LEGENDARY HEROES #17

THE SPIDER

The Spider - Master of Men - was created by Harry Steeger at Popular Publications to directly compete with Street & Smith's pulp magazine The Shadow.  The first Spider pulp was released with the October 1933 issue with the story "The Spider Strikes" and would continue on a monthly basis until 1943 resulting in 118 Spider novels.  A 119th novel had been written but was not published until decades later.  The 118 stories were attributed to Grant Stockbridge, an in-house name used by Popular, with most of the novels written by Norvell Page.  Page (1904-1961) spent 12 years as a newspaperman covering criminals, gangsters, and viewing dead bodies in the morgue before turning to the pulps as a writer.  He wrote a back-up story that appeared in the first issue of The Spider, and by issue #3 he was the main writer of the series.  

The Spider was millionaire playboy Richard Wentworth who had served in WWI as a major and was now living in New York City.  His millions were unaffected by the Great Depression and his wealth made it possible for him to dispense vigilante justice to the underworld.  It was revealed throughout the series that Wentworth held the honorary titles of Scotland Yard Inspector and Lieutenant in the FBI, both titles bestowed upon him for services rendered.  The Spider's costume consisted of a domino mask, fedora and cape (very similar to the outfit of The Shadow) and his weapons of choice were a pair of .45 automatics.  Later in the stories he would adopt a wild, vampire-like makeup to terrorize the criminals he pursued.  Wentworth sported an old battle scar on his head that would flare up at times of great stress.  He was also psychologically vulnerable and suffered frequent bouts of fear, self-doubt, despair and paranoia.  The criminals that the Spider dealt with were extremely violent and involved in nationwide conspiracies that menaced millions and often resulted in the wholesale slaughter of thousands.  The master criminal was always killed in the final pages of the stories and The Spider would leave his "mark" on the villain's forehead - a red ink spider image that looked like a drop of blood.  The Spider also utilized a silken line, that he called his "web", that possessed the tensile strength of several hundred pounds.  The supporting cast of characters consisted of Nita Van Sloan, long time fiance of Wentworth who often aided him; Ram Singh, the fanatically loyal Sikh manservant of Wentworth who was a deadly knife thrower; and Police Commissioner Stanley Kirkpatrick, more commonly known as Kirk, who is certain that Wentworth is the Spider and vows to capture him and send Wentworth to the electric chair for his vigilantism.

Columbia Studios produced two Spider movie serials, both 15-chapter cliffhangers that starred Warren Hull.  When "The Spider's Web" was released in 1938 it was the first serial to be based upon a pulp magazine character.  The sequel "The Spider Returns" came out in 1941.  Columbia decided to make The Spider look less like the Shadow by imprinting his mask and cape with a spider web pattern.  Most of the 119 stories, if not all of them, have been reprinted over the years starting with Berkley paperbacks in 1969 who was hoping to compete with the successful Bantam series of Doc Savage reprints.  Berkley released four novels before the series was cancelled.  In the mid-1970s Pocketbooks released another four titles, and other publishers like Carroll & Graff, Pyramid, and Jove have all reprinted numerous Spider novels, including the final story that never appeared in pulp form.  Bold Venture Press has released ten of the stories.  The Spider proved to be every bit as popular as The Shadow and Doc Savage, and sales of the pulp magazine were strong throughout the entire run.  Perhaps the strongest cultural impact that The Spider made was on the future costumed comic book heroes.  If there had not been a Spider or Shadow or Doc Savage, would the entertainment world had ever seen the likes of Superman or Batman?