Review by Frank Plowright

Marvel can’t be accused of underselling the Spider-Man story written by then Saturday Night Live comedians Bill Hader and Seth Meyers. It appeared in 2009 as a Halloween special, and was rapidly repackaged into a hardcover graphic novel where it was accompanied by assorted short stories starring Spider-Man, his supporting cast and alternates. If you’ve ever wondered what the world would be like if Aunt May had spider powers, this is the place to find out.

It’s a shame so much of The Short Halloween is whimsical filler material as Hader and Meyers come up trumps by having a costumed drunk being mistaken for Spider-Man by an incompetent villain, while the real article is introduced to his doppelganger’s life. They go to the trouble of creating five ridiculous villains, stage the situations well and Kevin Maguire’s art is exquisite.

Much of what follows, though, is bland and ordinary. Yes, Tom De Falco and Shawn Moll are having fun with Swiney Girl, son of Peter Porker, Spider-Ham, but they’re extending a single page idea well beyond the point where it’s funny. Spider-Girl is De Falco and Ron Frenz doing something very similar, but this time moving toward lighthearted superheroics. Too many other stories contrive problems or solutions by having characters behave in ways people generally wouldn’t. Peter Parker and Mary Jane are sympathetic toward the guy who breaks into a lab, Carlie Cooper is judgemental, and in ‘The Private Life of Peter Parker’ just supplying Spider-Man photos isn’t good enough for the Bugle, who want more.

The best of the back-ups is J. M. DeMatteis having Peter Parker cope with Harry Osborn’s apparent return from death with no memory of being the Green Goblin. DeMatteis supplies the conflicting emotions generated by the news with effective flashbacks showing how their friendship developed, but every emotion is vastly exaggerated visually by Val Semeiks. It’s well written, but the tone is completely different from the lead strip, and almost everything else here. The one similar strip is Brian Reed and Tim Levins exploring supporting character Jackpot, but it’s a dozen pages of plot extended to 22 pages of story.

Unusually, it’s the celebrity strip that sparkles, although having the bonus of the best artist here. You’d be better off just picking up the original comic and forgetting about the remainder.