Spiders
Entry updated 21 September 2026. Tagged: Theme.
These arachnids are, along with Ants, the most common type of arthropod to regularly appear in sf stories and films. Most people are repulsed by spiders, which are sometimes poisonous, even though spiders are generally harmless and helpful to humans because they kill other insects. Nevertheless, the spiders of sf almost universally tend to be menacing, though a few are benign and friendly. There are several types of stories featuring spiders: stories about regular-sized spiders, sometimes with augmented powers, which can threaten humans of normal size and those who have shrunk in size (see Miniaturization); stories about vastly enlarged spiders (see Great and Small), which are especially popular in sf films and Comics; stories about people turning into spiders; stories involving spider gods; stories about Robot spiders, and vehicles resembling spiders; and stories about spider-like Aliens or Superheroes.
Stories about spiders of regular size include the third book of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726; rev 1735), wherein the Scientists of the flying city of Laputa are breeding spiders which produce colorful webs. Spiders emit a tranquillizing gas in Sage B Miles's "The Diamond Cargo" (December 1901-August 1902 Argosy). A bee-woman is attacked by a spider in Gaston Velle's short film Ruche Merveilleuse (1905; vt Wonderful Beehive). People exploring an Egyptian tomb encounter menacing "tomb-spiders" in Robert Spenser Carr's "Spider-Bite" (June 1926 Weird Tales). Dangerous spiders are found in William B Hickey's "The Cave of Spiders" (November 1928 Weird Tales), and in Anthony Rud's "The Place of Hairy Death" (February 1934 Weird Tales), aggressive white spiders are discovered in an abandoned gold mine. In Charles Henry MacKintosh's "Death in Twenty Minutes" (January 1935 Weird Tales), a poisonous spider is used as a weapon both by an Egyptologist and a mysterious being. In Raymond Z Gallun's "N'Goc" (May 1935 Astounding) and "Buried Moon" (February 1936 Astounding), a race of intelligent spiders once inhabited Earth's second moon, but it crashed into Earth; still, it remained intact and was home to some of the survivors. In Nat Schachner's "The Thought Web of Minipar" (November 1936 Astounding), one member of an advanced civilization of spiders on a distant planet mentally transfers his personality to a man on Earth.
Later, in Roger Dee's "The Man Who Had Spiders" (February 1956 Fantastic Universe), a man finds himself covered with spiders and enjoys the experience.
A quasi-pet spider in Charles Harness's The Ring of Ritornel (1968) serves the protagonist both as a defender (by attacking an enemy) and as a diagnostic: when fed with blood she spins a web whose pattern reveals which Drug has been administered to the donor. Herbert Rosendorfer's Der Ruinenbaumeister (1969; trans Mike Mitchell as The Architect of Ruins 1992) takes place in an Underground realm invaded by spiders. Spiders are one of the threatening animals in Frogs (1972), while dangerous tarantulas are also a problem in Kingdom of the Spiders (1977). In Brian Lumley's "The Man Who Saw No Spiders" (May 1978 Weirdbook #13), a man suddenly finds he cannot see, or remember, spiders. John Wyndham's Web (1979) is a story about spiders who have evolved on an island to become predatory. In Susan C Petrey's "Spidersong" (September 1980 F&SF), a spider inside a lute provides harmony for the player, but it misses the company of other spiders. In Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo (1977), tarantulas within bags of coffee beans escape and menace an American town. In Richard Lewis's The Spiders (1978), unusually aggressive spiders terrorize a small town. Fauna on the Alien world of John Brunner's The Crucible of Time (1983) include spider-analogues called spuders. In Hugh Scott's Why Weeps the Brogan? (1989), two children trapped in a museum in a Post-Holocaust society are menaced by spiders. A California town deals with an infestation of strange spiders in Arachnophobia (1990), and there are transformed spiders in Edward Packard's Choose Your Own Adventure book War with the Mutant Spider Ants (1994). In George Zebrowski's "A Piano Full of Dead Spiders" (March 2005 Amazing), spiders walking across piano strings produce the music that a composer takes credit for. People are attacked by dangerous spiders in Susan Gates's Invasion of the Vampire Spiders (2002).
