Something near and not so dear to my heart: our fascination with the spider in comics
Hello fellow Komikazeers and welcome to another installment from the brain of the Professor. I have a few things brewing for y’all that should pop up in the next week or so, but I wanted to take a minute talk about something near and not so dear to my heart: our fascination with the spider and some other nasties in comics. I’m not talking any specific spider here; no, any creepy spider will do (though I will name names in a minute).
Let me explain. I was born and bred in Philadelphia, city of brotherly love and home of the cheesesteak. Growing up in that metropolis, as you can guess, we didn’t have many large arachnids roaming around our neighborhoods. Sure every once in a while there would be one about the size of your thumbnail or the occasional Daddy Longlegs, but nothing too creepy.
Then I moved to Roswell, New Mexico, the home of the stuff which nightmares are born. In my year plus of the desert sun, I have come across a variety of nasties which if you told me even existed outside of comics and movies, I would have laughed. I have seen scorpions in my bathtub, centipedes that looked like they were from King Kong, an apartment swarming with bees and spiders that looked like they would kill ya if you looked at ‘em funny. Yes. This is my world.
Just a few days ago I saw a tarantula the size of my hand sneaking about amongst the gravel which is my front yard (oh yeah…all the family and friends want to visit now). Needless to say, the chills started in my toes, flowed up to the top of my head and continued playing chutes and ladders up and down for the duration of my paralysis (about 3-5 minutes until I could convince my legs that anywhere would be better then where I was standing). But it started to make me think about comics. Ok, I’m always thinking about comics.
I started to wonder, if I am so afraid of big spiders, why have I been reading Spider-Man since I was five without ever once feeling threatened? Now I know what you are going to say: it’s a comic…of course it wouldn’t freak you out. But, not so fast. I know of a few people who have told me that they have had nightmares after reading certain comics. I even met someone who had bad dreams after reading Venom vs. Carnage. So, it can happen. Why has the “friendly neighborhood spider” never invaded my nightmares? And why are we so darn attracted to spiders in our stories?
Many Native American creation stories have the Spider Mother who gave birth to all living things, but I don’t think that is it. Is this just a ridiculous piece of luck that Marvel Comics just happened upon? Is it that the spider is so far removed from what we would expect from a comic book character that we embrace it for its oddity? If so, wouldn’t the novelty have worn off by now? Is Spider-Man as popular in places with giant spiders? I mean, Deerman wouldn’t quite strike up the same excitement in Pennsylvania!
So I started to delve into the history of the spider in comics as a form of self-therapy and interest. The first thing I thought of was Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I remember seeing an old comic retelling of that classic when I was a kid…long before I would actually read it. That was spooky enough. Not a spider (though what Gregor Samsa becomes has been a topic of great debate), but certainly one great influence on our never ending changelings in the comic world.
The first real spider I found of note was Spider Widow, a super hero that debuted in 1942 (Quality Comics, Feature Comics #57), decades before Peter Parker was even a pimple faced teenager! Was the Spider Widow a hideous maltransformed beast? Well, not quite. She was a beautiful woman, but she did herself up like an old hag of a Halloween witch, and even though she was a hero, her intent was to spook. Think of the Green Goblin meets the Wicked Witch. Oh and by the way, her power? How about the ability to control Black Widow spiders! Now if I was a kid in 1942, that would scare the bejangles out of me! I wouldn’t have worn her Underroos!
I won’t bore you with the complete list of spider-like characters throughout the history of comics here. You can look them up yourself. You can find a villain like the Tarantula, or a hero by the same name. Possibly, you could even find a Tarantula who may have indeed raped young Nightwing!!! You can find Marvel’s Spider-Girl, daughter of Mr. Parker, or you can go to D.C and find their very own Spider-Girl with the long flowing, super powered hair. And of course you can find my personal favorite of the multitude of spider corps: Black Widow. Nuff said.
So why the spider? Why not something else? Why are we going to come face to face with some type of arachnid sooner or later if we regularly read comics? Maybe it is just me; maybe the Roswell sun has just gotten to me. I don’t know. You tell me.