The Spider #1 (spoilers)

[Manga4life]

Well, I got this issue in my mailbox today and sat down to read it this afternoon and man......this was BETTER than The Shadow #1 in my opinion! I loved how callous The Spider is, in one scene he ask's himself what gave him the right to kill the scum he was killing, and his answer was pretty damn blunt, it gave me chills down my spine. The interior art is okay, nothing spectacular but every bit as good as The Shadow, but the story was just so more engaging and really kept me flipping the pages until I got to the tragic ending, which sets up the 2nd issue in an epic way.

Home run Dynamite, HOME freakin' RUN!

[Professor Moriarty]

The Spider is my favorite pulp character, The Spider is the character that got me into pulp stories, and because of that i'm really looking forward to this series!

[Manga4life]

My friend, you WON'T be disappointed. It's clever, well written, violent, driven, and artistically sound, I think you'll like what Dynamite has done with your favorite character and I'm hoping this book ends up being a huge success.

[Professor Moriarty]

well then cheers mate!

[Movieartman]

wish Jae Lee was drawing this book :(

[Manga4life]

wish Jae Lee was drawing this book :(

Jae Lee? He's a good artist, but why did you pick someone random like Jae Lee? Any which way, the interior art is pretty damn good and I think it's every bit as good as The Shadow #1 was in the art department, it's not like David Finch or Tony Daniel good, but it's pretty darn good for a title such as this. It just fits.

[Movieartman]

Jae Lee? He's a good artist, but why did you pick someone random like Jae Lee? Any which way, the interior art is pretty damn good and I think it's every bit as good as The Shadow #1 was in the art department, it's not like David Finch or Tony Daniel good, but it's pretty darn good for a title such as this. It just fits.

jae lee did a cover for the first issue of the shadow, and i just think his stiff Iconic painting like style fits thease noir chracters very well


Marco Checchetto would also be in my top choices, some of the shadowy meancing imagry he drew during the first few issues of the curent punisher run are great and would fit thease 2 books great also

[Manga4life]

Well, today's the big day......who got The Spider #1?

My comic store opens at 8am on Wednesday mornings for new arrivals so I dropped in even though I already had everything I needed this week and I was happy to see a few people grabbing this issue, it was refreshing to be honest to see someone buying a non Marvel/DC book.

[emb021]

Got it.

Have flipped thru it. Not read the whole thing. I'm not to sure of the modern take. And they have the Spider and Nina not being an item, which is just wrong...

[HasbroSlayer84]

Nothing wrong about it, I love the modern take on the character and maybe they'll get together someday if her hubby dies. Amazing fiirst issue though! I bought it at 10am when they opened.

[emb021]

Nothing wrong about it, I love the modern take on the character and maybe they'll get together someday if her hubby dies. Amazing fiirst issue though! I bought it at 10am when they opened.

Totally wrong, because her husband is Commissioner Kirkpatrick, who was one of the standard characters in the pulp series!!

Nina is supposed to be Wentworth's 'girl friday', so to speak. Can't do that as Kirkpatrick's wife.

And Ram Singh, instead of being Wentworth's fighting Hindi/Sikh (the pulps never got that straight) is now a lawyer. Guess that was more PC.

silly, silly,silly.

[DavidLiss]

Nothing wrong about it, I love the modern take on the character and maybe they'll get together someday if her hubby dies. Amazing fiirst issue though! I bought it at 10am when they opened.

I thought some people might object to this, and I’m not surprised to see the point raised so quickly. ;-) My thinking was that the most important detail about Wentworth and Nita is not that they are an item, but that Wentworth being the Spider keeps them from getting married. Wentworth’s position – that he can’t marry Nita because she would be at constant risk of becoming a widow – is a decidedly 1930s take on relationships, and it didn’t translate to the modern world. At the same time, I wanted to keep that element of suffering there, so I thought it would be cool to have her married to someone else. They still work together and love each other, but the can’t be together.

[DavidLiss]

Totally wrong, because her husband is Commissioner Kirkpatrick, who was one of the standard characters in the pulp series!!

Nina is supposed to be Wentworth's 'girl friday', so to speak. Can't do that as Kirkpatrick's wife.

And Ram Singh, instead of being Wentworth's fighting Hindi/Sikh (the pulps never got that straight) is now a lawyer. Guess that was more PC.

silly, silly,silly.

Don't you think it would be even more silly to show Wentworth with a Hindi/Sikh manservant? Ram Singh in the original pulps was an orientalist fantasy of the era. It would have been laughable to bring that relationship, as is, to the 21st century. That was my thinking at any rate. Thanks for reading the book!

[emb021]

I thought some people might object to this, and I’m not surprised to see the point raised so quickly. ;-) My thinking was that the most important detail about Wentworth and Nita is not that they are an item, but that Wentworth being the Spider keeps them from getting married. Wentworth’s position – that he can’t marry Nita because she would be at constant risk of becoming a widow – is a decidedly 1930s take on relationships, and it didn’t translate to the modern world. At the same time, I wanted to keep that element of suffering there, so I thought it would be cool to have her married to someone else. They still work together and love each other, but the can’t be together.

Yes, that is a big part of the Nina-Wentworth dynamic. But by having Nina married off to someone else, it messes up another part of the dynamic: that of them being around each other a lot, which is hard if Nina is married to someone else.

[emb021]

Don't you think it would be even more silly to show Wentworth with a Hindi/Sikh manservant? Ram Singh in the original pulps was an orientalist fantasy of the era. It would have been laughable to bring that relationship, as is, to the 21st century. That was my thinking at any rate. Thanks for reading the book!

Maybe.

But part of what makes Ram Singh interesting was that he was Wentworth's "backup", so to speak. As he seems to be portrayed, it sounds like him doing what he did in the pulps would be difficult.

I just don't see this version of Ram Singh busting in with tommy guns or gurkhas to get the Spider out of a tough spot or the like, or grabbing a wounded Wentworth and whisking him away in a car.