Daily Bugle Special Edition: Pulse/House of M

Background

The Pulse Special Edition is a 50-cent promo printed on cheap newsprint and designed to appear to be a copy of the Daily Bugle's Pulse publication. And not just any copy of the Pulse, but the copy which is on sale in the House of M alternate reality as seen on page 5, panel 3 of The Pulse #10. (Well, it's not an exact match but it's close enough not to quibble about it.) As opposed to the Pulse in that universe, which looks to be a regular magazine, this Pulse opens out and becomes a tabloid.

Story 'GREEN GOBLIN: Spidey's "A Good Kid" (newspaper article)'

Once opened, the tabloid is eleven pages long with articles ostensibly written by such Daily Bugle notables as Betty Brant and Kat Farrell. (Actually, the writers consist of Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Chris Claremont, Peter David and others.) The pages are divided up into sections of "Headline News", "Global News", "Politics", "History Today", "Science", "Sports", "Arts and Leisure" and "Personal Growth", simulating the actual sections of a daily newspaper. And it's darned clever the way those sections are used to discuss various aspects of the House of M world but while the first few pages seem to serve as a intro to that alternate reality, the rest of the pages just devolve into promos for the various "House of M" tie-in books.

There are a handful of Spidey moments worth mentioning. World-wide celebrity Spider-Man is shown out in Central Park in his (known) Peter Parker identity with his son Richie, as if caught in a candid photo. He is wearing a cap with the spider-signal insignia on it; a nice touch. There is a Betty Brant column on Crusher Hogan that leads into the Spider-Man:House of M mini-series. And there's a "photo" of Mary Jane Watson out with the "most eligible Sapien Bachelor" Tony Stark. But none of this is really worth the time it takes to read it.

General Comments

As I mentioned in my review of The Pulse #10, I don't much care for all this House of M business. Even at only fifty cents, this publication just annoys me. Shang-Chi in prison? Captain America on the moon? Crusher Hogan wrestling as the Green Goblin? Mary Jane Watson dating Tony Stark? Is there any point to any of this beyond the titillation of seeing the old masquerading as the new? Since I have no plans to read any of these tie-in mini-series (other than Spidey), the promos don't really work for me. But I did have fun reading the articles and trying to guess which series would be plugged at the conclusion.

Overall Rating

One-half web.