Comic Book / Spider-Girl (2010)

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Spider-Girl is a 2010 comic book series published by Marvel Comics. The series is written by Paul Tobin with art by Clayton Henry and Barry Kitson.

After the events of Grim Hunt, Anya Corazón / Araña was given the discarded Spider-Woman suit of Julia Carpenter. With that came people pushing the mantle of Spider-Girl on her, which she stopped resisting during the events of Young Allies volume 2. She's trying to keep her Spider-Girl activities basic and localized when the Allies don't need her, but just as she was forced to accept being Spider-Girl, Corazón must also come to terms with the fact complex issues and powerful foes will continue to disrupt her life no matter how she chooses to live it.

The first issue was released November 17, 2010. The series ran for 8 issues, with the final issue released July 06, 2011.

Spider-Girl provides examples of:

• 10-Minute Retirement: After Raven kill Gil, Anya is ready to quit being Spider-Girl, Initiative obligations or not. Learning her roommate Rocky lost her mother to a super villain makes Anya change her mind.
• Accidental Murder: Gil Corazón is caught in the middle of a Red Hulk rampage and accidentally killed by him. However, it's revealed that her father was actually poisoned at the same time the Red Hulk was, by a Nebulous Evil Organisation called "Raven" who thought Gilberto was getting a bit too close to their tracks. The poison caused the Red Hulk to rage and also caused Gil's heart to fail, his presumably dead body was then crushed by falling rubble as Red Hulk's rampage continued. Anya doesn't buy that Gil was beyond saving before he was crushed, but concedes that Raven is more respsonisble for his death than Rulk.
• Always Someone Better
  • Anya Corazón modifies her X-Box to be able to play every platform exclusive game she wants without having to give a new device for each disk, cartridge and download. Reed Richards creates future generations of game consoles decades ahead of the companies himself to keep his brother in law distracted.
  • That Peter Parker got amazing snap shots of Spider-Man, and left the field without revealing his secret, but Phil Urich gets stunning live video of all sorts of New York weirdness!
• Animals Hate Him: A leashed dog barks at a passing Screwball but quiets down when it sees Spider-Girl catch her.
• Armed with Canon: In Ms Marvel volume 2, Anya shamelessly prioritized rescuing Carol's cat Chewie over helping Machine Man and Agent Sum of Carol's Operation Lightning Storm. Anya also saves a cat in the first issue of this series, but feels embarrassed, asking if Blonde Phantom, Spider-Man or Mockingbird ever save cats.
• Arms Dealer: Raven primarily make their money by selling military grade weaponry to gangs and terrorists. In that sense their similar to A.I.M. except Raven A.I.M. covers all technological solutions, not just weaponry, and Raven has no long term goal of toppling all governments and economic systems before setting up an Emperor Scientist in its place. Raven's leadership only cares about collecting blood money through existing systems. The agents who work for Raven also have artificially shortened lifespans, with life insurance policies taken out on them. Everything policy and decision always comes back to money through death!
• Attention Whore: Screwball is perfectly fine with getting beaten up by Spider-Girl in the first issue until she realizes her loss isn't being recorded, as Screwball's main goal is to produce content.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Anya said she wanted weird neighbors, because that makes things more interesting. What she wanted were old guys who garden in the nude, people who ride unicycles down the hall, the types who like furry costumes, not stalkers who don't get boundaries.
• Benevolent Boss: The apartment manager leaves wine and cheese for the Corazóns when they move into the building. Anya can't drink the wine, but appreciates the gesture.
• Bilingual Dialogue: Anya occasionally speaks untranslated Spanish, and she has a job translating 17th and 18th century Spanish writing into English
• Bit-Part Bad Guys: Roughly a third of Spider-Girl's panel time suited up is her running roughshod over common criminals not associated with any super villains or larger organizations. Two are prominent enough to have names; Mike National, who has apparently been arrested sixteen times for the same crime, and Crawdad, who manages to escape from her.
