Arachna# 1 Review *Spoilers*

 By Mark Rodriguez

Here's another awesome comic from independent artists that opened up an Indiegogo to get it started. I usually don't chip in unless it looks real good, like you just know they're gonna hit their goal. Arachna, a sexy superheroine with a split personality and an amazing art syle, sure looked like a good pick for me.  With lots of clever marketing in advance, even getting a person to dress as Arachna herself to bring the character to life, they hit their goal the same day they actually opened the Indiegogo for donations. I chipped in for the comic and the shirt, and here is my review on the latest superheroine that's bringing sexy back to comics, Arachna! Also note, while I'll try to keep my language as tame as I can, this book deals with way more adult stuff than I usually discuss on this blog.

The Adventure Begins

The issue opens with Jennie lying in bed naked in her apartment, a noticeable pile of sketches lying on the floor. She awakens to a voice calling out to her. Jen looks under the bed and sees her superheroine costume telling her to let her come out to play.

Sometime later ,we see Arachna fighting off a villain in a gimp get up. He has a woman tied to her bed, and to make things worse, this guy is known to skewer and eat his victims after the fact. Our heroine kicks him back and removes his mask revealing him to be some sort of mutant warthog. Bebop smashes through part of the bed and grabs her by the ponytail, flinging her through a window! 

As the villain tries to rest, Arachna climbs back in and reminds him that the TV news says she can stick to walls. She then sends him flying right through the apartment door. The woman that was tied to the bed thanks her and Arachna calls the police to grab the Gorean Killer. She launches webs through her fingertips and swings out of the building but is caught on video by a mystery woman. The woman tells her boss that they lost Gorean but they have footage of Aracha they can use for their pet project.

The next day Jennie goes to her college classes at Pratt University. It's evident that she has no idea what she's doing when she's Arachna. A guy named Sami she has a crush on waves at her and she thinks she's looking at her, but is actually looking at the girl behind her, Tamara. It seems Tamara is paying Jennie to design cheerleader costumes that she uses to entice Sam. Jen hates having to essentially help her rival woo her crush, but she needs the money. 

Jennie goes to the Cannon Court for some privacy and takes out a glove from her costume as a way to talk to her superheroine alter ego. Arachna explains the cuts on her hand came from being tossed out a window but they're already healing up thanks to their powers. Arachna bounces off the cannon display they're sitting on and says she bets they can fall off it head first and still be alright. Jennie thinks she needs to reign her in before she gets her expelled.

Later at her place, Jen is suiting up and Aracha tells her that she can go visit her crush and give him a good time. Jen tells her not to and reminds her that whenever she becomes her other self,  she's to do good, or else she'll burn the costume and she'll never have a way to 'come out and play' ever again. Arachna pinky swears and smiles deviously as she takes control.

Aracha runs into a guy in a white suit mugging a woman. The man fired off a tranquilizer dart but misses, so she webs him up. However the guy uses some sort of acid to burn away the web and get free. Arachna gets ready to fight but is suddenly hit with a dart in her butt. The woman was actually in on it since this was a set up. The man quickly grabs our hero with some chloroform and knocks her out. This man is revealed to be Dr. Diabolique and the woman is his assistant Meiko Mochizuki. 

As they drive off, Diabolique inspects Arachna to see if she has any weird spider-like mutations and unmasks her. They arrive at their lair which is hidden in the outer city limits, and Meiko covers up their car with camouflage. They take the unconscious hero over to their lab equipment and set her on an operating table. 

Arachna wakes up, and even though her mask is off, she prays that her Jennie persona doesn't resurface at a time like this. Diabolique gets a swab sample from her mouth as a laser is pointed to her ala James Bond. As the laser is about to hit her, Diabolique gets a blood sample, wanting to get her when her fear and adrenaline was pumping. The laser is shut off and Arachna is knocked out again. She is to be taken to her new quarters and kept under sedation while the Doctor goes to work.

The Doctor sees that the serum needs twelve more hours in the centrifuge, but he also needs to find out the origin of Arachna's powers. He suddenly gets a call from his mysterious benefactor and has to leave. He tells Meiko to keep her hands off their captive and the serum. Meiko crosses her fingers behind her back.

Diabolique enters a building and is clobbered by a golf club. The woman that hits him turns out to be his wife, and she tells 'George' to sleep on the couch.

 Arachna is held in the same cage they once kept Gorean and Meiko explains they spliced him with warthog DNA. She asks how Arachna got her powers and she dodges the question. Meiko gets handsy with her but says it's not any fun if Arachna has her powers dampened and she has no powers of her own. Meiko grabs the serum and says she'll be the first super soldier of their army. She chugs it down but then drops to the floor, spitting up web fluid. 

The Doc returns and sees what looks like Arachna pinning Meiko down, but she is actually trying to save her by giving her mouth to mouth. Diabolique tries to shoot her and the spider gal dodges and rams her elbow into his neck. She explains that Meiko drank the serum, and rather than just break out and escape, she stayed to try to revive her. Diabolique tries to go for some adrenaline and Arachna slams his face into the emergency glass. Arachna has had it with his drugs and he says they're for Meiko.

Diabolique thanks Arachna for keeping Meiko alive long enough to save, but she tells them they're both going to jail. The Doc reminds her that he has seen her face and has DNA samples in his lab. Arachna ponders killing him and burning down the lab with all traces of her ever being there. Meiko meanwhile starts waking up and coughing. 

Arachna can't bring herself to kill and Meiko grabs her in a headlock. The heroine hits both of them and notices that Meiko didn't even flinch. The new powered up Meiko easily tosses Arachna to the side, smashing her into lab equipment. Arachna needs to escape but she is still weak from the drugs. Meiko grabs her and punches the hell out of her face, knocking her out. Diabolique says they don't need her anymore now that Meiko has her powers.

