Spidey-Sense Number Puzzles

Background

Back in the mid/late 70's Tempo Books was (as far as I'm yet aware) the first publisher to produce a series of Marvel tie-in puzzle books. Printed in a handy 5.25" x 8" square-bound format, these books are tough to find now in top-notch condition, and are prized by many collectors.

Story Details

This is number five in the series of puzzle books by Tempo Books, and the conundrums are devised by Ned Webster, who was the creator of the earlier Spidey's Clever Crosswords.

Once again, the physical format is 64 pages of clean white paper. There are 24 separate puzzles (one per every two pages) plus answers in the back. Black and White Illustrations are taken from contemporary issues of Amazing Spider-Man.

The big changes for this book is that all the puzzles are generally unique within the book. As in... each puzzle is essentially a different concept from the others. There's at least a dozen different puzzle ideas in the book, and they vary greatly. Most of them involve numbers in some way or another, but that's where they diverge.

Some puzzles have a map, and you have to follow a series of directions and locate the secret destination. Some involve doing basic sums to decode a secret message. Some have a description in words, and you need to find the matching drawing, or the matching number.

General Comments

This is probably the most impressive book in the series so far, just for the pure diversity. Mister Webster has really come up trumps. I can't imagine any budding young 1970's super-hero being disappointed by the variety and innovation.

Overall Rating

I really can't think of anything that could have been done to improve this book. I'm just going to have to give it the full five webs.