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The Spider, Master of Men! #38: City of Dreadful Night
8.5 x 11 inches soft cover trade paperback. A series designed to reprint all 119 of The SPIDER novels along with their digitally restored covers and the original interior illustrations from the pulp magazines of the 1930's-1940's. In a world of nightmares, you don't want a hero that shoots webs-you need a hero that shoots FIRST!
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First published January 1, 1936
About the author
Grant Stockbridge
412 books9 followersPen Name asociated with the pulp hero The Spider.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 24, 2021
City of Dreadful Night was the Spider novel published in the November, 1936 issue of the pulp magazine, the 38th of the 118 adventures. It is also the third episode of the four that comprise the Pharaoh arc, a nefarious master villain and mass-murderer named Tang-Akhmut who Richard Wentworth, the Spider, has to stop from his presumed plan to conquer the world. In the first story, The Coming of the Terror, the Pharaoh is introduced and Wentworth and Police Commissioner Kirkpatrick manage to stop him but they're framed for murder, Kirkpatrick loses his position, and the Spider is wanted by the police. In the second, The Devil's Death Dwarfs, the Pharaoh escapes from jail, sets his malignant minions loose on Cincinnati, Ohio (?!) and they kill 10,000 or so citizens before Wentworth leads the survivors to safety on horseback (again, ?!). These first two stories were written by Norvell W. Page, who wrote the majority of the Spider novels, but the next eight months' stories were written by Emile Tepperman before Page returned with the July, 1937 issue. I wonder why they switched authors, particularly in the middle of a connected arc? Tepperman wasn't a bad pulp writer, but Page's grasp of the character unmatachable; he wrote the Spider with a frenzied, angry style that was utterly unique. In this one, Wentworth flies back from Cincinnati to a hidden landing field, his assistant Ram Singh and his fiance Nita Van Sloan are kidnapped and tortured to try to keep him in line, and he teams up with the a Chinese criminal overlord to oppose the Pharaoh. It's a rather racist story in tone, and Tepperman seems to confuse the Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese cultures and dismiss them all as a menace. I did notice that one of Tang-Akhmut's disguises is an influential radio personality, perhaps an homage to The Shadow; also, two of the characters are Darwin Grant (interim police chief) and his daughter (damsel in distress), Marcia Grant, perhaps a nod to Shadow author Maxwell Grant. And I found it amusing that one of the main Chinese criminals was named Wang Chung-- I kept humming Everybody Have Fun Tonight during the apocalyptic final scene. Ram Singh and Nita are rescued, of course, and Wentworth is victorious, though Tang-Akhmut escapes in time to prepare for his fourth and final reign of terror in next month's issue. It's an unusual story with a few bright spots, and I can't help but wonder what differences might have been in it had Page been the author.
November 27, 2019
THE SPIDER 38 - NOVEMBER 1938
CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT, or INTO THE ULTRAVIOLET
The Spider is a blatant ripoff of the Shadow. I don't think anyone has tried denying it. Both are wealthy psychos, much like the modern-day Batman. The Shadow was a wealthy psycho with a rich and varied background (starting with Kent Allard and extending thru many aliases, the best known being Lamont Cranston). The Spider is a one-note psycho. Think Steve Martin vs Andrew Dice Clay or Howie Mandel or Pauly Shore.
The Shadow also had a better writer. Walter Gibson was awful but he had interesting ideas. At times Theodore Tinsley took over and the series improved a thousandfold. Emile C Tepperman wrote this Spider book. Tepperman can write good stories; his Spider tales though are awful. Where most pulp fictioneers write purple prose Tepperman extends it to ultraviolet. He belongs to that Henry James school of writing where a character takes three paragraphs to get up and open a door. Every thing in it is dragged out. Chapter One has Wentworth, Spider's alter ego, attacked with a garrotte. This takes up almost three pages as Tepperman describes the agonies Wentworth undergoes. The Shadow or Doc Savage would have yanked the guy off their backs and tossed him to the floor. Spider spends three pages suffering before doing anything.
Spider also clenches his jaw a lot. So much in fact it's a wonder he can chew his food. Maybe he can't and that's what makes him so angry.
There's no real story here. Just a series of encounters where Spider gets into a jam and takes several pages to work his way out only for the next jam to happen.
He's not terribly bright. At one point he calls his girlfriend on the phone and after a few minutes conversation says, 'I'm switching to Esperanto--in case your wire is tapped.' If that was his concern why not talk Esperanto from the get-go? Never once did Doc Savage say, 'Okay guys, let's talk Mayan so no one understands us.' He had enough sense not to advertise the fact.
One thing can be said for the Spider though: he's the most ruthless killing machine ever. I lost count of the bodies he piled up. Whenever that happens there must be a lot of them.
Like I said, Tepperman could write better than this so I must assume it was his editor who demanded he crank it out this way. Maybe he's the one who needs his head examined. That or the readers who bought his adventures and kept him going.
CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT, or INTO THE ULTRAVIOLET
The Spider is a blatant ripoff of the Shadow. I don't think anyone has tried denying it. Both are wealthy psychos, much like the modern-day Batman. The Shadow was a wealthy psycho with a rich and varied background (starting with Kent Allard and extending thru many aliases, the best known being Lamont Cranston). The Spider is a one-note psycho. Think Steve Martin vs Andrew Dice Clay or Howie Mandel or Pauly Shore.
The Shadow also had a better writer. Walter Gibson was awful but he had interesting ideas. At times Theodore Tinsley took over and the series improved a thousandfold. Emile C Tepperman wrote this Spider book. Tepperman can write good stories; his Spider tales though are awful. Where most pulp fictioneers write purple prose Tepperman extends it to ultraviolet. He belongs to that Henry James school of writing where a character takes three paragraphs to get up and open a door. Every thing in it is dragged out. Chapter One has Wentworth, Spider's alter ego, attacked with a garrotte. This takes up almost three pages as Tepperman describes the agonies Wentworth undergoes. The Shadow or Doc Savage would have yanked the guy off their backs and tossed him to the floor. Spider spends three pages suffering before doing anything.
Spider also clenches his jaw a lot. So much in fact it's a wonder he can chew his food. Maybe he can't and that's what makes him so angry.
There's no real story here. Just a series of encounters where Spider gets into a jam and takes several pages to work his way out only for the next jam to happen.
He's not terribly bright. At one point he calls his girlfriend on the phone and after a few minutes conversation says, 'I'm switching to Esperanto--in case your wire is tapped.' If that was his concern why not talk Esperanto from the get-go? Never once did Doc Savage say, 'Okay guys, let's talk Mayan so no one understands us.' He had enough sense not to advertise the fact.
One thing can be said for the Spider though: he's the most ruthless killing machine ever. I lost count of the bodies he piled up. Whenever that happens there must be a lot of them.
Like I said, Tepperman could write better than this so I must assume it was his editor who demanded he crank it out this way. Maybe he's the one who needs his head examined. That or the readers who bought his adventures and kept him going.
February 9, 2017
Pulp hero the Spider battles his arch nemesis the Living Pharoah once again.
May 3, 2016
read SOMETIME in 2002
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews