Once upon a time there was a trio of pulp stories known as The Black Police Trilogy that featured The Spider. A little while ago, publisher Age of Aces collected it up and released it in book form for the first time and thanks to them, this absolute gem of a story can now delight the readers of today much like it did when originally serialized. Written by Norvell Page, they call it his great Nazi allegory and indeed it is as it mirrors in many ways what went on in Germany with the rise of Hitler and the persecution of what were determined to be the underclasses. Here our villain is named The Master, simple yet effective and he manages to take over the entirety of New York State through legal means, bringing his Party of Justice into office and power and subjugating all those who live within its borders.

The Spider is that kind of classic pulp hero who much like The Shadow, saw injustice and knew that he had to do something about it. Donning a green cloak, prosthetics and makeup, Richard Wentworth would become The Spider and take on the criminal underworld one night at a time. In this book The Spider goes from being a hero in the shadows to becoming a leader and bringing a full-scale revolution against The Master and his Black Police. Through police station raids to gain medical supplies and weapons, freeing prisoners from concentration camps and trying to deduce The Master’s location so that he might send him to his final resting place, The Spider becomes more than he ever thought he would in dealing with an evil that he never thought would make its way to the shores of America. With the help of Ram Singh, Nita Van Sloan, Stanley Kirkpatrick and many more all fighting for freedom, how could Richard Wentworth fail?

Norvell Page packs this book full of action. It is almost non-stop from the very beginning until the last page of the book and it feels as if no time has passed at all when making your way through it. At first the writing felt a little awkward as his style is somewhat different and you must remember that this was never written with it being a book in mind, instead fashioned for magazines and to be devoured in much shorter chapters. Once you get used to the style, with no wasted words or dialogue, the book really flows and it does so with an unrelenting pace that draws you in and refuses to let go. The great thing about the book is that it never feels dated. There are no references to the cost of things, like a loaf of bread for a nickel and very few to the events of the time, if any. There is even little to no use of the slang of the day and thus the story could just as easily take place today as it could back in the 1930s.

There have always been heroes, whether of the pulp variety or not. The Shadow, the Black Bat, the Green Lama, even the Lone Ranger and all of them have heeded a calling that would see them deliver justice upon those that need it. More often than not with these pulp heroes the way they dealt with criminals had an air of finality and that is what set them apart from their four-colour counterparts. Some might have looked upon The Spider as just a Shadow analogue and truth be told, he was. Yet, after reading this book by Norvell Page, you will never look at The Spider in the same way again and that is a good thing.