The Orlando Sentinel [free registration required] has posted a feature about the arrival of new Marvel heroine Anya Corazón, a fiery Latina high-schooler with still-unraveling superpowers. Unveiled last month in Amazing Fantasy #1, she’s already drawn a surprisingly strong response. “Marvel Comics editor in chief Joe Quesada says he has been pleasantly surprised by the positive attention the character has received. ‘The reaction has been phenomenal, and from all over the globe,’ Quesada says. ‘We set out to make Anya interesting and culturally diverse to reflect our readers, and give them someone to relate to.’ Marvel also sought to capitalize on the current box-office popularity of a certain wall-crawling webslinger. Anya will, as the series unfolds, be developing powers similar to those of Spider-Man. Even her name is a play on the Spanish araña, or spider.

“In her inaugural issue, the superheroine is still pretty much a normal teen dressed in slouchy jeans and a hooded T-shirt, dealing with mundane issues such as school bullies. But in real life she already has performed her first feat — flying off the shelves. ‘It’s sold better than we expected,’ says Phil Boyle, co-owner of Central Florida’s six Coliseum of Comics stores, which had sold nearly all of its 100-plus copies a week after the comic book came out. Boyle said it’s hard to tell if more teen girls are flocking to read about Anya’s adventures, or if the book still mainly appeals to die-hard fans. But as the series continues, he wouldn’t be surprised to see the unlikely heroine develop a fan base of new comic readers.”