Arachne

Background

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Powers and Abilities

Arachne is a skilled, fast martial artist. She’s equipped with venomous weaponry :

• Poison-injecting spikes.
• Web-shooters whose webbing is poisoned with a deadly paralytic agent.

History

The New York’s Globe-Recorder newspaper announced that they would expose one of the presidential candidates as having ties with organized crime. Soon afterwards, Henry Drummond, the lawyer for the Globe, was murdered in his West Coast office. His neck had been broken, and he was stuck to the wall with what appeared to be a spider’s web.

The next day, the press conference to reveal the candidate’s name started. But Walt Weston, the paper’s source, died from an injection of poisonous spider-venom into his neck.

Peter Parker was present at the conference, having been flown out to the West Coast to follow up on the story. The Liberty Party’s presidential nomination convention was heavily attended due to the furore over the murders. On their end, the Avengers West Coast were on hand for added protection for the candidate, one Michael Galvan.

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We are Deathweb

As Galvan took the podium, the lights went out. After a minor fracas with Spider-Man, the Avengers came into conflict with Deathweb. Despite being outnumbered two-to-one, Deathweb seriously injured both the U.S.Agent (John Walker) and Hawkeye (Clint Barton). Little Rachel, Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter)’s daughter, was also kidnapped to cover Deathweb’s escape.

To find her daughter, Spider-Woman got in touch with Mike Clemson, her government contact. But Clemson was in league with the Conclave, who backed Deathweb and the Manipulator. Spider-Man also found Rachel, but Arachne forced Spider-Woman to fight him to the death to save Rachel.

Deathweb was forced to leave by an impending explosion. This allowed the two heroes to save Rachel, and return her to her father Larry Carpenter. Clemson also escaped.

The assassination

During the next rally, Deathweb teleported on the Hollywood Bowl’s stage and slew Galvan. The Avengers, no longer hindered by an hostage, took them down. As he fled, the Manipulator also killed Larry Carpenter, who was resisting his mind control power.

Meanwhile Wilson Lambert, Galvan’s bland running mate, took to the stage with a fiery law and order speech. On a roll, he demanded that the Avengers execute the captive Deathweb. However, Arachne announced that their orders had been to kill Galvan but not hurt Lambert anyway. The crowd didn’t take this well, and Lambert’s political career was destroyed by Deathweb’s accusation.

Description

See illustration.

Personality

Arachne is a woman with an attitude. She is focused on her targets, shows no remorse in killing, and enjoys taunting her enemies and prolonging their suffering.

Cool but vicious, she’s the unofficial field leader of the Deathweb.

DC Universe History

Deathweb would have worked once for Oracle (Barbara Gordon). She resorted to these criminals to stop rogue angels as the JLA was unavailable. This unsavoury solution worked, though Black Canary (Dinah Lance) and Arachne were left with a feud.

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Helper(s): An old Dragon issue.

Source of Character: Marvel Universe.