Spidey Super Stories #9 (Story 2)

Background

The Players:
Jennifer of the Jungle: leopard skin freak jungle valley girl.
Paul the Gorilla: Jennifer's smart/dumb (mostly dumb) monkey.
Spider-Man: dragged into this mess against his will.

It's about a monkey. It's two pages long. It's two pages too long. How much background do you need here?

Story 'The Ape Escape'

Spidey is "resting" back in the good old palm-tree jungle that exists right outside of New York City. (See Issue 4, Story 2 - but only if you're wearing clean underwear.) You remember that story! Where Jennifer loses Paul, Spidey happens to be conveiniently hanging around in a web hammock, Spidey follows a banana peel trail to find Paul... something like that. Well, this story has pretty much the same plot, but it's one third as long (Yeah!) and doesn't any feature laundry-obsessed villains (Crap!)

Spidey is hanging out in the ubiquitous web-hammock stretched between two palm trees.
Jennifer: Spidey, wake up!
Spidey: Can't a guy ever get any sleep in this comic book?
Spidey, what the hell are you talking about? All you DO in this comic is sleep in your web-hammocks, and then occasionally get beat by villains like Lentil-Man and Nerf Boy, and then wait for teenagers who are still in the second grade to rescue your dumb-ass.

So Spidey gets up and swings with Jennifer over to Paul's bed. Jennifer of course uses those conveinient palm tree vines to swing the entire way. Surprisingly, Paul the GORILLA has a four-post wooden bed with a pillow, a nightstand and a candlestick. Just standing there in the middle of the freakin' jungle. Well, it's sure nice to see you're not spoiling your monkey or anything, Jennifer.

Spidey: Maybe Paul just went into the jungle... to monkey around.
I imagine this comment was followed by Spidey's Beavis impersonation. "Huhh. I bet your monkey's, like monkeying around with itself. Huhh. Monkey."

Suddenly Jennifer and Spidey look up and notice a path in the jungle right next to Paul's bed. Then they tilt their heads a little more vertical and notice there's a trail of bananas, spaced a foot apart(!), stretching as far as we can see in this panel. Then they raise their heads ever so slightly more and notice Paul the Gorilla, about 20 feet away from them at the end of the trail of banana peels. Why exactly it took them this long to notice that Paul is right in front of them, I can't really say. Maybe he was standing in their blind spot. All 800 pounds of him.

Spidey: It looks like Paul has run away from home!
If you consider leaving his bed and going 30 feet into the jungle 'running away', then yes, that's true. If you're a rational being and think that's a pretty stupid distinction, I'm with you.

Paul is carrying with him a Teddy Bear, a scarf (for the jungle snows, I guess), and a giant bag filled with about three hundred bananas. He's going to need every one, too, because yes, once again he's left behind this banana trail with bananas ludicrously spaced a foot apart stretching back to his bed. Now Paul, you know you're not going to get very far if after three hundred feet you realize you're out of bananas and have to go running back to your bed to get three hundred more and then make it three hundred feet into the jungle, etc. Wait, you don't know that, you're a giant dumb ape.

Spidey (to Paul): Paul, why do you want to leave your jungle?
Paul:*whispers in Spidey's ear*
Spidey: You're running away to be a famous crime-fighter like Spider-Man?

Then Spidey says what has to be one of the most embarrassing things ever uttered by a man who wears pajamas all day long. And you know that's pretty bad.
Spidey: But you can be a Hairy Hero. Come with me.

ACK! And as terrible as that line is, that's not even the worst part. The next panel shows Spidey swinging in on a web, with Paul swinging in on a web next to him. Somewhere in the jungle, Spidey found some Spider-Man gloves and booties that happened to be in lowland gorilla size and gave them to Paul. Then he apparently found a jungle TATTOO booth, since Paul now has the Spider-emblem permanently etched into his chest. Can you imagine getting a gorilla to sit still for four hours while some very brave (and very stupid) tattoo artist sticks Paul's gorilla belly with a ink-stained needle? I have trouble getting my monkeys to not throw macaroni at one another.

And we finally come to the last line in this aborted abomination of a story.
Spidey: Look out, crooks! It's Paul - SPIDER-MONKEY!

Oh God, please make it stop.

General Comments

Someday I wish someone would explain to me how a Gorilla, no matter how large, can eat a banana every three seconds as it's walking along and leave these absurd banana peel trails. I... Oh, you in the audience there, you know? *whisper whisper* No! *whisper whisper* You have got to be kidding *whisper whisper* Ewwwww. You know, on second thought I think my life was happier before that was explained to me...

So Paul is going to fight crime in the jungle, huh? I'm sure all the criminal leopards and evil parakeets are cowering in fear already, because not only will they have a giant gorilla chasing after them, but it'll be a giant gorilla wearing red booties. How Terror can survive against that, I don't know.

And I'm thinking that actual species of Chimp known as 'Spider Monkeys' should get together and file some kind of copyright infringement suit. I'd sure be willing to support them if it would stop this horrible thing from being inflicted upon other children.

Overall Rating

2.5 webs. All I've got to say is, this had better not be the start of some frickin' "Legion of Spider-Pets".