Spectacular Spider-Man (UK Magazine) #207

Background

This long-running UK Magazine started out by running reprints, but these days it offers a brand new "out of continuity" Spider-Man story every three weekly issue. This is Spidey's primary UK non-reprint magazine. He also appears in the pre-school Spider-Man & Friends (UK Magazine), along with occasional guest appearances in Marvel Heroes (UK Magazine).

The Spider-Man story occupies eleven or twelve pages of this 32 page publication, and is aimed at a pre-teen/early-teen market. The plots for these stories feature classic Marvel characters and villains. While they often echo plots from the mainstream comics, they do so in their own special style.

After a few years of erratic quality at best, this title is finally producing some half-decent material. Too bad that Disney (the new owner of Marvel) has announced its intention to pull the plug on all non-U.S. original stories...

Story 'Octavius Max'

Continuing on from last month's story, Spider-Man and Daredevil launch a two-pronged attack on Doc Ock's not-very-secret lair.

Despite Ock's goons having access to high-tech weapons, and Ock's own "nano-tech" upgrades on his own tentacles, the good guys still manage to rescue Tigra and Iron Fist from their poorly-guarded cell, then slug-fest their way to a relatively uncomplicated victory.

The four heroes are then hanging out in a New York alleyway just outside Ock's somewhat worse-for-wear secret base, when Ultron appears. Yeah, Ultron. The invincible super-robot with a mad-on for humanity.

General Comments

Painfully simplistic stuff, really. Once more, there's nothing really wrong here. But there's not much right either. In fact, there's nothing going on except some commercially recognized trade-marked characters performing their well-worn cliches to an undemanding readership.

Overall Rating

Eleven pages. Two webs.

Very pretty. But where's the story?