• Blessed with Suck: Raven agents have super human physicality at the cost ofshortened lifespans. Those who didn't volunteer to work for Raven have it even worse. They're tongues and vocal cords are removed before they're subjected to a brainwashing process that would leave them in constant paint without these two organs. This has been forced on the entirety of the American Ninjas.
• Book Dumb: Spider-Girl, by comparison to the most recurring heroes not named Nomad. The Fantastic Four are all astronauts, with even their book dumb member Human Torch being a more accomplished automotive and flight mechanic than her, while Spider-Girl zones out when Spider-Man starts lecturing a group of scientists about their misunderstanding of electromagnetism's relationship with weak nuclear force. Spider-Girl actually does know more about world history, at least relating to Europe, Spain and Russia in particular, than Spider-Man.
• Brought Down to Badass: This Spider-Girl has no spider-powers in this volume until issue #8, but she still remains in peak cardio vascular condition, still has her mechanical boleadoras, and retains the lessons in combat she got from experience, the begrudging little Nina Smith in WebCorps, Batroc the Leaper in the 50 State Initiative, and regular training with S.H.I.E.L.D. before she was put on leave during Secret Invasion. She fights multiple super human opponents, and she doesn't beat them all, and the victories she does earn she owes to trickery or assistance, but she's found her niche, even having the appreciation of the NYPD after she captures both a repeat reckless endangerment offender and a cop killer.
• Canon Immigrant: Sophia "Chat" Sanduval from Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man makes her 616 debut.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Gil is the only member of Anya's supporting cast who returns from the previous stories she starred in. In particular, her friend and classmate Lynn, as well as her lacrosse teammates are inexplicably absent despite Anya still going to the same school, though she and Gil moved to a different apartment because of his job.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Anya Corazón more so than in her previous solo comic book and Amazing Fantasy volume 2. Her social circle starts off smaller than ever and shrinks some more before she makes some new friends. She doesn't even like her Code Name or suit, despite trying to force herself to, and her confidence is at an all time low due to puberty giving her Inopportune Voice Cracking and inconsistent intonation
• Comes Great Responsibility: Between losing her spider-powers and her father being poisoned by Raven for his investigative journalism with the New York Herald, Anya is ready to give up on being Spider-Girl, registration and initiatives or not. Then she learns the mother of her roommate, Rocky Flint, was killed by the Green Goblin. Anya becomes convinced she still has work to do.
• Continuity Nod
  • The Spider Society, Civil War, Grim Hunt, and the fact Anya used to have a much larger social circle are all brought up. We even see the unnamed Sisterhood field leader who tried to stop Carlos from stabbing Anya, the woman's first appearance in six years, even if it is a flashback that reveals nothing new about her.
  • Spider-Girl wonders if Captain America ever had problems with his voice cracking. As it turned out, teenage Steve Rogers did, and the super soldier serum didn't help when Sersi reverted him to a teenager.
  • In the first issue, Anya stops a robber by tripping him. If only.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Phil Urich gets jealous of losing his girlfriend when anyone starts giving her attention, or she starts giving attention to anyone not him, even if that person is underage, or female, even though Norah shows no signs of being anything but heterosexual, or the female hasn't either. Norah has jobs as both a print journalist and television reporter that not just causes people to look at her, but gives Winters need to focus on people who are not Urich. Anya outright calls him "clingy".
• Cyber Cyclops: Mister Fantastic and the Thing are seen building a large one eyed robot with the assistance of a smaller one eyed robot in issue #6. Also, the first thing Raven deploys that can beat Spider-Girl by its lonesome is a one "eyed" robot.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Anya's Spider-Girl costume is mostly black, though she is one of the heroes.
• Depending on the Artist
  • As usual, Anya tends to be browner skinned on the on panels than the covers. She's still short and flat, but as short as she had been before, with a curvier more feminine figure and longer, less spiky hair that makes her look less like a boy.
