Marvel Spotlight on the Spider Woman 32

Goodwin·Buscema·Mooney·Cohen
DARK DESTINY: Hydra Alpha Flight Team covered by clouds and anti-radar force screens loom over Mediterranean Branch of SHEILD in the Riveria as Agent Arachne (Spider-Woman) flies into the compound undetected and enters through the air conditioning vent. Meanwhile, Colonel Fury is interrogating a captured Hydra Agent (Jared). Arachne reaches the interrogation room, knocks out the guards and breaks the steal door down. She then removes one of her gloves and venom bolts a few of the SHEILD agents. Fury and Jared remain standing. Arachne threatens Fury that the next venom bolt will occur when she is touching him, bringing death for what Fury has done to the man she loves.

As Arachne stalks toward Fury, she starts to remember how she got to where she is now. It starts out in a small Alpine village as a young girl flees from a group of village men only to react using her strange powers (venom bolts). She is found by Count Otto Vermis, and area commander of Hydra. Vermis lies to the girl to joining him in a cause to aid and to improve an uncomprehending world under Hydra. As a father figure, Vermis promises the girl to help her retain her memory she had lost via Hydra's mind probe that revealed her creation and an incident. Then Vermis uses the information to trick and manipulate the girl to mold her as Hydra's deadliest weapon. Having been told that the mind probe was unsuccessful, the girl begins training under Hydra's top combat unit with her natural powers honed to fighting perfection. Then she is given a costume, specially design to channel and control her power and thus the Spider-Woman is born. Working closely with Jared in the combat unit, she falls in love with him. And so as Jared gets captured by SHEILD, Arachne is manipulated to go after SHEILD, targeting Fury and rescuing Jared.

As Fury dodges one of Archne's venom bolts, he is surprised with her spider agility and leaping prowess. Fury reaches the interrogation chamber's control console only to be grabbed and held down by Jared, who orders Arachne to kill Fury. But as Arachne reaches in to fire her venom bolts, Fury flips Jared over and Jared is struck with Arachne's leathal venom bolts. Distraught by her actions, Fury hits the alarm but Aracnhe grabs Fury and slams his head hard into the levers and dials triggering the video-playback system revealing Hydra's true intention. The scenes of terrorism and brutality with Jared in the center of an airline hijack. Arachne then realizes that she has been lied to, used and manipulated. But she refuses to believe it. She comforts her fallen lover and Jared tells her not to touch him because he know what she really is and that he was ordered to be her lover and how it was planned for her to go after Fury.

Enraged by the revelation, Arachne goes after Vermis. She takes one of Hydra's flyer and flies it to the remote Carnic Alps and crashes it into the abandoned monastery hideout. In all the flames and chaos, Arachne finds and captures Vermis. He bargain with Arachne for his escape and her origin. Vermis tell her about the High Evolutionary and the genetic accelerator how she is the first female descended from a total different species. Arachne is in disbelief as Vermis continues on. He tells her how she was ostracized from the High Evolutionary's other creation drove her to runaway. Vermis goes on by saying that she ended up in a nearby village where she found a new life and even love, but one day as she and her loved one were surprised by neighbors, she accidentally kills her loved one with her venom bolts.

As she remembers what had traumatized her, Vermis sets off a poisonous gas pellet and Arachne falls to the ground. But as the rocket plane takes off, Arachne takes a powerful leap and manages to dig her fingers into the metal alloy tail of the rocket plane. Vermis is surprised that the poisonous gas did not kill Arachne but soon realized that with her power to produce venom, she may be immune to other poisons. Vermis tries to shoot her off the tail of the rocket plane but Arachne bends the tail and turns the rocket plane to fly into a mountain cliff. As Arachne glides on finely spun wings of glistening filaments, she descends to the silent forest.

ORIGIN: Hydra/Vermis' account of Arachne's orgins indicate that she is a creation of the High Evolutionary (who names her Arachne) and the first female derived from a totally different species (spider) as appose to animals; tigers, dogs, cows (Bova) etc. Arachne flees Wundagore and find a life in a nearby Alpine Village and starts a new life and fall in love with someone (unknown) who she accidentally kills which traumatized her to forget. As she is driven out by the town village, Vermis finds her convinces her to join Hydra and she is trained and manipulated, given a specialized uniform/costume and thus the Spider-Woman is born.
POWERS: She is trained in the combat unit where she learns how to control and use her powers: venom bolts, spider agility (clinging to walls, ceilings) and prowess. Her uniform was specially designed to channel and control her spider-like powers and enabled her to glide (on finely spun wings of glistening filaments) in the air. Her other powers mentioned include immunity to other poisons and her stregnth to break down a steal door and her fingers can dig into metal alloy tail of a rocket plane then bend it.
COSTUME: The cover shows the yellow triangle on her skull cap but inside it does not. Inside show a black point to where the yellow triangle would be but the black shape continues to the neck and chest area all the way dow to her back. And in the back, there is also a yellow circular spiked shape. Also the top part of her boots point up.