Never before in history had anything quite so horrible as the Mad Horde been loosed upon a terrified humanity! In rural towns and through the thronging streets of great cities the death-bringers stalked, spreading the slow madness of which they themselves must soon die! The Spider, dismayed and horrified as never before in his long career, is forced at last into risking the life of the girl he loves — so that a million others may live!
Garbed in a black silk cloak, slouch hat and wearing an assortment of masks and strange disguises to make him look as fierce as his namesake, the Spider ran roughshod over a vicious legion of thugs and hoodlums, leaving behind him a trail of cold corpses branded by his calling card, a scarlet spider burned into their foreheads.
Now, from the pages of The Spider magazine comes his most insane challenge yet, The Mad Horde!
Above the panicked cries of terrified humans there rose the eerie howling of dogs gone mad. Scores of them! A hydrophobic army of destruction loosed cold-bloodedly to rend and tear and spread their shrieking madness through town and countryside...And once more the crisis finds the Spider battling single-handed, fighting alone to save a people who have, in their blindness, put a price upon his head.
A sinister mastermind has unleashed roving packs of wild canines upon the unprotected cities––a death’s head branded on their furry foreheads, every one injected with virulent, fast-acting hydrophobia! Thousands of wild dogs, feral cats, wolves, rats and even bats are injected with the plague and set free to infect innocent Americans. As the unchecked horror sweeps the midwest, casualties mount and the nation reels.
Can the Master of Men unlock this rabid riddle and save himself and those he loves in the bargain? Or will the Horde Master rule over all?
Nick Santa Maria reads The Mad Horde with indescribable emotion. Originally published in The Spider magazine, May, 1934.
