Who Is Spider Jerusalem? Origin, Powers and Key Facts

Spider Jerusalem is a Creator-Owned comic book character, the alter ego of Spider Django Heraclitus Jerusalem, with over 167 comic issue appearances. Spider Jerusalem is an infamous but brilliant gonzo journalist, who once shook The City to it's core. A cynical, foul-mouthed, chain smoking anti-hero, Spider is an absolute crusader for The Truth. He is heavily inspired by gonzo journalism founder Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

Who is Spider Jerusalem?

Creation Spider Jerusalem was created by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson and is the star of their creator-owned series, Transmetropolitan , in which he made his first appearance (#1). Originally created for the Helix imprint (as science-fiction is heavily intertwined into the future Spider lives in), after that crumbled a year into the title's run, the series continued on beyond its original imprint over at Vertigo (as it was a series for "mature readers") where it lasted for another four years. Apart from rare specials however, the character's entire saga is contained in the sixty-issue Transmetropolitan series and he met his natural conclusion at the end of the run. Spider Jerusalem represents one of the few characters in comics who aged in real time, five years having passed over the course of his series (although this didn't prove to be a significant enough time frame to show any natural physical aging). Also of note in the character's creation were his numerous tattoos which Darick originally didn't want to have to draw constantly but it was decided to be best to differentiate Spider from King Mob (another bald white guy with stylish glasses) and so Darick painted the tattoo.

Key facts

Spider Jerusalem is of human origin and first appeared in "The Summer of the Year". The character is published by Creator-Owned. With 167 recorded issue appearances, Spider Jerusalem ranks among the most featured characters in comics.