Spider-Man Magazine #7 (Story 1)

Background

This is a magazine-sized periodical that was targeted for kids (Think Nickelodeon Magazine). It contained two six-page comic strips (One staring Spider-Man and the second another Marvel hero or group - usually the X-Men). It also contains fan art, puzzles, word searches, jokes, and kid-targeted features (on nature, etc.), as well as bios of Spidey, and other Marvel characters (The Fantastic Four in this issue). Most of the issues (#1 and from #4 forward) contained uncut sheets of Marvel trading cards bound inside. The entire contents of the mag are done in that free-wheeling, jokey, Marvel Bullpen style. The mag was packaged by an outside firm, and distributed by Marvel.

This preamble section isn't generally used, you can just delete text the text here and leave it empty. That's because normally all the detail is related to a specific issue, and should be put lower down under that issue.

The only type of review that normally uses this preamble text is a short review (e.g. a 17 second review) that wants to summaries a multi-issue story arc with a broad brush, not going into details for any issue.

Story 'Panic at the Planetarium'

Daily Bugle photographer is taking photos at the Hayden Planetarium in NYC of the Hulk (who is during one of his phases where he has the brain of Dr. Robert Bruce Banner), demonstrate a solar collector. The even is disrupted by the Juggernaut who wants to use the solar collector to boost his own strength. He learns the folly of going mano-a-mano with The Hulk who knocks him out (and them Spidey webs him up) but not until he damages the collector. Now Spidey and The Hulk have to repair the collector (and capture the Juggernaut who has regained consciousness). Using the Juggernaut's strength against they manage to do both.

The second story is actually a cute tale where Jubilee is writing a letter home to her parents about a "typical day" at Prof. Xavier's School.

General Comments

Keeping in mind that this is targeted for kids, it plays out fine (if you go for that kind of thing-my son seemed to like it when he was younger). It really isn't an item that most Spidey (or X-Men) fans will want to seek out and actively collect, but if they stumbled across it, it is kind of fun to have.

Overall Rating

The comic stories are simplistic and probably don't fit into any actual continuity. Plus the feature articles are all one-two pages long. The jokes are cute, but if the comic was owned by a kid, they probably have completed all of the puzzles, thus bringing down any real (or imagined) value of the book as far as hard-core collectors are concerned. While both stories are okay, they are still toss-offs for the kiddies, and don't really garner much interest.

Footnote

This issue contains an uncut sheet of four bound-in Marvel Masterprints trading cards (Spider-Man Beast, Kraven, & The Chameleon).