Spider-Man Heroes & Villains Collection (UK) #30

Background

This is a 60-part weekly series being pumped into the market by Eaglemoss publications. They don't know much about Spidey, but they know that 60 * $8.99 = quite a lot. And I'm the kind of idiot who will spend that sort of money without doing the math.

There's an original 7-page story in every issue, and collectible trading cards too. Sure, the stories are terrible, the art has been 90% ghastly, and the price is far, far too high. But there's glossy paper, trading cards, and an original Spider-Man comic strip series that 99% of the U.S. collectors will never own!

This week, issue THIRTY! That's an important milestone. I'm now $270 poorer, and none-the-wiser as we turn the half-way mark on this travesty of a series.

Story 'The Menace Channel'

This week's lesson in pop-culture exploitation stars J. Jonah Jameson in "The Menace Channel". Under the close supervision of director "Max Edgley", Jonah is launching a one-man TV crusade against the web-head.

Our first page opens mid-rant to set the scene, and then features a pointless cameo from Spider-Man that does nothing but waste everybody's time. But we quickly get into the heart of the matter. A hovering "personal fame-cam" TV camera follows J.J.J.'s every move. Including... watching him type in his PIN number into an ATM.

Are you kidding me? Mysterio set up this entire scam just to steal a few hundred bucks out of Jonah's account? And anyhow... why does he need to even talk to Jonah to set that up? Why not just put a zoom lens on the camera and have it hover 20 feet up in the air? What? Oh, yeah. Of course the villain is Mysterio. He's on the cover for goodness' sake!

But wait... there's more! Mysterio has arranged a "home makeover" for Jonah. But really... he's going to steal all the stuff from his house! Well... Peter Parker stumbles across the plan. Naturally he changes into his Spider-Man outfit and cleans up Mysterio's henchmen before capturing the main man himself.

But what of Jonah's show? Well, somehow, a modified version of the show gets shown, with Jonah exposed as an idiot, and Spider-Man shown as the hero of the day.

General Comments

I don't get it. Who made the show at the end? Mysterio had all the footage. Surely he wouldn't have made a show. Anyhow, he was in prison. Who would have the resources to assemble an episode for a TV show in just a few hours, especially one that made Spider-Man look good? Nobody had the ability, nor the motivation!

Are we expected to believe that after beating up the crooks, Spider-Man just pottered around in the studio editing suite, assembled a TV episode from raw footage, and sent it off to the TV station just in time for the deadline? Are you kidding me?

As mentioned, the whole thing is entirely ludicrous. Why not just rob Jameson's house? And why not just sneak in and put a key-stroke logger on his computer if you want his password? Why go to the whole fuss, spend tens of thousands of dollars, and leave a trail of clues a mile wide...

Overall Rating

Oh... trying to make sense out of this fiasco is a futile exercise. There is no sense to be found. The only bright point in the whole issue is the pencil work by Richard Elson, which is pretty tolerable in comparison to what has gone before.

One web.

Footnote

Obligatory Nonsense Moment? The whole story.