Spyder

From Barbelith

Profile

Very good Spider I & II bio (http://members.tripod.com/originalvigilante/spider.htm).

As his predecessor Tom Ludlow Hallaway was known also as 'Alias, Spider', so the current incarnation is also known as 'I, Spyder'. Based on comments about his "tunic", it would seem that I, Spyder is the son of the first Spider, and the brother of the second.

The Spider now serves as this soldier's totemic beast (as it has done for the lead since J. Michael Stracynszki's first work on Marvel's Amazing Spider-Man) after his 'upgrade' at the hands of the Seven Unknown Men -- a scene reminiscent both of Outer Church initiation in The Invisibles and the continuity-updates of the yellow aliens in Grant Morrison's first American comics' work, Animal Man. Given the scenario of character overhaul, one could say this was a 'live' example of what's known in the fanboy vernacular as 'Ultimatising'.

Of note, from the bio:

Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #9 depicted "The Final Hour for The Seven Soldiers
of Victory", which retold their final case together. The Spider called the 
Soldiers together and gave them instructions for construction of a "Nebula 
Rod", as he said he had learned that their old enemy, The Hand, was in the 
process of "creating a living entity of cosmic energy ... a being whose 
touch has the power of twenty atomic bombs". The Hand was going to release 
the creature in St. Louis, and The Spider passed out, though not before 
sabotaging the Nebula Rod unseen. The Soldiers went off to stop the Hand, 
with Wing staying behind at The Crimson Avenger's insistence.

Not long after they left, Billy Gunn (the Vigilante's mentor) barged into
the SSOV headquarters. He had been checking on some of the Vigilante's 
growing suspicions and had discovered that The Spider was in fact working 
WITH the Hand. Billy was slain by one of the Spider's arrows, but the 
underhanded "hero" was quickly rendered unconscious by Wing, who found the
missing part of the Nebula Rod and headed off to help the Seven Soldiers. 
Wing arrived just as the Crimson Avenger tried to use the Rod on the giant
Nebula Man, which resulted in the group and the monster being teleported to
the Himalayas. Wing repaired the Rod and attacked the Nebula Man with it,
defeating the creature at the cost of his own life. The Seven Soldiers of
Victory were thrown into the distant past in the resulting storm of cosmic
energy, where they would remain decades of our time, until the timely 
intervention of the Justice League and the Justice Society (as originally
depicted in Justice League of America #100-102).

Evidently the Nebula Man, too, has a precursor.

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