The Marvelous Adventures of Gus Beezer with Spider-Man

Background

Suddenly, there was the rush solicitation of three Gus Beezer books. The tagline: "a brand-new character enters the Marvel Universe". Do we really need this? Read on!

Story Details

The book contains two stories; the top 2/3 of the page is about Gus Beezer, and the bottom 1/3 of the page is a comic made my Gus Beezer himself.

The Gus Beezer story hits off with Spider-Man hanging upside down. I mean, it starts with the amazing Gus Beezer in a Spidey suit. The Lizard is down below, shouting at him for using a jumprope that isn't his. The Lizard is his sister Emily, and Gus is using her jumprope as a webline.

The story goes on. Gus pretends to be Spider-Man. Emily is a bully and puts makeup on Gus's face while he is sleeping. When Gus is cleaned up again, the family goes to a reunion. Gus dreams on the way there of being attacked by Doc Ock and Venom.

At the reunion, Gus makes himself scarce--hiding is better than being embarrassed all the time. Playing Spider-Man, he meets up with Peter Parker. Peter's there with his aunt. He and Gus are distant cousins. Gus is extremely happy, for Peter knows Spider-Man. Peter then gives Gus some webbing he got from Spider-Man.

Back home, Gus uses the webbing to bully his sister. When she's asleep, he webs up her whole room. A big ball of webs, well used.

The comic made by Gus himself is about Gus actually being a superhero. First we get to see his origin, with lightning bolts and chemicals. Marvel Kid and Marvel Dog are born! Emily is in a tree, being feeble and useless, the water rising.

While airborne, Gus sees a disaster in the house and dives through the roof, coming out with a stack of comics. The dog (flying too) grabs Emily from the tree. When the water is receding, he tells the dog to let go of Emily. Then they fly off, to dry and read those comics.

General Comments

Well, what can I say? Because of the two stories being on the same page, the pages are very unbalanced. It's very difficult to read one story without reading the other one, too. The artwork is very cartoonish, not something you'd see in a superhero comic.

The story? Actaully, I couldn't care less. Who cares about a little boy, playing Spider-Man with a sister who's a bully. And the comic made by Gus, same there. Silly story, but probably what kids make when they're the age of Gus. Chances are, I did not get the deeper meaning of these stories. And I probably should have read the other two Gus Beezer books, as well.

Overall Rating

To answer my question at the top of this review: No, we do not need this. Why the two webs? One for each story, for effort.