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The Spider, Master of Men! #1
Two novels, originally published in January 1940 as "The Spider and the Pain Master" (by Emile C. Tepperman) and in February 1943 as "Secret City of Crime" (by Norvell Page) in the pulp monthly publication The Spider, Master of Men!
316 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1940
About the author
Grant Stockbridge
412 books9 followersPen Name asociated with the pulp hero The Spider.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 9, 2020
This is the first volume of the eight that Carroll & Graf published in the mid-1990s that each collected two complete Spider novels from the original pulp magazines into mass market paperback format. I think it's curious that they started with two novels from relatively late in the run; the Spider debuted in October of 1933 and ran for 118 issues, and the two here are from the January, 1940 and February, 1943 issues. The other odd thing about the choice is that Norvell W. Page wrote the vast majority of the stories, and is the writer by far most closely associated with the character, but these two aren't his originals. The Spider and the Pain Master was written by Emile Tepperman, and Secret City of Crime was Page's story heavily re-written by Robert Turner. In the former, a mad homicidal maniac known as the Red Feather blackmails people into murder, and in the latter a mastermind known as The Master (a very unoriginal criminal nom-de-guerre, eh?!) builds a training ground as a crime college so criminals can practice to become more efficiently evil. There's plenty of violence and gruesome grimness and murder and mayhem (Richard Wentworth could make The Shadow look like a light-weight, trust me), but I always preferred the pure, revved-up literary madness of Page.
January 25, 2018
Richard Wentworth, “The Spider”, Master of Men hits the reader with a double-whammy (as in, this has two novels) of violent and relentless vigilante justice. “The Spider” remained “The Shadow”'s more action-packed competitor who relies less on mysticism and more on bullets.
Stockbridge/Page's formatting remains in the same tight mold as before with Richard Wentworth taking on a brilliant and sadistic supervillain who terrorizes the city and abducts his friends, all the while just barely avoiding discovery and arrest by Commissioner Kirkpatrick. In fact, packaging these two highly similar adventures really points out the absolute iron-clad format that each of “The Spider”'s adventures adheres to.
“Secret City of Crime” has an organization called “Perfect Crimes Inc” working out of a skyscraper on Time's Square, hiding behind the front of a humanitarian philanthropist. This one was probably more fun for me as we learn early on that they literally have a secret city of crime in there, an indoor street full of shops to aid criminals known as “Easy Street”!
“The Pain Master” has a supervillain called The Red Feather blackmailing innocent people to crime with threats of torture of loved ones. Those who resist the villain are publicly gunned down with flamethrowers! He also has a troop of Hindu thugs (referred to many times as “little brown men”) who wear turbans and go armed with scimitars. Ram Singh gets irritated over these fellows and there seems to be a might of confusion over Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims.
Both adventures rely on sustained action in long and breathless setpieces in which Wentworth, The Spider, or another of his disguises, must outrun and outwit whole hordes of thugs and the ever encroaching police. It's fun and the repeating cycle of cornering the hero in “impossible” situations and having him just barely escape tends to work time and again.
Neither of these was the best entry in the series, but the fun was still there. I think my only real complaint is that the identity of the concealed villain is never too much of a mystery in these, it's more about the action.
Stockbridge/Page's formatting remains in the same tight mold as before with Richard Wentworth taking on a brilliant and sadistic supervillain who terrorizes the city and abducts his friends, all the while just barely avoiding discovery and arrest by Commissioner Kirkpatrick. In fact, packaging these two highly similar adventures really points out the absolute iron-clad format that each of “The Spider”'s adventures adheres to.
“Secret City of Crime” has an organization called “Perfect Crimes Inc” working out of a skyscraper on Time's Square, hiding behind the front of a humanitarian philanthropist. This one was probably more fun for me as we learn early on that they literally have a secret city of crime in there, an indoor street full of shops to aid criminals known as “Easy Street”!
“The Pain Master” has a supervillain called The Red Feather blackmailing innocent people to crime with threats of torture of loved ones. Those who resist the villain are publicly gunned down with flamethrowers! He also has a troop of Hindu thugs (referred to many times as “little brown men”) who wear turbans and go armed with scimitars. Ram Singh gets irritated over these fellows and there seems to be a might of confusion over Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims.
Both adventures rely on sustained action in long and breathless setpieces in which Wentworth, The Spider, or another of his disguises, must outrun and outwit whole hordes of thugs and the ever encroaching police. It's fun and the repeating cycle of cornering the hero in “impossible” situations and having him just barely escape tends to work time and again.
Neither of these was the best entry in the series, but the fun was still there. I think my only real complaint is that the identity of the concealed villain is never too much of a mystery in these, it's more about the action.
July 30, 2015
The Spider stories are basically cheap grindhouse knock-offs of the Shadow pulps; they cover the same notes as the source material, just poorly and with lots of blood.
While that usually means a good time, in this case the clunky writing falls a bit short of being enjoyable. The dialogue is horrible and the breathless asides about the Spider's prowess get tiresome. At one point the narration hilariosly informs us that our hero is NOT a killer, right in the middle of his beating some crooks to death.
The lack of plotting doesn't help salvage it from tedium. There is no build up, no investigation. The Spider just goes somewhere, punches these people in the throat, saves those people from death. He goes somewhere else and does the same thing. There's a criminal mastermind whose identity is half-heartedly played for mystery, but it's really hard to care.
One thing I will take away from these stories is probably the most comically stupid secret passage system I've ever seen in a criminal lair; hidden passages and elevators that open by someone hopping up and down a certain number of times on specific parts of the floors. Armed gunsels randomly jumping up and down your secret underground lair lowers its evil quotient significantly. It's barely a notch above hula-hoops and kazoos.
The Shadow does this kind of thing much better. It will be awhile before I visit more of these stories.
While that usually means a good time, in this case the clunky writing falls a bit short of being enjoyable. The dialogue is horrible and the breathless asides about the Spider's prowess get tiresome. At one point the narration hilariosly informs us that our hero is NOT a killer, right in the middle of his beating some crooks to death.
The lack of plotting doesn't help salvage it from tedium. There is no build up, no investigation. The Spider just goes somewhere, punches these people in the throat, saves those people from death. He goes somewhere else and does the same thing. There's a criminal mastermind whose identity is half-heartedly played for mystery, but it's really hard to care.
One thing I will take away from these stories is probably the most comically stupid secret passage system I've ever seen in a criminal lair; hidden passages and elevators that open by someone hopping up and down a certain number of times on specific parts of the floors. Armed gunsels randomly jumping up and down your secret underground lair lowers its evil quotient significantly. It's barely a notch above hula-hoops and kazoos.
The Shadow does this kind of thing much better. It will be awhile before I visit more of these stories.
June 4, 2015
Both adventures (Secret City of Pain & The Spider and the Pain Master) were exciting, filled with action, derring-do, and narrow escapes as the Spider (think The Shadow with more deadly violence and gruesomeness) combats master criminals in each story. The stories aren't as good as The Shadow's but still very enjoyable and fun. I liked the Secret City of Pain the best, but I highly recommend both for a bit of mindless escapism!
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November 25, 2016read secret city of crime some time in 1993
August 12, 2009
One by Page. The other not bad
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews