Grant Stockbridge

Over New York had swept the Master's dread Black Police-wiping out the last organized resistance to their ruthless Underworld rule of the Empire State Only Richard Wentworth, his forces scattered, could hope to succeed where thousands had failed-and, attired in the Spider's somber garb, strike one last desperate blow at the master-murderer who had sacked a state to make a fortune out of dead men's bones

Deeper and deeper New York had sunk in the grip of the Underworld monarch-until the law was licked at last But in that moment of desperation, Richard Wentworth, as the Spider, resolved to fight the underworld with its own savage weapons. With New York's own police commissioner at his side, the Spider raised a fighting legion of honest men sworn to take the law into their own hands

Overnight, a bizarre crime wave had gripped New York, turning America's First Families into criminals who, for savage lawlessness, outdid the Underworld Society's Four Hundred had now become a ghastly, blood-thirsting set of thieves and murderers. Embezzlements and bank frauds had terrorized Manhattan and pauperized a helpless people. In this topsy-turvy world of terror, Richard Wentworth, as the Spider, set out to save a betrayed civilization-from a mystic Hindu crime-czar who had mastered the magic necessary to turn New York's moneyed class into inhuman monsters

"Your souls are mine-when I speak, you will obey " From the bowels of the shaking earth itself rose the satanic ultimatum that threatened to send America's greatest city up in flames For the hordes of Hades, ruled by a devilish dictator, had turned New York into an Underground Kingdom of Crime, and helpless thousands died, strangling, when Hell's emperor loosed his slaying devil-dust Reeking of sulphur and brimstone, it floated over Manhattan, leaving death in its wake. Only one man-Richard Wentworth, as the Spider-could hope to battle this Mephistopheles of Murder-who had blasted a city and whose satanic laughter was the signal that loosed the kill-maddened Legions of Lucifer

Never again would the Spider wage battle against crime-this Richard Wentworth had sworn to himself as he found sanctuary in a quiet rural retreat to nurse back to health the woman he loved. Yet, into that peaceful spot swept a whirlwind of horrible butchery like none he had ever seen-New York's sewers pouring out the Underworld's rabid hordes to engulf the countryside in a tidal wave of racketeer ruin Whole towns were given their choice of paying blood money to a legion of maddened looters or being wiped out, and it was then that Richard Wentworth knew the Spider must rise again-to rid America of a criminal menace that struck at the very core of its existence, and overthrow an evil empire that men and women and children might still walk free and unafraid

Sinisterly beckoning, the long bony finger signaled Manhattan to its mass death-slaying hundreds of helpless victims who dared sink into a sleep from which there could be no awakening this side of hell While the Underworld's lawless hordes looted, only Richard Wentworth, as the Spider, dared fight, die and fight again for a fear-crazed people against a murder-Morpheus whose human quarry drowsed into death-and whose grim weapon was a Slaying Sandman sworn to turn New York into a Slumberland of Slaughter

No criminal dared testify against another, while the Whisper was crime-emperor of New York-and the forces of the law were powerless against the ravages of the Underworld For when the Whisper's eerie warning fell over Manhattan men died, slashed to bloody bits by a weapon that was invisible but killed horribly In that awe-struck city of riotous crime, where a murmuring voice brought instantaneous death, Richard Wentworth, in the Spider's strange garb, took up a doomed people's cause-fighting a Whispering Fury that loosed its thunderbolts in a tornado's teeth and slew foully to pile up a fortune in streamlined corpses

Down from the bleak Kentucky hills swept the stark-naked mob of murder-maddened Blancos-sacking and slaying as they came Neither steel nor bullet could stem that terror-tide of man-made albino monsters, whipped to a frenzy of lust by their criminal chief. Eastward they crept until New York, itself, was at their mercy, and human victims, bloodied and outraged, lay in their path. Once again Richard Wentworth, in the Spider's disguise of doom, fought alone to wipe out crime's crowning horror and save mankind from death

Over New York's Finest-the police organization without equal in the world-fell the blight of lunacy, sweeping on like wildfire until it had turned Manhattan into a chill, whimpering madhouse and released the helpless city's wealth to a wild carnival of crooks and vandals What was that incredible, unseen force which, in a split-second, could transform sane men into drooling maniacs? No human being could stand against that Mask of Madness, and yet Richard Wentworth, in the Spider's strange vestments, took up the fight-to strike blow for blow against the merciless emperor of idiocy who had captured a metropolis by addling its brains

Like an eerie devil-dawn, that green death-ray spread its lethal shadow over New York-burning to smoking crisps the helpless hundreds who dared its path. For the Eye of Flame had loosed his fire-fiends upon America's proudest city, and, as prisons poured forth their criminals, and the underworld came into its terrible own, no man could hope to combat that ray of death. Single-handed, Richard Wentworth, in the Spider's gruesome garb, dared the Flame-fighting for an entire people's safety against a monster who had learned to make millions out of human misery and the charred cinders that had once been men

Over Manhattan's dizzy towers fell that insidious, invisible menace-an unseen cloud of death that first transformed the entire metropolis into a laughing, drunken riot and then blasted it to bits Who was the evil Master of these Flame Men, who had found a real way to amass millions by gutting New York with fire? In defense of those reeling, giggling victims, trapped in their awesome death-spree, Richard Wentworth, in the Spider's weird robes, rose from the charred embers-to fight his greatest battle against an arson assassin no one had ever seen-for a doomed people so blind-drunk they could not see

Before the horrified eyes of the Senate's jammed galleries, that revered Senator died by his own hand. And Richard Wentworth, who had reached Washington in response to the newspaper agony column's personal, "In the name of democratic humanity, come to Washington before September 9..." knew that this marked only the beginning of a yogi-ridden dictator's reign. Behind that welter of machine guns and storm troops moved the Cobra, striking at the nation's very chief-and the Spider was face to face with the strangest battle ever fought by man

Before the horrified eyes of the Senate's jammed galleries, that revered Senator died by his own hand. And Richard Wentworth, who had reached Washington in response to the newspaper agony column's personal, "In the name of democratic humanity, come to Washington before September 9..." knew that this marked only the beginning of a yogi-ridden dictator's reign. Behind that welter of machine guns and storm troops moved the Cobra, striking at the nation's very chief-and the Spider was face to face with the strangest battle ever fought by man

Ruthless, invulnerable, that Scarred Hand reached out to destroy the entire law machine of New York-blasting into merciless oblivion those juries which dared convict even a single criminal. In that twilight of terror, when empty cells yawned for the felons who never arrived, and helpless Justice hid her bloodied head-no one but Richard Wentworth could combat this invisible Juggernaut which had paralyzed five mighty boroughs. Once more, in the Spider's weird vestments, Wentworth sets out-this time to annihilate a brain so evil that it is encased in two heads

A blood-red mailed fist crashed into the shadowy dens of New York's underworld, dangling the promise of vast loot for alliance, and a threat of stark horror for betrayal. The answer came swiftly in an orgy of killing and rapine-the Red Hand ruled all crimeland Richard Wentworth, hastening to set the Spider's might against the new terror, was trapped in a murder net with Nita van Sloan, branded a policeman's slayer in the Red Hand's grip Only the Spider could hope to win through this criminal army to the devil-brain behind that fist. And the Spider must battle alone, against time-and a foe who coldly put a price on wholesale, ruthless slaughter

By what strange twist of Fate did the fearful menace which was to shadow every man and woman in New York City first rear its venomous head in the distant Caribbean? When terror suddenly boarded a little tramp steamer and left crimson havoc littering its narrow decks a spluttering wireless flashed the doom of every living thing aboard. Within a week, the same ghastly fate struck a gigantic new ocean liner, its luxurious cabins occupied by the elite and powerful of a dozen different nations Death-swift and terrible-rode the ocean lanes. And the Spider-taken for once off guard-was supposedly dying in a hospital room on the very day when that terror from the seas first showed itself in all its terror above the city skyline. How can the Spider, fighting death himself, help the nation he loves in her hour of greatest need?

Fear stalked the corridors and offices on Capitol Hill, for it was from the ranks of the mighty-the rulers and lawmakers of America-that the Silver Assassins sought their victims Singly, in pairs and in numbered groups they died, laying down their lives for their country-while panic spread, and the Spider, alone aware of the terrific catastrophe which impended, fought through black, bodiless shadows to reach and destroy the menace which festered underground