Marvel Play Time (UK Magazine) #4

Background

This was Panini's "young kids" magazine for the UK market back in 2015.

Disney no longer lets Panini create original stories in the UK, but they're allowed to draw on existing material. The stories have been re-telling the episodes from Ultimate Spider-Man TV (2012), one by one. We are now up to Episode 4, and it retains its title "Doomed!" in this four-page, 12 panel rework.

Story 'Venom!'

The standard formula applies. Thirteen frames from the original TV episode are snap-shotted and given captions.

"Peter and his friend are chatting when a monster made of black goo appears!", etc.

The "Friend" is actually Flash Thompson, and the poetic license just continues from there. Nova, Iron Man, Iron Fist, and White Tiger, and the fight is outlined in a rather insipid fashion.

General Comments

The original 22-minute TV show episodes were pretty succinct to begin with. The 13 screen-shots adaptation is a mere shadow of the original which really no longer deserves the label of a "story". It's more like the kind of precis that your 7 year old brother might give of the episode, a couple of weeks after having watched it.

There's an Avengers story that adapts Season 1, Episode 6 "Super-Adaptoid" of the Avengers Assemble! (2013) cartoon show in the same fashion. Which is to say, equally disappointing.

Puzzles and factoids pack out the remaining 32 pages in a riot of primary-colours.

Overall Rating

Two Webs.

The stories are disappointing, but the rest of the content is exactly the kind of thing that will keep a seven-year-old quiet for half an hour.