The new Spider Girl debuts as a superheroine in Spider Girl #1 . There have been a number of Spider Girls starting with Mayday Parker. She first appeared in What If…? #105 (1997). Aña Corazón debuted in Amazing Fantasy #1 (2004) and became Spider-Girl in Young Allies #5 (2010). Isabela Merced played the character in Madame Web (2024). Makawalu Akana is the latest Spider-Girl who first appeared in Spider-Boy #11 (2024). She is a mutant who can adapt any power through eye contact. The assassin Bullseye trained her, gave her the codename Funhouse, and sent her against Spider-Boy, Bailey Briggs, who had his DNA altered by Madame Monstrosity. Bailey can grow eight eyes on his head and has a venom bite with fangs!
An assassin who trains a girl who ends up as a superhero is the Marvel version of Cassandra Cain, Batgirl, in the DC universe. Her powers went out of control and she permanently copied his powers. This was in Spider-Boy #14 (2024). Bailey was trying to help Maka during the Challenge of the Jade Dragon tournament, but she sided with her mentor. Maka realized that Bullseye was going to kill her and left him to team up with Spider-Boy. Now she has a new start in NY! The cover by David Nakayama has Spider-Girl swinging with her right shoe forward. In the background is the Statue of Liberty and on the corner, a tiki idol. It is written by Torunn Grønbekk who also wrote the Venom and Carnage titles. André Risso is the artist who also worked on the Shrugged (2018) limited series for Aspen Comics.
It begins with Maka’s narration, “I used to dream I could fly” and we see a corporate office. A woman discusses liability for physical destruction, Damage Inc.?, another man in a suit looks at something on the window. It is Spider-girl swinging away from the “Wash Me” she wrote on the dusty window! She has pig tails from her spider mask and shoes. Spider-Boy had shoes made of unstable molecules, a Reed Richards invention, to be able to wall crawl. She web swings over a street marking all of the stores, this feels very NY, and then spots a man carelessly on his phone about to walk in front of a speeding car. Spider-Girl sends out a web strand to pull him away from the car! He is instead angry at ruining his suit! Spider-Girl swings away, but then sees a man with a Bullseye cap. She ends up slamming into a wall!
Spider-Girl web shoots to swing away, but the webline ends up wrapping around her so she hangs upside down in the alley! Funny! I love super heroes who don’t have their powers polished! Spider-Girl realizes that her barbed wire webbing is painful as she tears it away. She notices that the man with the cap is not Bullseye. Some trauma from her training time. Spider-Girl also sees her backpack was soaked in nasty alley liquid! She mentuons that her training made her the “best martial artist” for her age group. Also, that Bullseye had taken her to NY to train. Nice, but the Big Apple is full of superheroes and Spider people. I hope Maka goes back to Hawaii and we get some of the culture. There are few Hawaiian superheroes. Alani Ryan, Loa, from New Mutants #11 (2004) is from Maui. Team up! Also, the Point Men were a team of heroes form the Hawaii Initiative from Avengers: The Initiative #14 (2008). There is enough crime with Hawaii Five-O and NCIS: Hawai’i.
Maka takes off her mask seeing the Red Snow Dojo. The character faces and action poses remind of Humberto Ramos’ artwork. This shifts to "the other side of the city", where car alarms go off. This is caused by the power of Hijack, David, who struggles with her power of machinery. The mutant Cable has a similar power. Someone calls his name, but David shuts out the voice. We see a closeup of the scientist, Dr. Tramma, who first appeared in Spider-Man: Brand Newe Day - Extra! #1 (2008). She says Test 22 is a failure and goes with Plan B. A voice says, "Bullseye's protoge." She mentions the Bullseye's betrayal in the Challenge of the Jade Dragon. The vioice says Maka has been accepted into Red Snow. Dr. Tramma says that Maka has a replication power, but don't understand it. Her boss tells Dr. Tramma to test her. Tramma had worked for a crime boss, Mister Negative and he had an introduction in Spider-Man Free Comic Book Day 2007 #1.
She looks at a test subject in shadow that growls! Dr. Tramma injects a solution into the tube making a bargain with Vermin. The rat-like villain first appeared in Captain America #272 (1982). Recently, Arcade in Kraven's Great Hunt injected him a formula, the same as Dr. Tramma, to clone Vermin! To be free, all Vermin has to do is kill Spider-Girl! Maka is in her white gi talking to her mother on her cell phone. She tells Maka to have fun and says that the last time she met her fellow students, they were her opponents. She had defeated them, payback?, and her mom tells her to make friends. Maka enters the room and we see some rats in the corner, foreshadowing! She passes some trophies and then tries to introduce herself to the class. Another student, Catherine, cuts her off. Catherine smells the garbage that is on Maka's backpack! A bit of awkwardness in a Karate Kid-like setting. Training by Bullseye would make learning at a dojo unimportant, but it might keep Maka honed as a fighter and socialize.
Five Barbed Wire Webbing out of Five!
#SpiderGirl, #TorunnGronbekk, #AndreRisso, #DavidNakayama, #MakaAkana, #SpiderBoy, #Bullseye,#DrTramma, #MisterNegative, #Vermin
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