Giant Spiders

Origin
The Lorelei planetoid is a barren, rocky planetoid with an enormous face of a beautiful woman carved on its surface. Captain Jark Hudson sees the monument, recalling the Greek legend of the Lorelei who lured Ulysses. Like the legend, he is hopelessly lured into the planetoid. As Jark and his crew of lonely spacefarers land, they note the eyes of the carved face contain jewels. Greedily, they move toward them. A trapdoor opens beneath them, and the three men fall into an enormous web of Giant Spiders.

The spiders wrap up Jark's fellows first, leaving him enough time to retrieve his knife and cut himself free of the web. Captain Hudson finds a narrow passageway leading to an enormous underground city. At first, he only finds statues of people. One particular statue of a woman intrigues him. It beckons him into a vast tomb filled with women in hermetically-sealed tubes.

He awakens one of the women, who telepathically explain all the men of their race died in a terrible plague that only killed the men. She asks if there are more men with him, and he tells her there are two trapped in the spider web. Returning with blasters, they are able to easily exterminate the spiders. Both men are saved. The woman asks if they will stay, and the decision is not difficult for the lonely men.

Public Domain Appearances

 * Fantastic Worlds #6