  • The trend of darkening Gil's skin continues, as he ends up darker than Anya for at bit, before his skin tone settles on being the exact same shade of brown as hers. However, the skin of his corpse being discolored is a plot point, a sign that he had been poison
  • Frank Godwin's hair goes from blond to brown.
  • Rikki Barnes, almost always a redhead, is a blonde in issue #6
  • Ana Kravinoff is first depicted with brown eyes in this particular series, but has blue eyes before the series is over.
  • Emeline Foster starts off with blue eyes, but has brown eyes three issues later
• Diving Save
  • Margelle Is killed jumping off of her bike to push another woman and a young girl away from one of Green Goblin's pumpkin bombs
  • Ana Kravinoff drops a man off of a building, knowing it will get Spider-Girl's attention.
  • Spider-Man takes Spider-Girl out of the path of a swooping Hobgoblin in issue #6. She doesn't appreciate it, completely. He also dives after her when she's pushed out of a window by an American Ninja. She's slightly more appreciative. And even more so when he gets her out of the way of a Killer Robot.
• Does Not Like Spam: Anya dislikes pineapple on pizza. Rocky Flint likes pretty much everything on pizza, except anchovies.
• Excellent Judge of Character: Rocky Flint and Chat instantly distrust Anya's stalker neighbor, Kurt Godwin. Even Red Hulk finds the guy creepy.
• Expansion Pack Past
  • It is revealed through a flash back that Gil and Anya already met The Fantastic Four when Anya was a little girl, long before her involvement with WebCorps, and in a flash back within a flash back we learn that it wasn't Gil's investigative journalism that brought him to the family's attention, but Gil having to be saved by The Thing after trying to fight one of Mole Man's monsters. They do make Gil their go to reporter, however, after he writes an article the family appreciates but Gil's boss dislikes.
  • It's revealed young Anya's first heroic act was saving Mister Fantastic and the Thing...by pressing a button Ben and Reed couldn't get to.
  • It was already shown that she was a fan of Spider-Man, but it turns out to have been for a long time, when young Anya saw him up close as he swung by a window she was looking out of.
• Foreshadowing
  • Having apparently lost all of her non Rikki Barnes friends, Anya runs some ice breakers by Sue Storm, like could the Hulk beat the Thing. Corazón realizes she just said something insensitive and apologizes, but she soon gets her answer anyway.Yes, at least if it is the Red Hulk.
  • Sue tells Anya that crime rates spike exponentially when crises comes to New York City.The latest crisis in New York was caused by a criminal syndicate to obscure its activities, though they got more than they bargained for.
  • In issue #4 Spider-Girl expresses envy over Spider-Man's webbing. That's definitely a throwaway comment to forget about, right?
  • In issue #8 a new set of spider abilities awaken in Spider-Girl. She won't be the only one.
• Funny Background Event: Inverted in issue #7, where Spider-Man is working in the background while the silly event is in the foreground
• Guile Hero: Anya demonstrates traces of this after she loses her powers, noting she is no longer a match for Screwball in a straight fight, in their second fight that Screwball takes seriously than their first, instead taking advantage of the environment to overcome her, and upon reviewing Screwball's efforts to draw out Spider-Girl, realizes that she was also being stalked by Ana Kravinoff, using her civilian clothes as a trap to lure out Kraven's daughter into a one on one fight as opposed to letting herself be ambushed. She also realizes when she is being Lured into a Trap by Hobgoblin and takes measures that were partially successful in neutralizing said trap and catching him by surprise instead.
• Hates Their Parent: Ana Kravinova claims to have hated her mother, Sofia. She's certainly not broken up about Sergei killing her. Chat also implies she has a strained relationship with her parents.
• Heroic BSoD: After her father's death, Anya lapses into depression and wanting revenge.
• Hero of Another Story
  • Nomad, "The Girl Without A World", regularly appears, but she isn't regularly involved with the action.
