Review by Win Wiacek

When Spider-Man eventually joined the Avengers, he spent a lot of time questioning his worthiness. That nervous insecurity informs this delightful compendium of brief sidebar stories starring the wallcrawler and individual members of the World’s Mightiest Heroes in team-up action.

The paperback or digital collection was presumably intended to capitalise on the then-impending first Avengers film release. The engaging and upbeat compendium is as big on laughs as mayhem, as you’d hope and expect with award-winning Robot Chicken scripter Zeb Wells at the keyboard.

Madcap mayhem begins with a three part collaboration illustrated by Joe Madureira co-starring military monolith Red Hulk wherein the subterranean Moloids once ruled over by the Mole Man attack during the New York Marathon and kidnap Mayor J. Jonah Jameson. The only heroes available are the criminally mismatched and constantly bickering webspinner and Crimson Colossus, who follow the raiders back into the very bowels of the Earth by the most inconvenient and embarrassing methods possible.

There they discover an even nastier race of deep Earth dwellers – the Molans, led by a brutal barbarian named Ra’ktar – have invaded the Mole Man’s domain and now are determined on taking the surface regions too. The only thing stopping them so far is a ceremonial single-combat duel between the monstrous Molan and the surface world “king”. In lieu of one of those, it will have to be Hizzoner Mayor Jameson!

Understandably, Red Hulk steps in as JJJ’s champion, with the wallcrawler revelling in his own inadequacies and insecurities again, but he does suck it in and step up, once more overcoming impossible odds and saving the day in his own inimitable, embarrassing and hilarious way.

What follows is a stand-alone, done-in-one story pairing Spidey with the coolly capable and obnoxiously arrogant Hawkeye limned by Greg Land. It superbly illustrates Spider-Man’s warmth, humanity and abiding empathy as the fractious frenemies foil an attempt by the sinister Serpent Society to unleash poison gas in the heart of the city.

Without doubt, the undisputed prize here is a magical buddy-bonding yarn featuring Captain America charismatically concluding this compendium. The wonderment begins when recently rediscovered pre-World War II comic strips by ambitious and aspiring kid-cartoonist Steve Rogers lead to a mutual acknowledgement of both Cap and Spidey’s inner nerd. Just in case you’ve no soul, there’s also plenty of spectacular costumed conflict as the Avengers track down and polish off the remaining scaly scallywags of the Serpent Society in a cracking yarn illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu.

By turns outrageous, poignant, sentimental, suspenseful and always intoxicatingly action-packed, this is a welcome portion of the grand old, fun-stuffed thriller frolics Spider-Man was made for. The series continues with The Good, the Green and the Ugly. Or everything is gathered in The Complete Collection.