Cover to Cover: Experience the infinite wisdom of HAM

Hey look! It's more weekly comics (with my "reviews" of them)! King-Size Spider-Man Summer Special (Why does it say #1? Will there be a #2?) by lots of people The Spidey saturation continues! With not only a weekly comic, a few "Extras" out there and even his own magazine, Spidey finally gets a Summer Special. It seemed like this comic was geared to me, because it actually had MJ on the cover, so I flipped through it a little. Then I noticed that Colleen Coover was in on this, so then I just grabbed it. Because she's awesome. There are four stories here for five bucks. The first is by the husband-wife team of Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover, and it's about the girls of Marvel beating down the Enchantress, a member of Thor's rogues gallery. The jokes are strong, and I love how MJ is friends with Millie the Model and Patsy Walker. The second story is a hilarious two-pager by the same team, in which Spidey and M.O.D.O.K. go shopping for new rocket chairs at "U-KEA."

The third story is really, really bland. It's just a standard Spidey team-up with the Falcon. The fourth story is a reprint of Chris Giarrusso's "Paperboy Blues," in which Spidey competes with Venom for the right to deliver the Daily Bugle to the Osborn house. Funny, but disappointing as well, because I'd already read most of the story off his website. All in all, I wouldn't recommend this issue to anyone, because the last stories are letdowns for a whole five bucks, but this is definitely worth your time. You should trick a random person to get it, and then read it from him/her. 

  House of Mystery #4 by Matt Sturges and Luca Rossi

There is basically no plot at all to this comic book, and you know what? I'm not sure if it even needs one. Sure, you have Fig Keele being confused and frustrated about being trapped in "the house that she designed," but that's not what the comic's really about. It's about the craziness of the House, and how twisted it can get.

And I love it. The House is filled with eccentrics, and the back-up story here is a testament to that. Although I thought Willingham would be doing the back-ups, he didn't do it last ish, nor for this ish, so it seems Matt Sturges is going solo now. His back-up here is about a witch princess who has to try to get true love's kiss to return to her homeworld. The twist is, she has a guardian tiger named Floyd (how awesome is that?) who eats all the guys who aren't her true love. Eventually the two realize that there's no point to going back home anyways, So Floyd just eats random guys in San Francisco, and the witch princess names herself "Daphne" and enjoys life!

This story combined fantasy with horror this time, and the art style reflected that really well. Back at the House, we learn the mysteries of what lurks in its basement: a bunch of random regenerating breakable objects, like rusty suits of armor, vases or glass windows. Oh, and a bunch of sledgehammers. Since all the occupants (prisoners?) can't get back at whoever got them stuck at the house, they put those sledgehammers to good use and channel some of their frustration to those poor rusty suits of armor. You can imagine how Fig felt about this:

I love the expressions that artist Luca Rossi does! The body language of the characters are really strong too. It's like I could understand the story by just looking at the art! If you couldn't tell, I really like House of Mystery, but it's definitely an acquired taste. For example, you have to be able to appreciate lines from a waitress such as, "Okay, who had the screwdriver and who had the fuzzy constantinople?" or a big nasty goblin sighing and saying, "I wish I felt pretty." Or "You can learn a lot from a good piece of ham."