Post by Susan Hillwig on May 15, 2008 19:55:41 GMT -5
Name: The Spider
Secret Identity: Thomas Hallaway
Status: Hero
Base of Operations: New York City
Group Affiliation: Law’s Legionnaires AKA Seven Soldiers of Victory
Occupation: Philanthropist/Crimefighter
Known Relatives: None
Height: 6’1” Weight: 195lbs.
Eyes: Brown Hair: Black
Powers and Abilities: A moderate hand-to-hand fighter, the Spider’s greatest strength is his keen marksmanship with a bow and arrow. He relies mostly on standard arrowheads, though he has been known to sometimes employ special arrows (grappling-line arrows, concussive-head “stinger” arrows, etc.) depending on the situation.
History: Like many other people during the Great Depression, Tom Hallaway’s family left their home to travel cross-country, hoping to find work elsewhere. They eventually settled on the West Coast and flourished in a time when some people couldn’t even afford basic necessities. Tom himself took full advantage of his family’s newfound wealth, pursuing a leisurely lifestyle and indulging his interests in recreational sports, especially archery. In 1941, however, he made a nostalgic trip back to his old New York neighborhood, and found that the memories he had of the place were no longer true-to-life. Crime and corruption had eaten away at the streets he’d grown up on, and the police cared little about it, so long as they got paid off by the gangsters in charge. Disgusted by the whole situation, Tom began to pour his own money into bettering the neighborhood, only to be confronted by a group of thugs who preferred that the money go into their pockets instead. It was then that Tom realized how blind he’d been in thinking that his wealth could solve any problem -- if he really wanted to get rid of the corruption, he’d have to get his hands dirty and cut it off at the source. Donning dark clothes and strapping a quiver to his back, Tom tracked down one of the top crime bosses in the area and confronted him in his own home, telling him to close up shop or face the consequences. “You and your kind are nothing but insects,” Tom said to him, “and I’m the spider that’s going to catch you all and swallow you whole.” After that, every assault on the underworld Tom made was attributed to the Spider.
A few months later, while tracking down the source of a new drug hitting the streets of New York, the Spider joined up with six other heroes to take down a secret organization called the Iron Hand. With the shadow of World War II looming over the United States, they later decided they could serve their country best as a team instead of individually, and formally banded together as the Law's Legionnaires (see The Seven Soldiers of Victory), defending their home soil as many of the more powerful heroes went overseas to fight the Axis powers. Despite his newfound allegiance, however, Tom still preferred to work alone when it came to defending his old neighborhood, and while he would respond to a call for help from his fellow Soldiers, he rarely asked them for help in return -- that one-sided relationship kept him on the fringes of the group throughout its history. Then in 1948, the Spider mysteriously disappeared while on a mission with the Law's Legionnaires. The circumstances of his disappearance, as well as the fates of the rest of the Soldiers, remains a mystery to this day.