Marvel Heroes: Mix & Match Storybook

Background

Here's an odd little Marvel Book I stumbled across recently. It's a mix and match story book, similar to a few others we have in the database. Search for Mix & Match on our comics page to find the others.

Story Details

This one is about 6.5" x 10.25", and about half an inch thick if you squash it a bit. The cover is thick card with glossy paper glued over it. Inside, the book is spiral bound, and each page is split into five parts. Check out the interior photo for details.

There are five "stories" in the book, and you can "mix & match" to make different stories by combining elements from X-Men, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Hulk and Spidey. There are 8 base stories, and five different story parts, which according to my maths makes 8⁵ = 32,768 different possible combinations. But maybe my maths is wrong, since the back of the book claims "over 40,000" adventures.

Whatever. In any case, each "adventure" is of course identical in structure to all the others.

Villain verbs Diabolical Device at Location, but it is Form of Destruction by Hero.

e.g. The Spider-Man story in its "pure" form is... "Doctor Octopus steered his Giant Octo-Robot that grabbed J. Jonah Jameson, but suddenly it was crushed because Spider-Man covered it with his webs!"

General Comments

These "mix & match" story books never have any sensible content. The only way to judge them is on production quality and price.

This one isn't particularly attractive in any way. My second-handy copy did come to me with part of the plastic spiral binding snapped off, so it's obviously not terribly sturdy.

The asking price was US$8.95 back in 2006, which is fair enough, I guess.

Overall Rating

This book basically marks the middle ground for this kind of product. There's nothing exceptionally appealing, and nothing that is smart or interesting in any notable way.

However, there's nothing particularly offensive about it either, and it has intrinsic interest by virtue of its very nature.

Let's just play safe and call it three webs.