Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "the-spider"

The Spider, Master of Men! #18: The Flame Master by Grant Stockbridge

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Spider, a 1930s pulp hero returns in this 18th issue of his magazine. In a previous issue, he'd been thought killed and Richard Wentworth (the Spider's real identity) had the heat taken off by a servant confessing to the Spider's crimes-as the Spider would often kill criminals taking upon himself the role of judge, jury, and executioner.

However, the Spider's brought into action with a story of a man who can create man-made lightening and fear that he may have fallen into the hands of criminals who are ready to exploit the lightening power for their own nefarious purposes. The Spider is shocked when he finds his unusual foe is Aronk Dong, a self-proclaimed lion man from Mars.

The book has several strong points. First, like many pulp books, it's just a great ride: the main weapon is lightening firing remote controlled balloons, you have an alleged man from mars, and you even have the French underworld take a hand.

On the other hand, Wentworth is a vigilante killer. From a plot point what makes the book more difficult is that the Spider and his cohorts are constantly going around pretending to be tough and unafraid but are really scared out of their wits. All of the, "He gave a fake smile but what he really thought" moments were a little much. At times, it seemed like no human relationship portrayed in the book was at all believable. And despite his goals of world domination, it seems like Aronk Dong would rather be an evil supervillain than actually conquer the Earth by simply and quickly destroying his enemies.

Despite the over the top nature of the story, it was the 1930s and plot was king and you'll find few more compelling than this one among the pulps. There are plenty of ticking time bombs and 1920s weird science to satisfy any reader. Overall, this is a decent read if you know what you're getting into.



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