"Web Weirdos" (2012), an episode of the animated series Adventure Time (2007; 2010-2018; 2020-2021), features a spider couple named Barb and Ed. In the series Fighting Spiders (2009-2010), three boys want to travel to Malaysia to catch the legendary Spider King; at one point, to raise money, they rent spiders to other people. In Mel Gilden's juvenile Secret of the Spider Hotel (2012), a boy staying at a hotel meets an alien who talks about a spider with amazing powers. Jason Pargin's This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It (2012) involves an invasion of spiders which are turning people into murderous Monsters. There are flying spiders in Doralynn Kennedy's Spiders (2013), and man-eating spiders invade Great Britain in Lex Sinclair's Killer Spiders (2013). Alexi Zentner's The Hatching (2016) is about the reemergence of ancient carnivorous spiders, especially dangerous since they have a Hive Mind. In Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time (2015) and its sequels, spiders taken from Earth to another world evolve to form an advanced society. In 7 Guardians of the Tomb (2018), people investigating a tomb are attacked by numerous spiders. Spiders invade an apartment building in Infested (2023), while the plot of Spiders on a Plane (2024) is rather obvious. In Spider Island (2026), venomous spiders threaten people at a resort, and in Ally Russell's Down Came the Spiders (2025), spiders attack a home and wrap people in spider webs. Spiders are also characters in numerous Videogames, including Tomb Raider II (1997), The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (1998), Donkey Kong 64 (1999), Metal Gear Solid III: Snake Eater (2004) (see Metal Gear), Super Mario Galaxy (2007), Resident Evil 5: Lost in Nightmares (2009) (see Resident Evil), and Minecraft (2011).
Aggressive spiders which are enlarged to the size of house pets appear in H G Wells's "The Valley of the Spiders" (March 1903 Pearson's Magazine), wherein they become a menace to explorers, and Sapper's "The Pipes of Death" (November 1921 Pearson's Magazine), about a man who trains spiders to kill. Horrors of Spider Island (1960) features both a dog-sized spider and a man turned into a spider. A spider large enough to attack a Cat threatens a family in Itsy Bitsy (2018), and in Spider in the Attic (2021), a scientist's experimental spiders have grown larger and more dangerous. Clowns battle against large spiders in Jeff Strand's Clowns vs. Spiders (2019).
Perhaps the earliest story about giant spiders is Erckmann-Chatrian's "The Spirit of Guyana" ("L'Araigneé crabe" in Les Contes Fantastiques, coll 1860; vt "The Crab Spider" October 1893 Romance Magazine US; January 1899 Strand Magazine), about a giant spider that lives in the waters of a spa. In Howard van Orden's A Trip to the Center of the Earth (March 17 1894 Five Cent Wide Awake Library), giant spiders are discovered underground. They are also found on Pike's Peak in Basil Tozer's "The Pioneers of Pike's Peak" (September 1897 Strand Magazine), and in Ernest G Henham's Tenebrae (1898), a man in a decrepit mansion is bothered by images of a giant spider. In "Noname"'s The Silent City; or Frank Reade, Jr.'s Visit to a Strange People with His New Electric "Flyer" (March 5 1897 Frank Reade Library), the young hero encounters and eliminates a place where giant spiders are growing. In Don Lemon's "The White Death" (July 1902 Black Cat), a giant white spider lurks in Mexico, and in Berg Bellair's "The Ultimate Inheritors" (August 1914 Adventure), giant, intelligent spiders emerge from a cave in California and attack people. Frank Powell's The Wolf-Men (1906) sends its heroes into a Hollow Earth where they discover giant spiders, Dinosaurs, and other strange creatures.
