Black Spider

The original Black Spider was from a period in DC Comics history when the company was obviously trying to be more sensitive to what was happening in society. Featured in Detective Comics No's 463 and 464 in September and October 1976, the Black Spider is a masked vigilante who is killing drug dealers. While Batman doesn't like the drug dealers either, he's much more comfortable bringing them in so the law can dispose of them and does not approve of the harder edged new guy in town. Turns out Black Spider was a black man who had been a junkie and while in search of money to feed his habit he shot and killed a store clerk who turned out to be his own father. That was when he cleaned up his act, and swore a vendetta against the drug dealers of Gotham. During the story Batman even consults with a street walker named Maria, who reminded me of a cigarette smoking Lana Lang - now how sensitive is that?! Anyway, there's the final confrontation between Batman and Black Spider at the end with the latter falling off a train he was about to bomb and dying (by himself) in the explosion. I believe the Black Spider persona has been used a few more times by DC Comics for various characters, especially in the various cartoon series. I used a Toy Biz Spider-Man figure (what else would I use??), which I repainted to represent Black Spider.