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seriousficSo recently I saw a book called The Spider: Robot Titans of Gotham and I just had to buy it. First off, because it had cover art by Jim Steranko.
I would paint this on the side of my van, if I had a van.
Second, because it was titled Robot Titans of Gotham. Ladies, see what you can do about getting a line of tampons called that. Can you really picture a guy saying he won't go to the store and pick you up some Robot Titans of Gotham? And third, it was only five bucks.
So... yeah, it's pulp. The Spider is pretty much the Shadow with a hunchback, and though the stories have intriguing premises, they don't really follow through and explain how or why someone would use poisonous bats to kill gamblers, while dressed up as a giant bat, with the help of some tribal natives, and with the end goal of taking over the world. Even Stan Lee would maybe explain that the guy fell into a vat of live bats as a child, something like that.
So the Spider (whose name is ALWAYS italicized) is a millionaire playboy named Richard Wentworth. Together with his fiance, Nita van Sloan (who's pretty badass for the 1930s), an old war buddy, and his manservant, he fights crime because... you know... crime. Oh, the manservant is a Sikh named Ram Singh and he's written about as you'd expect -- lots of "My master is as quick as a mongoose," that sort of thing -- but hey, 1930s, and he's treated the same by the narrative as Wentworth's Anglo war buddy. The author shows more sensitivity than some people nowadays.
But I've rambled enough. How about an excerpt?
At the outer door, the Spider paused for a moment, his eyes dark and narrow. Twenty-seven men had died here tonight by the bite of non-poisonous vampire bats. He himself had seen the attack. A cold fury swept him as he realized what havoc these same tactics would wreak if they were used against the populace at large. So far, the Bat Man had confined his attacks to a few gamblers, also creatures of the half-world like the bats. The Spider could not mourn their loss to humanity--but suppose the man went power-mad? Suppose the agency behind these attacks turned loose his murderous creatures upon cities, upon entire countrysides...?
The Spider's lean, taut-skinned face set in determined lines. It was his job to keep such things from coming to pass!
I would paint this on the side of my van, if I had a van.
Second, because it was titled Robot Titans of Gotham. Ladies, see what you can do about getting a line of tampons called that. Can you really picture a guy saying he won't go to the store and pick you up some Robot Titans of Gotham? And third, it was only five bucks.
So... yeah, it's pulp. The Spider is pretty much the Shadow with a hunchback, and though the stories have intriguing premises, they don't really follow through and explain how or why someone would use poisonous bats to kill gamblers, while dressed up as a giant bat, with the help of some tribal natives, and with the end goal of taking over the world. Even Stan Lee would maybe explain that the guy fell into a vat of live bats as a child, something like that.
So the Spider (whose name is ALWAYS italicized) is a millionaire playboy named Richard Wentworth. Together with his fiance, Nita van Sloan (who's pretty badass for the 1930s), an old war buddy, and his manservant, he fights crime because... you know... crime. Oh, the manservant is a Sikh named Ram Singh and he's written about as you'd expect -- lots of "My master is as quick as a mongoose," that sort of thing -- but hey, 1930s, and he's treated the same by the narrative as Wentworth's Anglo war buddy. The author shows more sensitivity than some people nowadays.
But I've rambled enough. How about an excerpt?
At the outer door, the Spider paused for a moment, his eyes dark and narrow. Twenty-seven men had died here tonight by the bite of non-poisonous vampire bats. He himself had seen the attack. A cold fury swept him as he realized what havoc these same tactics would wreak if they were used against the populace at large. So far, the Bat Man had confined his attacks to a few gamblers, also creatures of the half-world like the bats. The Spider could not mourn their loss to humanity--but suppose the man went power-mad? Suppose the agency behind these attacks turned loose his murderous creatures upon cities, upon entire countrysides...?
The Spider's lean, taut-skinned face set in determined lines. It was his job to keep such things from coming to pass!
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Date: 2010-08-04 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-04 08:09 pm (UTC)I recall reading a quote from Stan Lee where he said that the Spider was the inspiration for Spiderman, but I can't really see the connection in terms of the characters.
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Date: 2010-08-04 08:41 pm (UTC)But apparently he got his inspiration from a Shadow knockoff? Seems... strange, really.
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Date: 2010-08-04 08:46 pm (UTC)In his 1974 Fireside Book (Simon & Schuster), Origins of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee states that, in the creation of the Spider-Man character, he adapted the name of The Spider for Marvel's character. "It was the name that grabbed me."
So apparently it was more the name than anything else.