Eric Needham

Eric Needham is Black Spider, a Gotham City vigilante who turned to crime to fund a drug addiction, accidentally killing his own father in a robbery. After serving time, he declared war on drug dealers — putting him on a collision course with Batman.

Eric Needham is a Bronze Age DC creation who made his mark in 1985 when Len Wein introduced him to the world in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe — that beloved reference series that codified the DC cosmos for a generation of fans. With appearances stretching from that debut all the way to 2026, Needham has quietly proven his staying power across four decades of DC storytelling, most often surfacing in the pages of Batman and The Penguin. He keeps genuinely compelling company — sharing adventures with the Dark Knight himself, Bruce Wayne, and the notorious Oswald Cobblepot — which tells you everything about the shadowy corner of Gotham he inhabits. With a collector-significant key issue to his name and a presence that has endured into the Rebirth era and beyond, Eric Needham is exactly the kind of deep-cut DC figure that rewards the curious fan willing to dig past the marquee names.