The Spider vs. Trump: 1938

 

The Spider: The City That Paid to Die! (The Black Police Trilogy Part One) (1938): written by Norvell Page writing as Grant Stockbridge, in The Spider Vs. The Empire State: The Black Police Trilogy (2009):: Pulp-action-hero The Spider's crime-fighting disguise was so bizarre that it was only depicted on two of the covers of his 1930's and 1940's magazine. Basically, he dressed up to look like a hideous vampire. Most of the time, the cover artists depicted him as a generic masked crime-fighter, similar to The Phantom and a legion of others.

The Spider's adventures were no worse than the second-most apocalyptic pulp-hero sagas in history (Operator 5 may have been moreso, but it was set in a vague near-future America under siege by a host of foreign powers both real and imagined, which is to say both the Japanese military and The Purple Emperor laid waste to North America). The death toll was often in the millions, with New York often being depopulated in every issue by building-destroying death rays, plague-carrying vampire bats, and endless armies of criminals, madmen, and enemy fifth-columnists.

The City That Paid to Die! is the first part of what's now known as the Black Police Trilogy. In this first novel, fascist criminal forces basically trick New York's population into voting for their political proxies. That done, the forces of evil -- led by a mysterious Master -- enact legislation that allows them to terrorize and enslave the population of New York State. Even the federal government is helpless, we're told, because everything is legal and above-board!

Enter Richard Wentworth, The Spider, unmasked and forced to fight with his secret identity in shreds, his property and weapons seized, his friends and allies in perpetual mortal danger. But his ties to the benevolent inhabitants of Chinatown allow him to escape New York City just ahead of the forces of The Black Police (their uniform colours, not a racial bit, by the way).

In the wilderness of upstate New York, the Spider must build an army from those he's rescued from the murderous clutches of the New New York Order. But the Black Police number 100,000 or more dangerous criminals made legal by the machinations of their Master. Can the Spider prevail? Can he even survive? Two more novels tell the story. Recommended.

The Spider: The Spider At Bay (The Black Police Trilogy Part Two) (1938) by Norvell Page writing as Grant Stockbridge, in The Spider Vs. The Empire State: The Black Police Trilogy (2009): Richard Wentworth's battle against American fascism continues in the second part of what became known as The Black Police Trilogy.

While Wentworth normally fought weird crime as the pulo hero The Spider, here he repeatedly 'pretends' to be The Spider in order to rally the Resistance around him. That almost seems meta!

Things are really bad for freedom and justice in what's basically The Empire Strikes Back of the Black Police Trilogy. New York State is even more under the thumb of an evil mastermind known only as The Master. 

The Master's puppet government, democratically elected with a spineless figurehead as governor, is free to murder and pillage the resources of the state because, um, State's Rights are really solid and binding in the world of The Spider. Even an unnamed FDR can't help! The Master's minions can even call in the National Guard to fight the Resistance!

As the second book in a trilogy, The Spider At Bay mainly exists to make things worse for The Spider and his ragtag group of helpers. This is very much New Deal pulp heroics, with our heroes battling a government that hates the poor and the working class and thrives on villainy. You know, like Trump! By the end, things look bad. Very bad. Is this the end of The Spider, err, Richard Wentworth? Recommended.

The Spider: Scourge Of the Black Legions (The Black Police Trilogy Part Three) (1938) by Norvell Page writing as Grant Stockbridge, in The Spider Vs. The Empire State: The Black Police Trilogy (2009): With the duly elected forces of villainy in New York State holding all the cards, Richard Wentworth/ The Spider must mount one last mission to save the state from The Master!

The Spider takes more physical punishment than any other pulp hero of the 1930's and 1940's. The Shadow, the Avenger, and Doc Savage were generally very little bloodied in the course of their adventures. That was the job of their subordinates -- to get knocked out and beaten up. 

The Spider is basically a cross between Ash from Evil Dead 2 and Leonardo DiCaprio's titular character in The Revenant. He gets shot, shot again, beaten, stabbed... really, he's Wolverine without the mutant healing factor. It's sort of exhilarating to read the adventures of a pulp hero whose main quality is perseverance. Well, and a love of heating up the spider insignia on his ring with a cigarette lighter so he can brand captured criminals on the forehead with the Sign of the Spider!

So many questions...

• Will The Spider stop The Master? 
• Will the federal government get off its ass and do something? 
• Will we learn the true identity of The Master and perhaps feel a bit underwhelmed at the revelation? 
• Will a Bad Twin become a Good Twin because of the love of a good woman? 
• Will completely insane death traps like a giant wood-chipper made to chip up humans be put into play? 
• Will The Spider save the dam in Pennsylvania from being blown up by the Master as a way to divert federal attention away from New York State? 
• Will anyone realize that The Spider and Richard Wentworth really are the same person? 

