NCPCA - Spider-Man/Jubilee Flip Book (Story 1)

Background

Over the years Marvel has produced numerous "specialty" comics that have partnered the publisher with various corporations and pro-social groups to promote specific products or causes utilizing various Marvel characters. One of these social organizations has been Prevent Child Abuse America. The comics have come out of this partnership include preventing Sexual, verbal, and physical abuse.

Sponsored by the National Committee For Prevention of Child Abuse. Spider- Man and Jubilee co-star in a pair of 8-page stories dealing with bullies. This is a flip-book, with each hero appearing in half of the book which is upside-down to the other half.

Story 'How to Beat The Bully'

Spidey is swinging past Central Park and observes a couple of teens skating on the bike path as they collide, and the event escalates, only the friends of each skater intervene preventing it from erupting into fisticuffs. Spidey recalls both the lab accident and death of his Uncle Ben taught him the true meaning of "With great power comes great responsibility." It is in recalling this that causes him to chase after the skater that caused the accident, and who has skated off in anger.

The Skater, Daniel, is upset and angry at being threatened and intimidated by the other skater, Jason, who is something of a bully. Spidey swings by the council the youth and Daniel confesses that he wishes he could teach Jason a lesson. Spidey convinces him that fighting isn't the answer, and that he should try communicating with Jason, and attempting to work out their problem by talking. Daniel agrees, and the next day in school, he attempts to do just that. The two do get past their differences, proving that walking away from a fight, and talking can sometimes disarm bullies better than fighting back.

Jubilee of the X-Men is the star of the flip story in this book.

General Comments

Keeping in minds that the goal of this series of comics is to communicate a point and teach a lesson in living (similar to the old After School Special TV shows), and are given away free to "At-Risk" teens, by not only attempting to reach them on their level, but to couch everyday problems in the form of superhero comics, to show how a superhero would react to every-day, real world issues, these books do a very good job at achieving their goals. They are short, to the point, and (hopefully) effective at targeting their primary audiences.

The Prevent Child Abuse America series has not only been co-sponsored by corporations, but have been distributed free in newspapers and as stand-alones across the U.S. This is the fourth book in the series.

Overall Rating

Given the brevity of the books, and the magnitude of their message, these books tend to read as quick morality plays with a powerful point and tend to come across quite well. I've always enjoyed them for what they are, and have always sought them out, and promoted them to the general public whenever able.

You can find out more about this comic, and order a copy direct from Channing-Bete, who created this comic under contract to the PCAA.