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I picked this comic up as part of an activity pack at a beach-side store while travelling down the Pacific Coast on vacation a few years ago. It's a reprint, as far as I can tell, of Spider-Man Adventures #7, based on the animated series from the 90s, and chronicles the first meeting of Spidey and Doc Ock. The "interactive" part of the comic is that some of the panels, or parts of panels, have been left uncoloured so that one might colour them. Now, I'm a fan of colouring. It's fun and relaxing, but I'm kind of waffling about this one. Colouring in a comic just seems....wrong.
The set that this was in came with some other stuff. There's a large poster of the web-slinger, with an uncoloured version of the picture on the back so that one can colour the poster as well. I've had some thoughts about making a super-psychedelic Spider-Man poster out of it. We'll see. There was also a strange little game, though, now that I'm thinking about it, I can't for the life of me remember where that stuff is. Probably amongst my superhero ephemera in storage in the basement.
The story itself was okay, as was the art. Definitely geared toward younger viewers and readers, but the think I find fascinating about it is the retelling of this first meeting. The two first come into conflict all the way back in Amazing Spider-Man #3 from July 1963, so there's a vast history to retell and revamp in this comic. I find that the animated versions of some superheroes are almost like compacted versions of their long histories. Both Felicia (Black Cat) Hardy and J. Jonah Jameson are involved in the adventure, bringing in characters who may not have been part of the original meeting, but who are vital to the Spider-Man mythos. I think there's something to be said about this compaction of myth - perhaps we see similar things in something like Disney's Hercules - in order to hit all of the salient marks in the mythology, we rearrange events and individuals into a more compact package. What I'd be very interested to know is what affect this has on those who might go ahead and read the originals (in the case of the comics, anyway) one day - will the compaction of the stories for younger audiences replace the original tales somehow? I think it happens with the MCU films now, so I could definitely see it happening with an entire generation of fans who grew up with the cartoon adaptations of so many Marvel characters in the 1990s.
That said, any exposure of superheroes (good exposure, that is) helps the hobby and the genre.
More to follow.
Further Reading and Related Posts
I did a week on children's comics a few years back, but failed to tag it all properly, apparently. Here's the first post of the week, on Mighty Mouse. There's some other cool issues if you're willing to click through.
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