The Spider And Robot Titans Of Gotham!

The Spider - Robot Titans of Gotham is a 2007 collection of vintage pulps properly decorated with an outstanding Jim Steranko cover. Steranko also supplies a nice black and white image for the front of the book. Two of the pulps here are from Popular Publications' The Spider. The third is a real oddball titled The Octopus. More on that later. 

Satan's Murder Machines is the first of the two Spider yarns here and it is a doozy. The city finds itself under siege by giant robots who emerge from the cold dank waters of the river and raise havoc with property and the population. It's a desperate fight from the get-go as Richard Wentworth as the Spider really struggles to find a way to contend with the menace. That is until he remembers to fight on his terms and not his enemy's. 

This Spider story is remarkable in three ways. The story was lifted pretty much intact and used in an early 1940's Superman Sunday comic strip titled "The Bandit Robots of Metropolis". The creators of the Superman story keep many of the elements from the Norvell Page's novel, including the giant robots of course, but also that these menaces hide in the rivers surrounding the city. 

These robots look a great deal less menacing than those on the cover of The Spider dedicated to the all-too similar threat. The similarity was so great that the folks at Popular Publications sued the folks at DC (a rare turnabout for that bunch I bet) and won in court. But that was not the end. 

The idea of giant robots threatening Metropolis and in fact stealing at the behest of their mad maker was lifted and used to fantastic effect in the Fleischer Studios production of Superman cartoon "The Metal Monsters". This is one of the best of these excellent animations and has always been one of my favorites. 

The robots in this cartoon can fly, something none of the metallic menaces in the Spider novel nor the Superman cartoon strip could do. That delightful image of these sleek robot creations in air not only thrilled me and many other fans, the cartoon thrilled one fan in particular. To watch this seminal Superman cartoon, check out this link.  

Kerry Conlan was inspired by "The Mechanical Monsters" to create his own six-minute computer rendered adventure about giant robots which fly into the great modern cities of years gone by and march down the boulevards with no regard to the defenses of mankind. This six-minute animation titled "The Mechanical Monsters" became the seed for the feature film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. (For more on this film see today's earlier post.) Norvell Page's little Spider pulp novel sure had some legs it seemed. To get a look at this six-minute "movie" check out this link. 

The second Spider novel in this handsome volume is Death Reign of the Vampire King about a plague of vampire bats which descend from the blackened skies to wreak deadly havoc on populations. These vampire bats carry a toxin on their fangs which makes them even more dangerous, a single bite resulting in death. Many hundreds if not thousands die as the leader of his menace reveals himself. He seems to be a flying "Bat-Man" himself and proves particularly difficult for The Spider to confront as the threat moves its way across the United States well beyond the borders of a single city. 

This novel was adapted several decades ago by Tim Truman for Eclipse Comics in a trio of Spider square-bound comics. Truman redesigned The Spider quite a bit for this comic book appearance. These are handsome volumes to be sure. 

The third and final novel in this collection is not in fact a Spider novel at all. Rather it's a reprint of a notorious one-shot pulp titled The Octopus. I'll tell you right now, the cover misrepresents the threat quite significantly. Nonetheless this is a hair-raising misadventure as a strange deadly hero dubbed "The Skull Killer" tries to fend off the threats of the villainous Octopus, who is using agents to spread a malignant and repulsive plague among the population. This plague transforms the human body into a dark parody and makes the sufferer slave to the whims of the Octopus and his minions. The action of this one is centered on a few different hospitals as the Skull Killer is a doctor when he is not killing hoods. 

There is apparently a sequel of sorts to The Octopus titled strangely The Scorpion. I've never read The Scorpion so I cannot give a first-hand account of how it ties in exactly, but as I understand it the menace from The Octopus returns under a new name to confront the Skull Killer. This one has no modern reprint that I'm aware of, and if you do let me know. I'd love to read this one. 

One offbeat sequel was created in comic book form. Here's a link to World of Monsters where you can enjoy that weird and wild underground comic. Thanks John who first told me about this comic in the comments below. 

So that's the first volume of Baen Books attempt to bring The Spider to a modern audience. It's a handsome effort, with quality craftsmanship all around. There will be a second volume, but that's for next week. 

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