Other giant spiders found on Earth include the one in T S Stribling's "The Web of the Sun" (30 January 1922 Adventure), wherein a giant spider is worshipped by Peruvian natives, who feed it unwanted children; in Neil Miller's "The Hairy Monster" (October 1923 Weird Tales), a scientist grows a giant spider; in Rose Champion de Crespigny's "The Valley of Orchids" (February 1923 The London Magazine), explorers in Brazil are threatened by a giant spider; in Paul S Powers's "Monsters of the Pit" (June 1925 Weird Tales), a scientist has created a large carnivorous spider; and in Edmond Hamilton's "The Monster-God of Mamurth" (August 1926 Weird Tales), giant spiders in North Africa are Invisible. Friendly, intelligent giant spiders are encountered on an Island in Charles Loring Jackson's "An Undiscovered 'Isle in the Far Sea'" (in The Gold Point and Other Strange Stories coll 1926). In H Warner Munn's "The City of Spiders" (November 1926 Weird Tales), intelligent giant spiders once ruled the Earth, but there are only a few survivors in the present who are encountered by South American explorers. An ancient civilization of giant spiders that used humans as slaves is also reported in Marius's "The Sixth Glacier" (January-February 1929 Amazing Stories).
In S P Meek's "The Tragedy of Spider Island" (September 1930 Wonder Stories Quarterly), a Mad Scientist is breeding giant aggressive spiders. Giant carnivorous spiders are found in "The Canyon of the Spiders," an anonymously written ten-part serial in The Skipper (January 21 1931-March 25 1933). Scientists also create a giant spider in South Africa in Walter Rose's "The Lurking Death" (February 1936 Amazing) and in a remote place in Drury D Sharp's "The Day of the Beast" (May 1930 Science Wonder Stories). Giant spiders are discovered Under the Sea in an unknown author's "The World of Vapour" (March 10 1934 Scoops). In A C Stimson's "The Land of Mighty Insects" (April 1934 Wonder Stories), giant spiders and other enormous insects are found in Antarctica. Giant spiders inhabit an island in Eden Phillpotts's Tabletop (1939). In her comic book, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle battled giant spiders along with other adversaries. In Fritz Leiber's "Spider Mansion" (September 1942 Weird Tales), a dwarf creates a giant spider. Bill Finger's and Charles Nicholas's comic story "Scourge of the Spiderman" (Winter 1946 Blonde Phantom) has the heroine discovering that a man is creating giant spiders. An unknown author and Jim McLaughlin's comic story "The Haunts of Devil's Lake" (April 1952 Web of Mystery) includes a giant green spider menacing a woman. In Martin Smith's and Harry Harrison's comic story "The Web of Doom!" (July 1953 Beware) a man discovers an island inhabited by giant spiders.
In the Far Future, a nearby land is home to giant spiders in S Fowler Wright's Spiders' War (1954). In Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach (1961), the inhabitants of the peach are various giant insects and a giant spider. In André Caroff's La Sinistre Mme Atomos (1964) and Mme Atomos Sème la Terreur (1965), both trans Brian Stableford in The Terror of Madame Atomos (omni 2010), a mad scientist creates giant spiders to attack Texas. In John Norman's Tarnsman of Gor (1966), a giant spider assists the hero. Alien beings teleported to Earth in Philip E High's Blindfold from the Stars (1979) include a giant spider that lures humans into its web with illusory but tempting smells such a frying bacon. An enlarged spider briefly appears in Stephen King's Needful Things (1981). The giant spider in Nancy Etchmendy's "The Spider Beast" (in Bruce Coville's Book of Aliens II, anth 1996, ed Bruce Coville), unusually, is friendly. In Richard Ryan's Funnelweb (1997), giant funnelweb spiders invade Australia. In Tedd Anasti's and Patsy Cameron-Anasti's The Shards of the Oracle (2004), the first book in the Spider Riders series, warriors defend an underground kingdom by riding on giant spiders to combat their insect enemies; it became the basis of an Anime series (2006-2007). In Colin Wilson's Spider Worlds sequence, humans in the far future are ruled by giant spiders. In the series Woops! (1996), the few survivors of World War Three must face, among other threats, a giant spider. A carnivorous giant spider comes from under the sea in Piers Anthony's and Clifford A Pickover's Spider Legs (1998). In James S Murray's and Darren Wearmouth's Don't Move (2020), campers encounter a giant spider; the novel was filmed in 2026. Giant spiders are also common in Fantasies, the most famous being Shelob in J R R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955 3vols). A magically enlarged spider becomes the protagonist's ally in Piers Anthony's Xanth novel Castle Roogna (1979).