So many questions... answered in The Scourge of the Black Legions! Highly recommended.

The Spider: The City That Paid to Die!

The Spider: The City That Paid to Die! (The Black Police Trilogy Volume 1): written by Norvell Page under the pseudonym Grant Stockbridge (1938): Pulp-action-hero The Spider's crime-fighting disguise was so bizarre that it was only depicted on two of the covers of his 1930's and 1940's magazine. Basically, he dressed up to look like a hideous vampire. Most of the time, the cover artists depicted him as a generic masked crime-fighter, similar to The Phantom and a legion of others.

The Spider's adventures were no worse than the second-most apocalyptic pulp-hero sagas in history (Operator 5 may have been moreso, but it was set in a vague near-future America under siege by a host of foreign powers both real and imagined, which is to say both the Japanese military and The Purple Emperor laid waste to North America). The death toll was often in the millions, with New York often being depopulated in every issue by building-destroying death rays, plague-carrying vampire bats, and endless armies of criminals, madmen, and enemy fifth-columnists.

The City That Paid to Die! is the first part of what's now known as the Black Police Trilogy. In this first novel, fascist criminal forces basically trick New York's population into voting for their political proxies. That done, the forces of evil -- led by a mysterious Master -- enact legislation that allows them to terrorize and enslave the population of New York State. Even the federal government is helpless, we're told, because everything is legal and above-board!

Enter Richard Wentworth, The Spider, unmasked and forced to fight with his secret identity in shreds, his property and weapons seized, his friends and allies in perpetual mortal danger. But his ties to the benevolent inhabitants of Chinatown allow him to escape New York City just ahead of the forces of The Black Police (their uniform colours, not a racial bit, by the way).

In the wilderness of upstate New York, the Spider must build an army from those he's rescued from the murderous clutches of the New New York Order. But the Black Police number 100,000 or more dangerous criminals made legal by the machinations of their Master. Can the Spider prevail? Can he even survive? Two more novels tell the story. Recommended.

Starship Troopers (1997)

Starship Troopers: adapted by Ed Neumeier from the novel by Robert Heinlein; directed by Paul Verhoeven; starring Casper Van Dien (Johnny Rico), Dina Meyer (Dizzy Flores), Denise Richards (Carmen Ibanez), Jake Busey (Ace Levy), Neil Patrick Harris (Carl Jenkins), Clancy Brown (Zim) and Michael Ironside (Rasczak) (1997): 

Like Neumeier and Verhoeven's Robocop, Starship Troopers bites the hand that feeds it: it's a corrosive satire of action movies disguised as an action movie. That it took a beloved novel by a beloved sf author (Robert Heinlein) and turned it into such a satire antagonized some of its intended audience. So it goes. 16 years after its release, it's more relevant than ever as both a critique of action blockbusters and as a critique of American society.

Because here's the toxic brilliance of Starship Troopers: it asks you to cheer for the Nazis. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof, an Earth Federation with military uniforms closely modelled on those of the Third Reich, a Federation established by a military coup where only people who've served in the military are full citizens with voting rights. An Earth Federation at war with an alien race dubbed 'The Bugs.' 'Vermin,' 'bugs,' and 'insects' were all standard racial epithets directed at Jewish people by anti-Semites of the early 20th century. Would you like to know more?

So Earth faces an enemy about which its citizens can righteously cry, "Kill them all!" without guilt. Because who likes bugs, especially giant ones? Did the bugs really manage to hit Earth with an asteroid to provoke all-out war, given that the galactic map we're shown puts the bug home-world on the other side of the galaxy? And given that every bug-occupied world we're shown is a desert wasteland, why is humanity in competition with them for living room?

Because, as Internet wags have noted, the plot of this version of Starship Troopers bears a marked resemblance to the dark fantasies of 9/11 Truthers. A devastating strike on civilians. A sudden ram-up to war. An inhuman enemy. Endless propaganda. War without end.

It's downright creepy. Verhoeven endured a childhood under the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, and a fascination with repulsive levels of violence and the fascist authorities that love such violence has informed much of his work. This is a satire of a fascist society addicted to violence and spectacle. And much of the spectacle of the movie's visual effects still delivers -- the bugs look terrific and unearthly, and remain one of the great CGI triumphs of the 25 years or so of CGI effects.

Does an audience's love of on-screen violence and spectacle, and of heroic, larger-than-life characters, spring in part from the fascist within? The on-going onslaught of lavish, apocalyptic superhero movies suggests an infatuation with violence as a solution to all problems, and a waning belief in the ability of puny humans to solve problems. Better to let the engorged, armored, superheroic penises solve everything. Normal isn't exciting enough. Highly recommended.