Peter Parker: Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #43

Background

Spring Break - the time of the year that party-happy students migrate to warmer climates in an effort to drink themselves silly and indulge in massive beach parties thrown by cable TV channels. But why would Spider-Man ever be caught dead at Spring Break?

Story Details

Amid Sonic TV's efforts to assure everyone that the beach is actually safe, Spider-Man continues his investigation, and his humiliation. Meanwhile, we find that all of the kidnapped celebrities are alive, and sharing their consciousness with the very confused sand monster.

Back at the Sonic TV Beach House, Teale is conducting a meeting with Spidey and several other celebrities, when there is a knock at the door. But when one of the celebrities answers the door, he finds the sand monster outside in its true form: the Sandman. Sandman floods the house with sand, but Spidey manages to get everyone to safety. Sandman reveals that he had been living mindlessly as a part of that beach ever since he dispersed down a sewer drain (in PP:SM #22). Sandman was saved by absorbing the massive egos of the missing celebrities, which helped him piece himself back together. Spidey interrupts his story by clocking him in the face.

Spidey and Sandman fight, but Spidey can't stop him from managing to swallow up even more celebrities. The Sandman visibly has troubles controlling all of the conflicting personalities in his head, and Teale realizes that all of their massive egos are fighting. Spidey tries to protect some of the other celebrities by making fun of them and bruising their egos, but Sandman absorbs them regardless. But then Teale returns with a truck full of celebrities that Sandman swallows all at once. But all of their personalities clash, and Sandman explodes, freeing all of his captors from their prison. And in the aftermath, Spidey presents the press with a very embarrassing sound-bite.

Later on, as Spidey is on his way out, Teale shows up to tell him that for once, he's actually getting the credit for stopping the villain, and this time he didn't even do anything. Spidey makes his way back home where he starts watching Sonic TV again, and he finds that many of the celebrities are using his horrible sound-bite to help raise Carnivorous Beach Awareness. Spidey quickly unplugs his TV.

General Comments

Ohh, man. This is funny, funny stuff. The guest creative team of Zeb Wells and Jim Mahfood has teamed up to create two of the funniest comics I've ever read. Every aspect of Wells' script, from the plot to the dialogue is downright hilarious, and Mahfood's art, while cartoony, fits the style of the story and certainly gets the job done.

My one complaint is that this isn't really a Spider-Man story. It's more along the lines of a "Make fun of MTV" story that has Spider-Man in it. I think practically any super-hero would have fit in just fine here, and just think how funny this would've been if it had been Captain America instead.

But really, that's irrelevant, because this story is just hilarious for anybody who watches (and loves to make fun of) MTV.

Overall Rating

This story ranks up there with "The Commuter Cometh" as one of the funniest Spidey stories ever. Four webs.