, who wasn’t at school today, and thinks he might be sick. Anya, knowing that Jon is secretly an assassin working for the Sisterhood, tags along to make sure Lynn stays safe. When they arrive at Jon’s apartment he tells Lynn that he doesn’t like flowers. When she tries to invite herself and Anya in, he tells her that his apartment is a mess to cover up for the fact that it is covered with weapons. Lynn then suggests that they go to coffee, something that is insisted upon by Anya, who is enjoying how uncomfortable this is making Amun. As they head to Joe Joe’s coffee shop, a man storms past them causing Anya’s spider-tattoo to make a brief appearance and tingle, warning her of danger. At the coffee shop, Lynn dominates the conversation as Jon and Anya exchange glares at one another. This is not the only drama going on as the man who stormed past them earlier is confronting another man at the coffee shop for stealing his girlfriend. Their headed argument turns to violence as one of them tosses a coffee cup across the room. It hits Anya in the back of the head, but luckily her carapace creates a brief shield her from any serious injury. Anya makes a failed attempt to calm things down when one of the men pull a gun. Quick thinking, she sweeps his leg causing him to fall down and miss his shot. As everyone else flees the coffee shop, Anya grabs Lynn but the man with the gun recovers to quickly. Promising to explain her fighting prowess to Lynn later, Anya is forced to use her strength to pull up their table and use it to shield herself and Lynn from the oncoming bullets. With a mad gunman to her left and an assassin to her right, Anya wonders what she can do to get out of this situation.
Recurring Characters
Araña, Miguel Legar, Ted Mankowski, Nina Smith, Vincent, Amun, Lynn
Continuity Notes
Miguel forged a bond with Araña in order to awaken her spider-powers in Amazing Fantasy (vol. 2) #1-2.
Anya was put through a final test where she had to survive in the desert. It was during this trail that she had a vision of her mother. That happened in Amazing Fantasy (vol. 2) #5.
