Black Bat guest appearance in The Spider: Extreme Prejudice

I mentioned in an earlier post that while I'd been aware of The Black Bat character for some time, he didn't fully capture my interest until I heard of Moonstone Books' "Return of the Originals" event.  I began looking into the individual characters involved in that storyline and The Bat seemed like someone I could get into.

When the book finally was available for purchase, I initially got turned off by the ridiculously high shipping charges.  I was hoping to bundle the RotO graphic novel with a few issues of the Black Bat book, but only the first issue of that series was ever made available on the Moonstone Books website.  The whole thing pretty well slipped my mind after a while.

With Dynamite Entertainment now showing The Black Bat some love, my interest in the character has been stoked again.  I've obtained Moonstone's graphic novel (from Amazon) and am presently working my way through that.

Having looked further into that version of The Bat, I've come across a couple more of his appearances.  One is rather obvious, if you clicked on the links above.  The Black Bat was involved in another "return", this time of the Monsters.

Eh. I'm usually all for different interpretations, but that one might stretch the levels of my open-mindedness.

The other appearance is a little harder to find out about.  It seems The Black Bat guest-stars in a Spider prose book.

The SPIDER: Extreme prejudice SC:
Cover: Malcolm McClinton
6×9, 288pgs, $18.95

New short stories of SEARING WHITE HOT PROSE starring pulpdom’s most violent and ruthless crime fighter ever: THE SPIDER! More just than the law, more dangerous than the Underworld…hated, feared and wanted by both!

One cloaked, fanged, border-line crazy denizen of the dark force-feeding hard justice with a pair of 45′s!

Guest starring: The Black Bat, The Green Ghost, and Operator 5!

James Chambers, CJ Henderson, Will Murray, Ron Fortier, Rik Hoskin, Don Roff, Matthew Baugh, Eric Fein, Gary Phillips, and more!

I would assume The Black Bat only appears in one of the stories.  The Spider is not a character that has ever drawn me to read his stories but perhaps I can use this book as a way to be better introduced to the various guest-stars.

In any event, I thought completists should be aware of its existence.  The book is included in Moonstone May 2013 solicitations.