Spider-Man World of the Web-Slinger: Ultimate Sticker Book (DK)

Background

This is another sticker book from DK Publishing, in the same style as the earlier Spider-Man: Ultimate Sticker Book (DK) and Spider-Sense Spider-Man Ultimate Sticker Collection (DK). It shares the same format being 8.5" x 11", glossy cardboard square-bound cover.

Story Details

Inside is 15 pages of facts about Spider-Man, his friends, and his foes. There are two pages each for "Mr Average", "Super Powers", "Spidey's Webs", "Super Suits", "Super Allies", "Team-Ups", "Arch Enemies", and a single page for "Fearsome Foes".

Each page features a half-dozen "factoid" sentences. Here's a few examples from the "Super Suits" pages:

"Classic couture": Spider-Man's classic costume is thin enough to be worn under everyday clothes. His mask has one-way lenses and a device to disguise his voice.

"Captain Universe": Spider-Man once took on the identity of another Super Hero, Captain Universe. He wore a suit covered in sparkling stars.

Well, I'm not sure that we can give them full marks for accuracy there. At least, the "voice disguising" gizmo is new to me. As for the Captain Universe explanation, well I'm not entirely sure they have entirely understood the underlying concept there either. And as for "Sparkling Stars..."?

Well, so much for the content. At least the format is fairly well established. Just like all the other DK sticker books, next to each factoid is a blank space where one of the stickers from the second half of the book should be placed.

The second half of the book consists of eight sheets of stickers. Many of the stickers are specifically tied to the earlier section of the book. But there's a lot of general purpose stickers as well. There are over 250 stickers, though some of them are admittedly rather small.

General Comments

As with all of the earlier DK Sticker books, production quality is high. These guys are utterly professional in their approach. They produce equivalent sticker books for a hundred other intellectual properties ranging from Star Wars to Bugs Bunny, and they know their stuff pretty well.

The art work is recycled from a number of other sources. I didn't see any obviously original graphics content at all. However it includes uniformly high-quality reproduction and the various compiled content has been well color-matched to produce a consistent and attractive ensemble.

This book sells for £4.99 in the UK, for about US$5 in the U.S.A., and anywhere from $10 to $12 in Australia. If you're buying the in U.S. then that's pretty damn good value. In Australia, it's fairly ordinary value.

Overall Rating

The "factoids" are a bit hit-and-miss.

But all of these DK sticker books are attractively compiled, and I can't bring myself to give anything other than a commendable three-and-a-half webs. For five bucks on Amazon, this has to be a good option.

Footnote

The exact same format is used for sister book Spider-Man Amazing Adventures: Ultimate Sticker Book (DK) which was produced at the same time, with different but similar content.