Black Spider, Attorney At Law

Numerous superheroes have been spider-themed, even at the dawn of the Golden Age. Before a certain wall-crawler took the spotlight in the 60's, Ace Magazine's Super-Mystery Comics premiered its own arachnid avenger in 1940. Ralph Nelson is a DA who whenever he loses a case to criminals that he believes are guilty will take on the garb of the Black Spider consisting of a cape with a spider symbol on it and a special utility belt. What makes his belt so special is that he keeps a small colony of poisonous spiders inside it as he somehow has the sublime ability to control them. Whether this talent is something similar to Aquaman's aquatic telepathy is unknown, but instead of using his skills to put on a first-rate flea circus, Ralph has trained them to follow his commands. Where most pulp fiction masked men would just use the holster on their belt for an intimidating pistol, Black Spider weaponized his 8-legged pets to scare villains into submission. Aside from his own Batcave branded The Web, Ralph's resources consisted of his loyal spiders, plus his pretty secretary Peggy who knew his secret identity and had enough brains to cover her face when helping Black Spider out in the field, as well as dressing up in the costume to help Ralph keep his identity. Our hero is a decent hand-to-hand fighter, but his real modus operandi is giving criminals the heebie-jeebies with his spider friends crawling up inside their pants when he already has them subdued and tied to a chair. It's hard to say which is more pathetic, either Black Spider's weapon of choice to spook villains into confessing their crimes, or his personal brand of justice going outside the law that as part of he himself is part of. Instead of using his professional position to change the system for the better, he fights against it as a Shadow rip-off. Most of the main character's cases involve blackmail, bribery, jewelry heists, and frame ups, so no archenemies in elaborate goblin costumes. Black Spider is not the only superhero whose major thing was controlling bugs, but he probably had lots of Marvel characters beat as being one of the first mystery men to have a day job as a professional lawyer.

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