And does this mean we've seen the last of May "Mayday" Parker?
Next month we will see the debut of Araña's new title, Spider-Girl. Araña's real name, as you may know, is Anya Corazon. She made her debut in 2004's Amazing Fantasy #1. She had her own series and later appeared in Ms. Marvel and Young Allies. After the events of The Grim Hunt in Amazing Spider-Man, Anya decided to take on a new name and new costume. Neither are necessarily new.
Araña will be taking the name of Spider-Girl and will be wearing a costume very similar to Julia Carpenter, formerly known as Arachne. I have to ask if this change is really necessary.
Araña's original look might not have been the best costume out there but it was fitting for her character. The same could be said for her name. While I have always liked Julia's costume (which of course inspired the Venom symbiote's appearance), it just doesn't look right on Araña.
Of course there's one other major problem with Anya taking the code name Spider-Girl. == TEASER == Where does this May "Mayday" Parker from the MC2 universe? As the daughter of Peter and Mary Jane Parker in an alternate future 'universe,' this Spider-Girl has appeared in over 250 issues. Sales for her books were never great but the fanbase was always there to beg and plead for Marvel to continue her adventures. She has once again faced cancellation and I fear that with Araña taking the name of Spider-Girl, we may not be seeing Mayday Parker again any time soon. Publishers don't often allow different characters to use the same name at the same time.
What is the real reason Araña is changing her name? It's not really because of Madame Web's sacrifice and Julia Carpenter's...promotion at the end of The Grim Hunt. It most likely has to do with boosting Araña's sales and giving her more of a tie to Spider-Man.
During The Grim Hunt, several of the spider-characters were brought together to fight a common threat. Araña does need a proper role model to help guide her into becoming proper superhero. It just feels that in trying to boost Araña's profile, Mayday has to be the sacrifice.
This goes back to my questioning whether or not heroes should be "allowed" to change their name. In some cases it could be argued that a name change makes sense. In this case, I'm not sure if I really seen the point.
What are your thoughts on Araña's name change? Do you think it will help her "career"? Will it have any affect on the MC2 Spider-Girl?
this is good. marvel is in need of a famous hispanic character. not saying that there isnt. but there isnt any currently that have there own arc right now. this is good.
Well, it sounds like Araña has graduated to the flashing-people-in-spandex class. Spider-man so does not need a side-kick. Too bad about Spider-girl though, even though I only read the comic for Black Tarantula. :-)
With May Parker she is my favorite comic book character for me. With Arana (and yes I am calling her Arana and will not call her Spider-girl) she is one of those characters that for me is forgetable and will not last. I think her title is just going to be like Young Allies that she was in and will not do good. The reason I think they are changing her name to Spider-girl is that way people see the connection with Spider-man and they will buy the comic only because of the connection but, not because her story is good and because of a great development of her character which will probably never form in the first place. Do I think this series will do good? In my opinion the first issue will do good but, by the 5th people are going to be dropping it from their pull list. They cancelled May's title right after the news of this title. So, they are obviously saying there is not enough room for 2 Spider-girls. But the thing with May is that the sales were not that great because people did not see a need to buy it because it did not effect their other books and she was from a different universe. But if they actually gave it a chance they would see May was different from so many other heroes and even from all different teenage girls. So, replacing May for Arana who did not have to change her name but, changed her name for a fighting chance to have sales was a very stupid idea. Like I said I have nothing against Arana but, she can never beat the real Spider-girl. May "Mayday" Parker was stuff of legends and nothing is ever going to change that not even Arana.
I actually never read a Spider-Girl comic but browsing through Arana's image gallery, I can say that I like her new costume. I felt like the one with the goggles felt like DC's Impulse (Bart Allen) and Spiderman had a love child. One thing is for sure, this "Off My Mind" has got me looking into Arana's character and curious about her comic.
After Mavel cancelling Spider-girl books a bazillion times...they take off her name and give it to Araña.... Poor Mayday :/ Plus Araña's name AND costume really made her stand out amongst the other Marvel superheroes... and now she recycles Arachn's costume as well! :(
The editorial non-sense decisions of the Spider-books continues~
1) Mayday is a future character, and a story set in the future is only going to last but so long. Spider-Girl was a fun title, but just about everything had to be worked up new.
2) I think giving Arana the Spider-Girl name is about a) putting the name in the present day Marvel Universe, b) preserving the rights to the name, and c) "Spider-Girl" is a more readily identifiable name than Arana. You say "Arana," and people have to answer, "What's that mean? What's she do?" and inevitably, "Why didn't they just call her 'Spider-Girl?'" You say, "Spider-Girl," and the answer is, "Oh, like Spider-Man? Cool."
In story, it might be a little harder to justify it, but business-wise, it makes all kinds of sense.
I wish they just kept her old name and costume. At least then, she was uniquely herself. Now she is just another "Spider-girl" with a hand-me-down costume at that, and one that doesn't even suit her personality (in my book anyways).
Marvel is just heading straight for the wall again with this change. She was somewhat interesting with the whole exosqueleton spider-like costume, but not interesting enough to have her own title. If They wanted a Spidergirl they should have used Julia Carpenter's daughter. Its time for marvel to make this characters grow. Ant man's daughter was a great idea. When we se characters grow within our make believe universe it adds a sense of time and reality. With Marvel....everything is like frozen in time, stagnant, or moving very slowly....
The first Spider-Girl was for an alternate universe, Earth-982. This Spider-Girl is for the mainsteam Marvel Universe, Earth-616. The mainstream Marvel Universe needs a Spider-Girl in it. so what if there's another Spider-Girl, she lives in an alternate universe. Plus, they are both cool!
The problem was, Marvel didn't have to go having Anya have her new series be called "Spider-Girl" when they just cancelled the previous one that starred a completely different character. I love Anya but her series making it past the first year is probably not going to happen. Her sales are worse than May's previous series.
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