Eric Needham, also known as Black Spider, was a vigilante who was eventually press-ganged into joining the Suicide Squad.
Biography[]
Early life[]
He was formerly a heroin addict, and he was desperate enough to rob a liquor store and ended up killing the owner. However, it turned out the owner was his dad. He then kicked the habit out of remorse after spending time in jail, and proceeded to fight a war on drug cartels, becoming the dangerous vigilante known as Black Spider.
At some point before Christmas of Batman's second year, he was approached by men belonging to the crime lord Black Mask, or rather, the Joker posing as him, with the offer to kill Batman, although he was rejected, presumably because of Black Mask's reputation as a crime lord.
Assault on Arkham[]
Black Spider tracked down a confessed mob boss and, despite his being under police protection, managed to successfully kill him by slitting his throat. He then attempted to make an escape, but was ultimately overpowered by the police as well as unmasked.
He then was transferred over to the Suicide Squad's headquarters, where he protested that he work with them, denying that he was a criminal and that he if anything kept criminals off the streets. He then learned of his mission. He eventually awoke in a plane, and managed to get out of his restraints in his seat long enough to briefly threaten Captain Boomerang with killing him and disposing of the body. He and the other squad members then met with the Penguin to find a way to get into Arkham Island (as their mission was to break in and recover data the Riddler stole), a meeting that almost ended disastrously due to Penguin holding a grudge against fellow member Harley Quinn. He specifically entered as a prison chef, and created a distraction by putting various utensils inside a microwave. Eventually, he entered the Evidence locker to find their belongings, although they then had to fight against Batman. He was the only one to not leave the evidence locker due to opting to stay behind and finish Batman off, although Batman overpowered him and stole his uniform while replacing it with his own batsuit, also covering himself by claiming that he killed Batman (with only Harley Quinn being suspicious of this). He ultimately was unable to regroup with his allies before Amanda Waller activated the nano bombs, which ironically occurred just as Joker was about to gun him down (mistaking him for Batman until he noticed Eric’s decapitated face). This also exposed the ruse Batman played when his bomb didn't go off, with the Riddler quickly deducing his true identity.
Post-mortem[]
His identity as Black Spider was eventually picked up by Derrick Coe by the time of Scarecrow's takeover of Gotham City on Halloween. However, he ultimately ended up killed by Jason Todd some time before he killed Black Mask.