  • Blonde Phantom, the hero from The Golden Age of Comic Books, is someone Spider-Girl at least knows of, as is Captain America, who Anya is learning about in history class, and Mockingbird, who Anya would believably know of through the 50 State Initiative, even if she was presumed dead while Corazón was on actively duty.
  • The Fantastic Four are shown saving New York City in the past, are stated to have done many other good deeds, and even save Spider-Girl from getting smashed, but their paths rarely cross. Invisible Woman wants to be a bigger part of Anya's life after Gil Corazón is killed, but she doesn't push too hard to be when she can't find where Anya is, or Anya seems unwilling to talk.
  • Spider-Man is shown swinging through the city, and trying to stop a bombing.He takes a more active role in the plot in issues #6 and 7
  • While Spider-Girl is being hunted by Screwball and Ana Kravinoff, Red Hulk is using the information of Gil's that Spider-Girl retrieved to gain a measure of revenge against Raven
  • Ms. Marvel has walked out of Anya's life, knowing Anya views her as a replacement for her deceased mother and not liking it, but Anya still thinks of Ms. Marvel positively, and longs for her company, and lessons
• Hero with an F in Good: When Red Hulk doesn't have Raven's poison in his system, he ostensibly works with the heroes. He still causes almost as much trouble as he's worth, however. He doesn't have the reduction in intellect the Green Hulk suffers from as an excuse either.
• Highly Visible Ninja: The American Ninjas aren't going to blend in to most places with their red white and blue garb. They're also highly audible ninja, wielding semi automatic smokeless powder firearms.
• Ignorant Minion: In issue #7, Spider-Girl leads Spider-Man to a laboratory full of scientists who offer no resistance, having no idea that Raven is a criminal operation, and are offended by the suggestion that they are also criminals because Raven pressured them into working with them.
• Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!

• Le Parkour: Anya has been trained by Batroc the Leaper. Despite this, Rikki Barnes and Screwball can get around even better than she can, without the aid of Anya's fancy bola gadget. It becomes Combat Parkour when Screwball seeks revenge on Spider-Girl for ruining her feed.
• Let's You and Him Fight: When Anya thinks Red Hulk killed her father, she went after him to take revenge. They wound up teaming up to take out the real culprits, Raven, after Red Hulk revealed Gil was already dead from poison when Rulk crushed Gil's body, and that that same poison was what caused Rulk to rampage.
• Made of Iron: While Spider-Girl needs to out think or be saved from all of her super powered opponentsuntil the last issue, she keeps fighting after taking heavy abuse for someone who has lost her spider-powers. The rationale seems to be anything plausibly non fatal or disfiguring is anything she can just walk off.
• Manchild: Johnny Storm's antics have driven his sister Sue temporarily out of the Baxter Building, and have driven his brother in law Reed to create a "Playstation 6" two decades ahead of when such a device was predicted to arrive, to keep Johnny settled down.
• McNinja: The American Ninjas do not appear to even be Japanese American.
• Medical Horror: Raven has removed the vocal cords and tongue of every American Ninja. Even the volunteers who get to keep their voices are subjected to procedures that shorten their lifespans, to say nothing of the poison that causes hearts to fail.
• Metaphorically True: Anya uses a lot of technical truths that leave out relevant details, to avoid having to outright lie to her friends about her activities, and mishaps as Spider-Girl. She missed a sleepover with Rocky Flint and Rikki Barnes because she got lost in her thoughts of grief and wound up wandering the streetsshe was lost in grief temporarily when she caught sight of Red Hulk, and he was wandering the streets, looking for a "private" location while she was captive in his grip. That strange old man who seems to be waiting for them after school today, oh, that's just a friend of Gil'sThat's Red Hulk's human form, who Raven poisoned at the same time as Gil, not knowing it would cause him to Hulk Out and rampage. He's here to update Anya on how smashing Raven for it is going.