Come nightfall, Arachna tries to talk her way out of this mess but Meiko says she owes her life to the Doctor. She tosses Arachna into the ocean, her arms and legs tied up, while she's chained to a huge metal ball to pull her down. As the chain ball drags her down, Arachna is too weakened and battered to break out of the chains and her webs won't be able to help either. She lands near the skeletal remains of previous victims as she accepts her fate. One of the skeletons has a sai embedded into it. 

Meiko remembers her past, training martial arts with sai against her brother, who would always defeat her. She was jealous of him since it seems their parents favored him. He told her they came to America to work hard and thus sacrifices needed to be made. Once his back was turned, Meiko stabbed her brother, killing him and thus becoming the best martial artist in the family. Diabolique sent her to do this as a test of loyalty to work under him. He continued to watch over her like the daughter he never had. 

Back to present day, Meiko suits up as her new spider-themed identity, Kumo, Japanese for Spider. Later that night, Meiko robs a bank, the security guards being powerless to stop her. 

Back to Arachna, she refuses to go out this way and finds the willpower and strength to break free for her chains. She swims to the surface and desperately catches her breath. As she starts walking home, her Jennie persona realizes they're on drugs and all beat up and Arachna tells her she didn't do this on purpose.

A truck driver offers her a ride and notices she looks all beat up. Arachna helps herself to his fries and he says she looks like she lost a fight. He says he's sure she'll get 'em next time and this is just round one. Arachna thanks him for the vote of confidence and lets him take a picture of her with his dog, big black eye and all.

The news covers Kumo's unstoppable killing rampage as they beg for Arachna to help. Jennie is lying in bed telling Arachna to come out but she refuses. As they continue to argue, Jen goes for some pills to drown her alter ego out, but then decides it's up to her to do something about this. Aracha tells her not to do anything reckless and that they'll get themselves killed. Jennie puts on the costume but this time she's at the wheel. 

Kumo returns to her base after selling an antique to a black market buyer. The villains can soon buy more labs and create more Kumo, but first they need to deal with Gorean in case he talks. Arachna comes in and shoots a web at Kumo but misses. Kumo grabs the web and yanks her down. As the women fight, Kumo whispers she purposely left a weakened chain link, hoping she would survive. As Jennie gets her ass kicked she asks Arachna to come out to play. 

The villains can hear Jennie talking to herself and figures she must have a split personality. Kumo is going to lobotomize her, which wakes up Arachna and has her lash out. She throws Kumo's sai into Dialoque's gun to prevent him from shooting her. Arachna dodges Kumo's attacks and shoots a web at her leg, swinging her face-first into a steel table. Kumo kicks her rival into glass experiments and Arachna slaps her with an animal's claw. 

Diabolique is set to blow up the lab with Kumo still in it and the girls call a truce so they can escape. As they try to swing away, a gunshot severs Kumo's web. As Kumo drops to her demise, Arachna considers she still owes her one for leaving a weak link in the chain ball. She fires off a web to try to catch her. There is no time and Arachna barely escapes as the entire lab explodes. Diabolique drives off, tears running down his face as he begs Meiko to forgive him. 

A sai is found near the scene, hinting Kumo might have survived.

Jennie and Arachna talk to teach other as her heroic self thanks her regular self for making her return, as the city loves her for taking down Kumo. Arachna jokes that she never thought Jennie had a backbone, now she just needs to ask Sami out. Jennie reminds her they still have to catch Diabolique. As they swing away, a drone was filming her. Other villains have their eye on her, and these two have an animal hunter motif. Arachna's adventures will continue. 

My Opinions-

Wow, they're not kidding when they said they were bringing the sexy back. I wasn't expecting to see Jennie nude from page 1. Even when clothed, due to Arachna's acrobatic and flexible nature, it's tough to find good action panels to show without her throwing her butt into the reader's face, lol. Obviously Kumo follows the same trend. 

The story is very interesting, especially with the mystery behind Aracha's powers and her discussions between her two personalities. The weird thing is how they use the costume as some sort of way to call up each other. I thought she was reliant on the costume, but then we saw how Jennie was able to wear the costume while not losing her personality. Likewise, Arachna was unmasked but she was able to keep her superhero persona in control. 

It is a little scary how Jennie disappears when Arachna takes over and vice versa. Unlike say.... The Mask, the movie version anyway, where Ipkiss would wake up with zero idea what went on, he would be okay. Any injuries or whatever go away when the Mask is taken off. In this case, Jennie wakes up with cuts, bruises and who knows what else from whatever Arachna did the night before, without knowing how it happened. And oh god, how scary would it have been if Jennie suddenly woke up while Arachna was still chained up and underwater. 

I do like the strong morality these two share. The thought of killing her enemies has crossed Arachna's mind but she doesn't have it in her to do so. Jennie also was willing to step up to the plate to stop the bad guys herself when Arachna refused. This helps makes her a character we wanna root for. 

The bad guys are interesting as well, especially Meiko. We see a bit of her back story and how she feels shunned by her family, who she had no problem betraying to side with Diabolique. I also find it funny how Diabolique is somehow a normal married man, which I assume the wife has no idea about his mad scientist side. 

The story also has its comedic moments, like Arachna posing for a pic despite looking all beat up and the banter between Jennie and her superhero self. The art is pretty cool, love the action poses and the impact felt as these characters are slammed onto metal surfaces and lab equipment and so forth. The book doesn't shy away from blood as these guys are flat out busting each other up. 

I loved this story and can't wait for the second issue. For those curious, I got the book and also got a bookmark, a sticker, 3 cards with info on the characters and print of Kumo getting dressed. I also got myself the shirt.