THE SPIDER’S SYNDICATE OF CRIME

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Rebellion

Writers Ted Cowan, Jerry Siegel

Artist Reg Bunn

Billed as “the world’s most sinister crook”, as if he’s some twisted carnival attraction, there’s something uniquely freakish about the Spider, whose early exploits in Lion are reprinted here. He arrives fully formed and origin-free, all goblin ears and widow’s peak, dressed in an ink-black leotard. “My daring and genius will achieve the impossible!” he cackles, never short of ego. One early caption calls him “the spider man” but he’s an altogether ickier proposition than Marvel’s hero.

With an outright villain as the protagonist, the stories play as grand-scale cops and robbers. Rival supervillains soon enter the mix, allowing us to root for the Spider. And there’s a febrile imagination at play: holographic dinosaurs menace New York, an ape-like android is armed with buzzsaw paws, and the secrets of Atlantis are revealed.

Reg Bunn’s art is heavy on cross-hatching, creating a world of scratchy city blocks that never feels authentically American but somewhere stranger, more European. He’s a fine draftsman – a giant python is beautifully rendered scale by scale. Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel wrote some of these stories – but we’re a long way from Krypton here, let alone truth, justice and the American way. Nick Setchfield