• Mood Whiplash: The first issue plays like a Spiritual Successor to lighthearted teen superhero comics like Young Justice. Then on the last page Anya's father is killed. The second issue is all about her grieving.
• Mooks
  • Moloids, formerly the Evil Minions of the Deviants, are the lowliest of the monsters Mole Man commands. One was apparently enough to overwhelm Gil Corazón, though.
  • Raven agents range from helmeted men in tactical gear, to guys in dapper suits, and they're much tougher than the Bit-Part Bad Guys Spider-Girl usually deals with, but they're pretty easily swept aside by any named character with super powers. The American Ninjas have also been forcibly converted into Raven mooks and aren't happy about it, or wouldn't be if they had any self awareness beyond following orders left.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Norah Winters is an incredibly vain perfectionist who tends to insult people reflexively, but she's not mean on purpose, and is self aware about her more obvious flaws.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Spider-Manis targeted by a combat robot programmed not to harm Spider-Girl, and makes it go haywire, so that it becomes a danger to her as well.
• No Name Given: The father of Rocky Flint is seen in three issues and mentioned in a couple more, but never named. Significant because he becomes Anya Corazón's legal guardian, and gets kidnapped because of it.
• No-Sell: Red Hulk is completely unaffected by Spider-Girl's attacks. He reacts when she throws a punch at his eye, but that's just a reflexive action. She only hurts herself. She's also unable to hurt a robot deployed to fight Red Hulk, once he's left and it turns its attention on her.
• Noodle Incident: Anya is said to have lost her remaining spider-powers, but don't try and find any comic detailing exactly when, let alone how or why she lost them. They're just gone, kay?^note She gave up the hunter spirit in Spider-Man & Araña Special: The Hunter Revealed, while the carapace was ripped off of her body by Doomsday Man in Ms Marvel volume 2. What happened to her wall crawling, super speed, enhanced sense of balance and super strength is anyone's guess, but it's implied Brand New Day had something to do with it.
• Older Than They Look:
  • Nomad is physically and emotionally a teenager, but her Resurrective Immortality means she's in fact older, she just never makes it past her teenage years. This was going to be her last life before Secret Wars (2015) gave her a truck load more.
  • Ana Kravinova is at least three years younger than Spider-Girl, but looks older. If Sergei didn't call her a "child" with citations to the relevant issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, one could be forgiven for thinking she was in her late teens or early twenties.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Raven's agents are super human, but they're no match for Red Hulk, or even Spider-Man. They also fold like blades of grass beneath a boot when Spider-Girl gets a new set of spider-powers.
• Parent Never Came Back from the Store
  • Gil was supposed to simply be going through some files and comparing notes at City College. He claimed he'd be getting home later than expected, but Anya had gotten used to him working late, even though she wished he wouldn't on this particular day
  • Margelle never returned from a routine bike run
• Rogues Gallery: Gil makes new enemies in Raven, who soon become Anya's enemies, along with the American Ninjas who are forced to work for Raven, turn on them at the earliest opportunity, but still end up fighting Spider-Girl, who wants Kurt Godwin alive.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Screwball, Hobgoblin and Ana Kravinova all started off opposed to Spider-Man, but are Anya's problems here, with Screwball even calling her "Lady Spider-Man". The Kravinovs are the ones who drove Corazón out of retirement and onto the streets again after she lost her spider-powers, just so they could ritualistically sacrifice her for reminding them of Spider-Man.
• Role Swap Plot: In Amazing Fantasy volume 2 #5, Anya was in danger Gil was unaware of, but he was concerned since she wasn't answering her phone. Towards the end of issue #1 it's Anya's turn to learn what that feels like.