Giant spiders on other planets include those found on the planet Venus in three stories: Keith Bennett's The Rocketeers Have Shaggy Ears (Spring 1950 Planet Stories); 2021 ebook); an unknown author and Dan Barry's comic "Sandflowers of Venus" (September-October 1951 Weird Thrillers); and Basil Wolverton's comic "The Brain-Bats of Venus!" (September 1952 Mister Mystery). In Edgar Rice Burroughs's A Fighting Man of Mars (1931), a warrior encounters giant spiders on Mars, while Michael Moorcock's Blades of Mars (1965) involves menacing Martians who are giant spiders with humanoid bodies. A giant spider once lived on the Moon in Nathan Ballingrud's Crypt of the Moon Spider (2024), and in Charles W Diffin's "Dark Moon" (May 1931 Astounding), a giant spider is encountered on Earth's newly acquired second moon. Titan is inhabited by giant spiders in Edwin K Sloat's "Loot of the Void" (September 1932 Astounding). An advanced society of intelligent giant spiders lives on Uranus (see Outer Planets in Frank Ridley's The Green Machine (1926). In J Schlossel's "The Second Swarm" (Spring 1928 Amazing Stories Quarterly) a planet orbiting Sirius is inhabited by intelligent giant spiders.
Philip Reeve's Alternate History Larklight; Or, the Revenge of the White Spiders!; Or, to Saturn's Rings and Back!: A Rousing Tale of Dauntless Pluck in the Farthest Reaches of Space (2006) includes aliens known as white spiders. In the Videogame Beyond Good & Evil (2003), a peaceful planet is invaded by giant spiders. Duncan Long's Spider Worlds sequence is about a world inhabited by giant spiders and other giant insects. In Hamilton's "Locked Worlds" (Spring 1929 Amazing Stories Quarterly), a scientist travels to a Parallel World ruled by intelligent giant spiders, and they are also observed in a parallel world in Harl Vincent's "Wanderers of Infinity" (March 1933 Astounding). In a Doctor Who story included in The Doctor Who Give-a-Show Projector Set (1965), "Dr. Who in the Spider's Web," the Doctor and his companion Barbara encounter a giant spider on an alien world. In R McGeddon's juvenile Spiders! (2013), a scientist's serum creates giant menacing spiders.
Regarding giant spiders in films, they are the stars of Tarantula (1955), Beast from Haunted Cave (1958), and Earth vs the Spider (1958); one also accompanies the enormous The Black Scorpion (1958). Mesa of Lost Women (1953) has both giant tarantulas and mutant "spider-women" who are un-spiderlike but kill with their kiss. In World Without End (1956), astronauts find giant spiders on the Earth of 2508. In The Strange World of Planet X (1958), radiation from a scientific experiment creates giant spiders and other enlarged insects. (It is based on a 1956 BBC serial and a 1957 novelization by René Ray, but these did not feature giant spiders.) Kumonga is a giant spider introduced in Son of Godzilla (1967) (see Gojira) who has been a supporting monster in several later Godzilla films; another large spider, Banpira, appeared in the series Ultraman Nexus (2004-2005) (see Ultraman). In the Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1970-1972) episode "A Fear of Spiders" (1971), a man in an apartment who is afraid of spiders is tormented by a spider that keeps getting larger. Later, giant spiders attack a small town in The Giant Spider Invasion (1975) and Eight Legged Freaks (2002), and in the Doctor Who serial "Planet of the Spiders" (May 4-June 8 1974), the Doctor goes to a planet where intelligent giant spiders are oppressing their human slaves. (The serial was novelized by Terrance Dicks as Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders [1975].) Later, in the serial "The Talons of Weng Chiang" (February 26-April 2 1977), the Doctor encounters an enlarged spider in London. (This was also novelized by Dicks as Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng Chiang [1977].) In "A Bond of Silk" (1989), an episode of Monsters (1988-1991), a couple encounters a giant spider in a hotel. Giant spiders appear more briefly on the Moon in Cat-Women of the Moon (1953) (with footage reused in Valley of the Dragons [1961]) and Missile to the Moon (1958); on Venus in Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959) and Women of the Prehistoric Planet (1966); on Mars in The Angry Red Planet (1959); and on Uranus in Journey to the Seventh Planet (1961).
