Spider-people. Spider-people everywhere! Even when you cross the border into DC Comics you still got this chick! Luckily I'm not the only one annoyed with her. Today we meet the rival/enemy/sexual assaulter of Nightwing! Today's Z-Lister is DC's Tarantula!
Catalina Flores was created by Devin Grayson in 2002's "Nightwing #71". Catalina grew up in the city of Bludhaven and due to the city's rising crime rate she ran off to Quantico to join the FBI. When she eventually returned to Bludhaven she was shocked to see that her brother Mateo Flores-an Assistant D.A.-hadn't cleaned up the crime rate in the city, even after all these years. Catalina also ran into a man named John Law, who was a vigilante back in 40's called "The Tarantula".
John Law was a small-time superhero in 1941, he was inspired to fight crime by another vigilante called The Crimson Avenger. He used martial arts, stage magic, make-up tricks, suction cupped boots, and a web-gun to fight crime. When his days as a man of mystery passed, Law wrote books about his adventures, books that Catalina read herself.
Law told Catalina of all his adventures and inspired her to take up a superhero mantle of her own to stop the corruption of her city. This of course led her to run into Nightwing, but not before she met Dick Grayson at a self-defense class. While it was a minor flirtation, this small event would led Catalina into discovering Nightwing's secret identity. As the new Tarantula, Catalina held no issue with murdering criminals, much to Nightwing's dismay. The two clashed several times and each time Catalina found herself more intrigued by Nightwing. It was after she killed a corrupt police chief that Nightwing fought and defeated Tarantula and arrested her, but her brother Mateo blamed the whole incident on Nightwing and had his sister released.
Now on the path of revenge, Catalina allied herself with Blockbuster-an evil scientist super villain who had the biggest crime lord in Bludhaven. Blockbuster had also learned Nightwing's identity and ordered The Tarantula to kill Nightwing's one-and-future lover, Barbara Gordon. Rather than kill her, Tarantula manipulated and mislead Barbara's date with Dick in such a way that Barbara would think Dick was cheating on her and she'd leave him. Blockbuster was far from satisfied and hired other villains to blow up the apartment building Dick was living in. However, John Law had been living in that building too. Tarantula kills a villain named Lady Vic, but is too late to save John Law from the apartment explosion.
Tarantula allies herself with Nightwing in finding a tape containing Blockbuster's criminal confessions and she brought it to her brother. Mateo destroyed the tape and claimed he made a deal with Blockbuster to get her out of jail earlier and that he was now loyal to him. Nightwing-who was driven to near insanity by the prospect of a villain who could strike at Nightwing's loved ones-fought Blockbuster again until Tarantula held a gun to the criminal's head. Nightwing knew it was wrong, he knew he could stop her, but he let her kill him. Beaten, psychologically tortured, and ashamed of allowing Blockbuster's death, Nightwing collapsed on the rooftop and was powerless to stop Tarantula from forcing herself on him. In a rare instance of sexual assault on a male comic book superhero, fans of Nightwing would never forget this controversial moment.
Tarantula and Nightwing continued to work together and she had almost convinced Nightwing to marry her, luckily Batman called upon Nightwing for help. After an adventure with Batman, Nightwing was brought to his senses and turned himself and Tarantula in for the death of Blockbuster. While he was acquitted, Tarantula was imprisoned. Tarantula died sometime later while saving the life of Ragdoll's sister.
One of the hardest parts of writing a Nightwing story is overcoming the comparisons to Batman. Because Dick Grayson was raised and taught by Batman, and he had fought so many Batman foes as Robin, it is difficult to establish villains for Nightwing that Batman hasn't already fought. While Blockbuster and Lady Vic and even Deathstroke are villains more associated to Nightwing, Tarantula is very clearing "his Catwoman". In a way, Tarantula can be seen as "his Red Hood" too. You have a character who has an unspoken attraction to our hero, but you also have a character who represents the dark, morally crippling alternate to crime fighting. She represents temptation: both in the sexual sense, and in the violent sense. For Batman, temptation is par for the course seeing as how he is so driven by his anger. But Nightwing was never a character driven by his tragedy, Nightwing was always the hero who overcame the darkness and found a way to rise above it. But imagine how difficult it must be-as the former sidekick to DC's Dark Knight-to not kill villains. Hopeful as he may be, Dick is still very capable of murder. It's definitely harder than resisting the urge to cheat on your significant other, we can admit that. Nightwing is the kind of guy who gets hit on a lot, Tarantula is just that rare example of "no" not being enough. An extreme of what Catwoman is to Batman, Tarantula began as a person trying to do good for her city, but very quickly falling into the power fantasy of being a crime fighter. It was no longer about the sake of her people, and it became killing all the bad people with my super-hot vigilante boyfriend. Corruption can work both sides of the coin, if that crazy burn-victim has taught us anything.
Thanks for reading.
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