#spangler

Spoings mainly appear in Space Junk Galaxy, which I think we on the Weird Mario Enemies Office Pizza Party Email Chain all agree is a really great galaxy, with impeccable vibes. It's space at some of its most lonely, as opposed to spectacle, and I REALLY appreciate the presence of spiders here. Spiders and their webs are always used to visually communicate the idea of a place or object being unused, abandoned. And this galaxy is just a bunch of forgotten debris, not inhabited by any sapient civilization! If moths are the mascot of empty wallets, spiders are the mascots of forgotten attics! Spoings to not seem to make webs, which, yeah, actively hunting spiders do not! But they might make Sling Pods. And Sling Pod Galaxy is... well, I don't want to use this post to criticize a galaxy that precious spiders may have had a part in designing. So I will move on to...

Name: Spangler

Debut: Super Mario Galaxy

Spoing's got an evolutionary relative, and rather than being a spider boing, this is a spider dangler! It at first looks like a recolor of Spoing, but it actually lacks the fuzziness of Spoing's abdomen, and it DOES have a big ol' spinneret, which it is always using to dangle on a silk thread! One big one, like a really long string cheese. These ones debut in Ghostly Galaxy, indicating that they are spookier than the more generalized Spoings. Is it the silk? Is silk Spooky? It is what ends up encasing the spider's prey... like a MUMMY! Maybe I'm on to something here!

I really like Spoing and Spangler, and that both exist! It may be sort of the same design for two different enemy behaviors, but they're both behaviors that make sense for the design, and it's a design I always love to see. It's like they're closely related species! Maybe a population of Spanglers was separated from the others and ended up in the more barren Space Junk Galaxy, where there was not nearly as much infrastructure to dangle from, and where only active hunting was a viable strategy. And over time, Spoings evolved from this population! Actually, maybe they even use the Sling Pods for hunting, when we're not looking, launching themselves at unsuspecting prey...