In Spiders (2000), a woman on a space shuttle is impregnated by an experimentally altered spider and, once on Earth, spawns spiders that grow in size and become a threat; the sequel is Spiders 2: Breeding Ground (2001). A friendly giant spider named Jeff is a character in the animated series The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy (2003-2008). Scientific expeditions are attacked in giant spiders in Arachnid (2001) and Arachnia (2003). In Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005), among the many menaces on Skull Island are enlarged spiders. In Camel Spiders (2011), large camel spiders that come from Iraq menace the southwest United States; fire-breathing giant spiders released by an earthquake terrorize New Orleans in Arachnoquake (2012); and spiders brought to New York from a Russian Space Station grow into menacing giants in Spiders 3D (2013). Soldiers battle giant spiders created in a laboratory in Arachnicide (2014). The Doctor encounters giant spiders on Earth in the Doctor Who story "Arachnids in the UK!" (2018). In the animated series Primal (2019-2022), giant spiders are only one of the many threats faced in humans in prehistoric times. At least five SyFy Channel movies feature spiders: in In the Spider's Web (2007), the threatening spiders are of normal size, but in Ice Spiders (2007), a scientist creates giant spiders that attack people in Utah, and in Big Ass Spider! (2013), a giant spider menaces Los Angeles. In Abyssal Spider (2020), people at sea are threatened by an enormous aquatic spider. And the films Lavantula (2015) and 2 Lava 2 Lantula (2016) involve giant spiders that emerge from a volcano emitting lava. Giant spiders live on an island in Crazy Spider (2021). In Ju Shu (2021), spiders being experimented on become giant predators, and in Sting (2024), a girl's pet spider grows into an enormous menace.
The most memorable giant spider in the films of the 1950s, in The Incredible Shrinking Man ([1957]), is actually of normal size, but appears to be a giant to the protagonist when he has shrunk to tiny size and has to fight against the spider; the film is based on Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man (1956), which includes the same battle with a spider. Another film based on the novel, L'homme qui rétrécit ["The Shrinking Man"] (2025), similarly includes a menacing spider. Yet two shrunken adults have a friendly encounter with a spider in Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (1997).
People can also turn into spiders, as in Horror of Spider Island. In Lemon's "The Spider and the Fly" (August 1919 Thrill Book), a woman seems to have the powers of a spider, and in Jack Williamson's "The Wand of Doom" (October 1932 Weird Tales), a machine creates a woman who turns into a homicidal giant spider. This is a particularly popular theme in comic books, as the following seven examples demonstrate. A woman periodically turns herself into a spider, determined to kill anyone who harms spiders, in an unknown author and Mike Sekowsky's story "Black Magic in a Slinky Gown" (September 1951 Baffling Mysteries), while in Walter Gibson's and Bob Forgione's "Spiderman and the Web of Doom" (March 1953 The Thing), a man turns himself into a giant spider and attacks a couple. In an unknown author and Sheldon Moldoff's "A Death for a Death" (June 1953 Worlds of Fear), a man is punished for killing insects by being transformed into a different insect every night, including a spider. In an unknown author and Vince Fodera's "Deadlier Than the Male" (October 1953 Weird Mysteries), women on an island turn into giant spiders and devour men. In an unknown author and Sy Grudko's "Lair of the Black Widow" (January 1954 Beyond) a spider bite makes a man into a half-man, half-spider and he becomes dangerous. In an unknown author and Bob McCarthy's "Vampire Spider" (December 1953 Adventures into the Unknown) a man becomes a giant spider, and in an unknown author and Ben Brown's "The Web of Horror" (March 1953 Purple Claw), giant spiders menacing people in the Alps turn out to be people who transform themselves into spiders.
