Spider-Man Magazine #8 (Story 1)

Background

This is a magazine-sized periodical that was targeted for kids (Think Nickelodeon Magazine), and ties into the then-current, animated Spider-Man TV show. 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 (Iron Man 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. Starting from this issue, the magazine becomes a flip-book, with the second half of the book "upside-down" to the first half.

Story 'Horror of the Hobgoblin'

This story starts out with Spidey webbing up a pair of ordinary street thugs. While he is lecturing them on their bad habits he is attacked from behind by the Hobgoblin, who pelts Spidey with a pumpkin bomb which knocks our Hero on his butt, and swipes the loot. Recovering as the Goblin flies off, Spidey tosses a tracer onto his glider, then tracks him down in an abandoned warehouse (is there ever any other kind?), only, Hobbie set a trap for Spidey, and gasses him. In the fight that ensues, Spidey manages to not only drive off Hobgoblin, but swipe back the briefcase from the earlier robbery.

The second story stars Blackbird, Cyclopes and Gambit of the X-Men.

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 Greg and Tim Hildebrant's Marvel Masterprints trading cards (Wolverine, Venom, Hulk, & The Green Goblin).