Spider (DC Comics)

"Alias the Spider" is a superhero feature from the Golden Age of Comic Books that appeared in Quality Comics' Crack Comics for nearly three years, starting with issue #1 in 1940. He was created by writer-artist Paul Gustavson.

The original Golden Age version of the character is in the public domain, but the rights to all subsequent versions are currently owned by DC Comics.

Only one adventure of the Spider has ever been reprinted by DC Comics, which acquired the Quality Comics stable of characters when that company went out of business in 1956: the story from Crack Comics #25, in Detective Comics #441.

The Spider later made sporadic cameo appearances in All-Star Squadron and The Young All-Stars. As a Quality Comics character, he was one of the heroes who went with Uncle Sam to protect Earth-X during World War II, becoming part of the Freedom Fighters. This was the fulfillment of a storyline that began in Justice League of America #107-108, which introduced most of Quality Comics' characters to the DC Universe. Previously only Plastic Man and Blackhawk had been used.

The Spider is playboy Tom Hallaway, who had tired of seeing criminals have their own way harassing and murdering honest citizens, so he adopts the guise of the Spider to settle the score. The Spider fights crime in a yellow shirt and blue shorts. He is armed with a bow and arrows, a special car known as the Black Widow, and the assistance of his valet Chuck (who helps Hallaway in both of his identities without anyone making any sort of connection). Hallaway uses a special arrow called the "Spider's Seal", which has a flat disc on the end; he shoots it at thugs' hands to disarm them.

According to Jess Nevins' Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes, the Spider "fights enemies like the Crow, the pirate Falcon, Iggie the Yogi, and the Yellow Peril Yellow Scorpion".

In the continuity that followed DC Comics' "Crisis on Infinite Earths" company-crossover storyline, the Spider is not heroic. Now given the full name Tom Ludlow Hallaway, he did not become the Spider out of an altruistic motive, but rather because he was a smuggler, kidnapper and murderer who used the guise of a superhero as a cover to help him eliminate the competition. Though originally based in St. Louis, Missouri, he is a member of the Ludlow clan from New England. The family inadvertently ran up against the Shade, a near-immortal sometime-villain introduced during the 1930s-1940s Golden Age of Comic Books. The family had a history of ill-gotten gains, having originally amassed its vast wealth by killing their partners in a business enterprise.

Instead of working with the Freedom Fighters, this revised Spider is a member of the Seven Soldiers of Victory (also known as the Law's Legionnaires). Crisis on Infinite Earths had erased the Golden Age Green Arrow and Speedy from existence, and the Spider helped fill the void in the team. Shining Knight, the Vigilante and his partner Stuff, the original Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, and the Crimson Avenger were on board with the Spider. As depicted in Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #9, during the final case of the Seven Soldiers, the Spider betrays them to their old enemy, the Iron Hand (who had created the cosmic menace known as the Nebula Man). The Spider kills the Vigilante's friend Billy Gunn, but is stopped by the Crimson Avenger's partner Wing, who stops the Nebula Man (though at the cost of his own life).