There have been four other prose stories on this subject: in Peter Lear's Spider Girl (1980), a graduate student studying spiders believes that she is becoming like a spider; in King's It (1986), the sinister Pennywise the Clown can assume many forms, including a giant spider; in Jeffrey Ford's "Daddy Long Legs of the Evening" (in Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy, anth 2011, ed Ellen Datlow) a spider burrows into the brain of a child and makes him act like a predatory spider; and in Ali Sparkes's Spider Stampede (2011), two boys are turned into spiders by their experimenting neighbor. The opposite transformation – a giant spider turning itself into a woman – occurs in Cave of the Silken Web (1927).
Stories involving spider gods include Clark Ashton Smith's "The Seven Geases" (October 1934 Weird Tales), in which an explorer encounters the spider-god Atlach-Nacha. In L Sprague de Camp's Conan and the Spider God (1980), the warrior Conan encounters cultists who worship the spider god Zath, and Mel Odom's The Spider Stone (2006) is about an adventurous archaeologist investigating an artifact described as the work of the spider god Anansi. In W Michael Gear's Spider sequence, a Native American colony on a distant planet worships a god named Spider. In Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys (2005), the protagonist learns that his father was the spider god Anansi. Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon (2014) is narrated by a spider god.
There are also Robot spiders. In the serial The Phantom Creeps (1939), a mad scientist attacks people with a mechanical spider. In Will Eisner's and Lou Fine's comic "The Atomic Generator" (December 1939 Wonderworld Comics), a scientist builds a robot spider to rob banks. A Villain's "Sheem Assassin" spider-robot is a memorable menace in the novel version of James H Schmitz's The Witches of Karres (December 1949 Astounding; exp 1966). In Runaway (1982), a villainous scientist deploys "assassin robots" that look like spiders. In the animated film Project A-ko (1986), large robot spiders attack a city. Stephen Measday's The Giant Spiders (1996) is about a toy giant spider that becomes menacing. The villainous Dr. Loveless deploys a robot spider in The Wild, Wild West (1998). Brian Trent's "I, Arachnobot" (September 2014 Galaxy's Edge) is about a Robot spider; one also figures in the animated series Gameoverse (2025). Also, in Graham Joyce's The Web: Spiderbite (1997), a "security spider" prevents internet users from accessing certain sites. Robot tanks called Tachikoma resembling spiders appear in the anime series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002-2005).
Vehicles resembling spiders include the one in Philip Reade's Tom Edison, Jr.'s Electric Sea Spider (1892), an electric ship with eight legs. George E Rochester's The Sea Spider: A Story of Piracy and Peril (9 February-4 May 1935 Magnet; 1936 chap) has a spider-like tank that walks on legs. And in the documentary Luna (1965), a vehicle resembling a robot spider is used to travel across the Moon.
There are several stories about aliens resembling spiders, the earliest one probably being Donald W Horner's By Aeroplane to the Sun; Being the Adventures of a Daring Aviator and His Friends (1910), where they are found inside the Sun. In D L James's "The Crystal of Madness" (October 1936 Thrilling Wonder Stories), they are living on Phobos (see Phobos and Deimos). Giant spider-like aliens live on a distant planet in Sewell P Wright's "The Death Traps of FX-31" (March 1933 Astounding). In Nathaniel Nitkin's text story "The Flame" (January 1940 The Flame), the hero battles an invasion of aliens resembling spiders. Strange spider-people on Earth threaten a city under the sea in Chuck Winter's "The Undersea Men" (April 1940 Top-Notch Comics). The title of E E Hibbard's story featuring the original Flash, "The Spider-Men of Mars" (December 1941 Flash Comics), explains its plot. An evil alien spider threatens to conquer Earth in Stan Ford and an unknown artist's comic story "When the Skyscrapers Danced!" (August 1946 The Green Mask). In Robert A Heinlein's Starship Troopers (October-November 1959 F&SF as "Starship Soldier"; 1959), evil spider-like aliens, called "Arachnids" or "Bugs," are humanity's opponents in a space war; the novel became a 1997 film that spawned sequels, an animated series, and a Wargame. Humans in space battle against a similar species in David Weber's and Steve White's In Death Ground (1997). A race of spider-like aliens have come to Earth seeking brains and, transformed into humans, attack people in Arañas Infernales ["Hellish Spiders"] (1968). Aliens resembling spiders also appear in James Tiptree Jr's "Love Is the Plan, the Plan Is Death" (in The Alien Condition, anth 1973, ed Stephen Goldin), Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky (1999), Robert J Sawyer's Calculating God (2000), and A A Attanasio's The Last Legends of Earth (1989). Another alien resembling a spider appears in Zack Jordan's The Last Human (2020). And in both Spaceman (2024) and Project Hail Mary (2026), astronauts discover an alien that looks like a spider.
