REVIEW: ReelArt Studio’s The Spider: Master of Men Statue

A superhero decades ahead of his time...

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By day he is a handsome and dashing member of the idle rich. By night, however, he changes into a caped, black disguise designed specifically to instill terror in the criminal element. And in this alter ego, he wages a ruthless and brutal one-man war against the underworld. This underworld, we might add, is run largely by madmen with colorful names and outfits, who concoct insane plans for the destruction or subjugation of the city.

We speak here, of course, of Howard the Duck. Or no! No, we don’t. Nor in fact do we speak of Batman. Today our topic is Richard Wentworth, The Spider – a hero of the sorts of pulp adventures that predated, and laid the groundwork for, the modern superhero genre.

But the Spider, whose 118 (!) short novels were published in the ‘30s and early ‘40s – was not himself the originator of the costumed-vigilante concept. Others preceded even him, most famously the domino-masked Shadow. But the Spider novels brought two new things to the genre. One was a sense of emotional urgency; the Spider’s fight was a grim and lonely one, and the reader knew it. The other, for which the character is perhaps the more noted, is an aesthetic of really horrific violence. The Spider was a man who would gun down a fleeing thug, or strangle him to death with his own two hands – in the name of justice! Blood and viscera pour out of this vigilante’s victims. Even the ‘grim and gritty’ superheroes of the last two decades have nothing on this series of novels. The Punisher kills people; the Spider murders them. As a character, he not only helped establish the tropes of superherodom, but also presaged what the genre would one day become. This was a character decades ahead of his time.

And in the spring of 2008, ReelArt Studios released a statue of the Spider – certainly the least a character of such importance is due. And that statue is what we’ll be discussing here.

Now, when you first acquire a new Spider statue, the first thing you’re going to see is the box. And there are no windows in the box; you can’t see the statue. Which means you’ll want to take it out. You might want to save the packaging anyway, though, because it’s really remarkably excellent. There are the usual logos and pictures of the statue, of course, but there is also an excellent write-up of the Spider by author Martin Powell; and if this doesn’t provide enough information, the package also has some website URLs, for your Spider-studying pleasure. Finally, there’s an old pulp cover, showing our man Wentworth kicking a bad guy in the chin with both feet, as he swings from his own noose. It’s a fantastic indicator of just the kind of hard-core business the Spider means.

Open up the box, and, in amidst the packing material, you get five things. One of these is a certificate of authenticity, which is lovely, but really neither here nor there. Another is a statue of a well-dressed but headless man, .45 automatic in each hand. The third thing is a cape, which attaches to the statue, billowing out behind it. And the last two things are interchangeable, fedora-clad heads, one handsome and domino-masked, the other fanged and ugly. The Spider, you see, assumes his crimefighting (and, let’s face it, crime-perpetrating) persona with makeup, in the books, taking on the visage of a gruesome human monster. The covers of these books, however, rarely admitted this, instead depicting him in a more Shadow-esque fashion, as a standard pulp hero. And this statue, delightfully, allows for both versions.

Either way, it’s a very good sculpt. The pose, in particular, is a striking and kinetic one. His right-hand gun is aimed forward, with the left-hand one at the ready, off to the side; the action-ready spread of his legs, and the billowing of his cape, communicate that he is not at the firing range, but in the middle of a fight. You can see that his aimed gun has only just come up, or swung around. So kudos to that. And kudos also to the fine detailing of the piece; from the folds of the clothing to the spider-sigil on his ring, a lot of attention has been paid here, and it’s paid off nicely. It’s all in all good stuff, especially for what amounts mostly to a guy in a suit. But you’ll wish you looked this good in formal wear.

Most of this praise applies equally to the heads. In particular, these have a sort of rough, slightly angular, gentleman tough-guy quality that really captures the feel of the old pulp covers. Many people will probably prefer the masked head, over the made-up one; it has a more iconic, pulp feel. And the "scary" head really is only so by the standards of the early part of the 20th century, when women swooned in terror over Lon Chaney’s slightly ghoulish “Phantom of the Opera” makeup. (Of course, how likely is modern horror to hold up 70 years from now?) In the defense of the "scary" head, though, it is more appropriate to the narratives, and a certain appreciation for the "retro" is wholly appropriate to the Spider. This is a series, after all, in which women would stifle half-screams by putting the backs of their hands to their mouths.

The Spider: Master of Men statue retails for $150, in part because it’s big – nearly a foot high. It’s distributed by Dark Horse, which means it’s widely available where nerd paraphernalia is sold. Which in turn means that discounts can be found.

To fans of the Spider, or of old pulp heroes in general, this piece really ought to sell itself. It’s an awfully attractive and well-made sculpture; the inclusion of both versions of the head is an excellent touch, even if there are some problems with one of them. Frankly, it’s a good enough piece that it ought to appeal to anyone with any interest at all in 20th century adventure fiction. And if it thus gets more people into the original stories, so much the better – their importance to the evolution of the superheroes we all know and love can hardly be overstated, and they’re ripping yarns besides.

Review and Photos by Matthew Kessen

Review Sample Courtesy of Dark Horse

The Spider Statue Photo Gallery