• Run or Die
  • When Sue Richards gets a Fantastic Four emergency alert in issue #1, she stresses that Anya Corazón just run because the city won't be safe. Anya is offended, but assumes Sue was only saying this because she doesn't know Anya was Spider-Girl.Sue has known about Anya's crime fighting endeavors since Gil informed Sue back during Civil War, Sue knows that Gil is in serious danger, and Sue knows that there is nothing Anya can hope to do about it.
  • When Spider-Girl arrives at City College having learned from a television report that it is the epicenter of the crisis, and knowing from before hand that Gil's most recent investigation had taken her there, the civilians running from the building are telling Spider-Girl to turn back. They had been calling for more super heroes, but knew they would need heavier hitters than Spider-Girl.
• Science Hero: Spider-Girl is not as learned in S.T.E.M. as the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, but her literal Playful Hacker tricks prove useful in the investigation into and battle against Raven.
• Secret Identity: Anya tries to hide the fact she is Spider-Girl from Sue Richards, though it is shown that most people serious about finding out who she is don't have much problem, and this time there's no WebCorps to assist Anya's anonymity.
• Secret-Keeper
  • Gil Corazón has known that his daughter was "the spider monster in Brooklyn" since a squad of cape killers threw him in a jail cell while Ms. Marvel convinced Araña to register with the 50 State Initiative.He also confided in the anti-registration Invisible Woman, hoping she could provided advice.
  • Spider-Man has been a supporter and ally of Araña since her time in WebCorps, and came to know her even better when she was kidnapped during Grim Hunt, where she got her Spider-Girl suit. Nomad also knows who Araña is, and was there when Anya resigned herself to being called Spider-Girl.
• Shout-Out: Anya laments that she can't find a phone booth when she finds a burglary in process but can't find a good place to put on her disguise.
• Showing Off the New Body: One issue does this, complete with mirror.
  Araña: What do you think of my sexy new body, Miguel?
  Loki: Rrowwrr! I'm a hairy bear! Look at that. I'm shaving an "S" into that! Although... not sure about these ears. What d'you reckon? Good ears?
• Slave Mooks: The American Ninjas have been mind controlled and genetically modified by Raven.
• Sliding Time Scale: In 2006, Anya Corazón had been in publication for two years, had been Araña for one year In-Universe, and was turning from fifteen to sixteen in Ms. Marvel volume 2. In this 2010 series, Anya Corazón had been in publication for six years, had spent one year as Araña and another year as Spider-Girl, and was once again turning sixteen. It's best to just ignore Marvel writers when they start trying to attach numerical values to the timelines of main characters.
• Sympathy for the Hero
  • The civilians running from City College encourage an approaching Spider-Girl to turn tail and run as well.
  • Not everyone is sympathetic when Spider-Girl posts on Twitter that there has a been a death in her family and that she is taking a potentially permanent break from crime fighting. There are some users with kind responses all the same.
• Taught to Hate: Ana Kravinoff was taught to hate mongrels, peasants, and people who dress and or move like Spider-Man. Spider-Girl fits two out of those three categories, though what makes her a "mongrel" is never made clear.
• Teen Genius: Anya is a budding computer hacker and expert mechanic, as well as a budding investigative journalist, though Sue Richards subtly implies that her daughter Valeria is smarter, and Anya is not particularly adept outside of these three fields. Rikki Barnes is also this, to an extent, but more in a survivalist fashion
• The Air Not There: Subverted: Rocky's mother managed to Outrun the Fireball produced by two of the Green Goblin's pumpkin bombs while performing a Diving Save of another woman and a young girl, but while she gets the other two to a safe distance, she herself doesn't escape the shock wave of the blast, which kills her instantly.
• The Kindnapper: Kind is a strong word in this context, but Red Hulk doesn't have malicious intentions when kidnapping Spider-Girl. Ulterior motives, yes, her assistance, yes, but keeping her safe is also a motivation
• The Load: Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman and the Thing all have to use their powers to stop Spider-Girl from getting smashed by the Red Hulk. Sue specifically told Anya to go home and stay safe without saying exactly why in hopes Anya wouldn't futilely try and save Gil from Red Hulk, and herself become a victim, but a television news report undermined Sue.