The bite of a radioactive spider famously turned Peter Parker into the superhero Spider-Man, but despite his immense success, efforts to launch a female counterpart have largely floundered. First came Spider-Woman, who gained her somewhat different powers by having a spider implanted in her as a child; despite starring in a brief animated series, Spider-Woman (1979-1980), the character has never been popular despite several reinventions. Another female superhero, Silk, was bitten by the same spider that created Spider-Man, and in an alternate universe, Peter Parker had a daughter, Spider-Girl, who inherited her father's powers. Other superheroes with names recalling spiders include Ace Magazines's the Black Spider, who uses poisonous spiders as a weapon; DC Comics' Tarantula; Quality Comics' the Spider and Spider Widow; Atlas's Tarantula; Marvel Comics' the Black Widow; and Fox Features Syndicate's the Spider Queen, whose powers anticipated those of Spider-Man. There was also Web Woman, featured in the animated series Tarzan and the Super 7, who had the power of spiders and other insects and drove a vehicle resembling a spider. The Pulp hero The Spider had no Superpowers, but was noted for placing an image of a spider on the Villains he killed; the villain/Antihero Spider created by a crime novelist in Stop Press (1939; vt The Spider Strikes 1939) by Michael Innes regularly left a similar calling-card in the form of a cut-out black velvet spider in his victim's bath. The heroine of Hideyuki Kikuchi and Saitoh Misaki's Taimichin novels has the powers of a spider. And in the Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001) episode "Bride of Chaotica!" (1999), Captain Janeway must portray Arachnia, Queen of the Spider People, in a holodeck drama.
There are also spider-like Villains like Archie Comics' the Spider, Atlas's the Spider Witch, DC's the Black Spider, and the Spider Lady, featured in the 1948 Superman serial (see Superman). Doc Savage faces a villain called the Gray Spider in Lester Dent's Quest of the Spider (May 1933 Doc Savage; 1933). In Dick Wood and Gill Fox's comic story "Plastic Man Meets the Spider" (May 1954 Plastic Man), Plastic Man encounters a villain who dresses to look like a spider.
Other works involving spiders include Lucian's The True History (circa 160 CE; trans 1634) in which spiders from the Moon spin webs to defend against invaders from Venus. In T W Hanshew's "The Riddle of the Red Crawl" (September 1910 People's Ideal Fiction Magazine), a detective confronts a (fake) monster that is half spider, half octopus. In John Russell Fearn's The Lonely Astronomer (1953), looking at the Basilisk webs spun by a Venusian spider inspires people to commit Suicide. Two groups called the Spiders and Snakes battle each other across time (see Changewar) in Fritz Leiber's The Big Time (March-April 1958 Galaxy; 1961 dos). The Fly (1958) concludes with an image of a fly with a human head trapped in a spider's web; the scene is parodied in the animated series Maniac Mansion (1980-1983). David Bowie's album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) introduced Bowie's persona as an alien who comes to Earth with his band the Spiders from Mars to help humanity; after touring in this identity, Bowie retired the character.
The sheer volume of sf stories about spiders, almost all of them portrayed as inimical to humanity, commands attention. Certainly, many people have a visceral fear of spiders, in contrast to their feelings about various insects. Thus, there exist terms for a general fear of insects, fear of bees, fear of wasps, fear of ants, fear of cockroaches, even fear of butterflies – but almost no one knows them, and would have to look them up on the internet. But a fear of spiders is so commonplace that the term for this condition – arachnophobia – is widely recognized enough to be employed as the title of a major motion picture, whereas films entitled Apiophobia or Myrmecophobia would baffle the public. Without a doubt, spiders of various sorts are destined to remain common in sf as long as people are afraid of them. [GW]
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