At that point, I went off and started writing. I was actually approved to use a few characters that I ended up not using, because once the story started taking shape, I realized I had plenty going on without them.

As for why I put Arana on the list? Same reason I had Gravity on the list at one point (he was not one of the heroes I was given access to) -- because she's new to the Marvel Universe. That's it. I needed someone who could believably go into what is essentially super hero boot camp and I wanted it to be someone who has had as few adventures as possible.

An aside -- an earlier version of the concept had heroes with more page count under the belts being put through training as well. They were going to be irked that they had to go through with the training when they'd been in the hero game for a bit. But that got dropped super early, when I realized I just didn't have room for that subplot and setting up those additional characters.

But, in the end, I ended up with this nice symetry - a young spider-themed hero who was just learning what it mean to be a hero and an older, more experienced spider-themed hero who knows a thing or two about how the world works.

With Carol in the middle, being forced to take down one hero while training the other... well, I'm pretty happy about how this arc has turned out so far (6 & 7 are done and approved, 8 is just starting work, for those of you playing the home game).

http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/showthread.php?t=66881