• Thought Caption: The captions are primarily used to tell the reader what Anya is thinking, but sometimes the caption's take on another role, like Anya's text messages, or tweets, what she is not saying out loud but is still relevant to the reader being displayed in thought bubbles alongside the captions. There's also dialogue in captions when one speaking ends up off panel.
• Thundering Footsteps
  • Young Anya is scared by the footsteps and voice of the Thing, but slowly relaxes when she sees where the noises are coming from, because he's "the coolest monster ever". Ben Grimm isn't sure if he should take that as a compliment or not.
  • A group of women watching a horror movie get an extra scare from Red Hulk stomping around.
• Too Happy to Live: Anya's father Gil is a nurturing, caring, and accepting parent who, while concerned and apprehensive, still does his best to understand his daughter's need to do good with the abilities she'd trained so dedicatedly. So naturally, first order of business in this series is to kill him.
• Translator Buddy: Anya has a part time job translating Spanish bequests for English speakers at the Munn Private library, to help Gil pay for the new apartment
• Ungrateful Townsfolk: Spider-Girl tweets out that she'll need to be taking a break due a death in her family, and instantly regrets it. She does note that some of the responses were nice, and thank those users, but is surprised by the amount of negative responses.
• Unwanted Assistance
  • Anya is fine with Hugo and Tom helping Rocky move in, but she's adamant that they cannot paint the kitchen, even when they assure her it will be for free.
  • Spider-Girl isn't too happy to have Spider-Man's help with Hobgoblin, though after thinking it over, she concludes her victory probably wasn't as guaranteed as assumed, and she's open to asking for more help later.
• Villain of Another Story
  • Anya has Hydra on her mind for a few issues due to learning about them in history class, but they're not the ones behind the conflict of this particular volume.
  • Mole Man, Doctor Doom and Galactus have caused many problems for the city in the past, with the Fantastic Four shown fighting the former most.
  • The shadows of Green Goblin and Kraven the Hunter hang over much of the plot, but they are not directly involved in it
  • Anya Corazón lost some, though not all of her spider-powers due to the machinations of an Advanced Idea Mechanics cell, who weren't even targeting Araña specifically, but trying to sabotage a rival A.I.M. cell while also proving a "proof of concept" weapon could kill Ms. Marvel. Anya naturally has bad memories of them, but A.I.M. does not get involved this time either.
  • Spider-Queen is moving to seize Manhattan, but she has not involvement in the events of this volume's story. Even the second set of spider-powers that allow Spider-Girl to triumph over Raven turn out to have nothing to do with Spider-Queen.
• Warts and All: Anya is long over the initial shock of meeting Spider-Man face to face, now considering him an annoying clown who doesn't know when to shut up, but she appreciates the work he does even more, now that she's gotten spider-powers of her own, and gotten used to fighting crime.
• World Half Full: New York 616 has super heroes defending it, but it also has a high crime rate that increases by 387% every time something really threatens the city, as criminals look to take advantage of super hero attention being elsewhere. Spider-Girl doesn't have the powers or gadgets necessary to fight spacecraft or giant robots, but she can do her part discouraging looters who try to operate in the shadows and aftermath of giant robots. She also almost gets shot by a stray bullet while just thinking of the implications of such a crime spike when the city comes under siege again.
• You Are Not Alone: Sue Richards, and, to a lesser extent, her husband Reed, feel responsible for Anya Corazón. Reed because he knew Gil, Sue because Gil came to her specifically for advice when they both opposed the super human registration act, and he was at a loss on how to raise a daughter who signed up with the 50 State Initiative. Nomad, Rocky Flint and Spider-Man have meanwhile all suffered similar losses to Anya Rocky in particular refusing to let Anya isolate herself entirely, even if Corazón does nee a little space to grieve.