MARVEL COMICS UNVEILS LATINA SUPER-HERO
By Alejandra Villasmil

Marvel Comics has launched a new series featuring Anya Corazon, a quick-tempered schoolgirl with Spider-Man-like powers who is the publisher's first-ever Latina superhero.

Anya - no relation to Spider-Girl, another well-known Marvel character - appeared this week in the first issue of "Amazing Fantasy," one of the publishing company's latest comic books and just in time for the premiere of the film "Spider-Man 2."

But unlike Peter Parker, who becomes Spider-Man endowed with amazing powers when bitten by an arachnid, Anya - a phonetic play on the Spanish word for spider (ara[a) - derived her powers from an ancient mystic clan.

The character was inspired by hype surrounding the release of the "Spider-Man 2," a trip to Mexico by Marvel's editor-in-chief, Cuban-American Joe Quesada, and the need for the company to reflect New York's true demographics.

"We wanted something derived from the mythology of Spider-Man and at the same time a new, strong female character. And who better than a Latina? We were lacking a super heroine who could inject another culture into our comics," Quesada told EFE.

But the 41-year-old artist raised in the Hispanic neighborhood of Jackson Heights in Queens - also home to Spider-Man - had other, perhaps more personal reasons for creating Anya that stemmed from a trip to Mexico, and of course, from his own Latino roots.

"I made a trip to Mexico City and I was really impressed with how crazy people are about Spider-Man there," Quesada said, explaining that growing interest in comics among women and Hispanics also influenced Anya's creation.

"We didn't conduct a market study like they do in the film industry, which spends a lot of money to target audiences for its productions, but we did see it in the faces of the people who buy comics in the stores. They are increasingly the faces of Hispanics, and many are women," he said.

Quesada believes that one of the creative and commercial goals of Marvel Comics should be to reflect the profile of its readers and guarantee that Marvel characters always mirror real life even though they are "fantasies."

"If we have any tradition in Marvel, it is to reflect other cultures and kinds of people, but in an appropriate manner," Quesada said when asked how Marvel took on the issue of Latino stereotypes, especially when creating a character who is a Hispanic female.

"We were interested in a realistic model of a Latina. The world is also our model and our comics reflect real life. We have been doing it since World War II, when Captain America hit the market," he said.

Anya's diverse cultural background is also representative of New York City, where Puerto Ricans outnumber all other Hispanic groups, and Mexicans are the fastest growing Latino population.

Quesada describes Anya - who appears on the cover of Amazing Fantasy in urban street wear - as "a free female adolescent," who may be small, but still breaks traditional canons of the sculptured heroine.

"She is a very normal girl, especially within the context of the neighborhood she lives in," said Quesada, referring to the New York borough of Brooklyn where there is an increasing mix of cultures - and not just Latin American ones.