First off we get a story reprinted from Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #4.
Written by Jeff Parker and pencils by Patrick Scherberger. We start the story with a battle between Spidey and what is basically a sentient piece of street. Human Torch shows up and helps Spidey defeat the villain. Well Spidey and Torch start arguing and this allows the villain to get away.Torch goes back the Baxter Building and accidentally lets a lethal alien loose. He calls on various heroes for help,but they are all busy. So he bites the bullet and goes to find Spidey. Spidey figures out that this alien will appear at Coney Island.And it turns out to be this huge read alien that seems that it's only knowledge of Earth comes from MTV. So we gets lots of bad lyrics from various songs.Well the alien who's name is Goom,goes on a destructive rampage through Coney Island. And Torch keeps him distracted while Spidey creates some invention to take care of Goom. Pretty fun story that shows off the friendship between Johnny Storm and Peter Parker.
Our second story is reprinted from Spider-Man and Power Pack #4. Written by Cleveland boy Marc Sumerak and art by Gurihiru. We start off with Spidey fighting off about 5 or so of his villains. He defeats them and sees Katie Power standing on a nearby rooftop. He goes to talk to her,but she shots one of her energy blast at him. It seems that part of the Venom costume has taken over young Ms Power. Well it seems these first few pages are all a nightmare Katie is having. We go to the next day and the Power Pack kids are on their way home from school. When they see the Rhino rampaging thru the streets of NYC. The Power Pack call upon their costumes,but for some reasons Katie's won't appear.Rhino quickly takes out the other three members,But Katie hits him with a huge energy blast. This stuns Rhino and he tells her "good idea that wasn't part of the plan. But you are covering your tracks." And Rhino heads off. We next see the power kids sleeping,and a familiar black costume is going over Katie as she sleeps. She attacks her siblings then jumps out the window.They trail her to a warehouse. And when they find her ,they get surrounded by Vulture,Electro,Rhino,The Shocker,Mysterio and the Lizard. It seems that the Venom possessed Katie is working with these Spidey villains.Well Julie Power flies off trying to avoid being shocked by Electro. And she finds Spidey tied up hanging from a rafter.It seems that the Venom suit is taking over Katie at night and one night she snuck up on Spidey and took him captive. Well thanks to Spidey the Power Pack kids manage to defeat his villains. And when they do this Electro lets out a huge electric shock. This removes any traces of Venom from Katie's super hero costume. Another fun story. I will have to see if there is anymore issues of this Spider-man/Power pack series.
Third up is a story reprinted from Marvel Age Spider-Man team up #4. Story by Todd Dezago and pencils by Ron Lim. We start off with Spidey facing off with the Looter. The Looter is a z-grade Spidey villain that gets his powers from a moon rock. Well he is trying to get his powers back. And in doing so he sets off an explosion. Well this blast Spidey way up into the sky. But thankfully a passing by Thor catches Spidey.And he shows Spidey some strange wormhole in the sky.This wormhole is being used by some trolls to come to Earth. Thor and Spidey fight them.But every time they try to hit the troll leader he disappears.So Thor opens a portal to take him and Spidey to Asgard. They get there and see that time has been frozen. The trolls have found a way to freeze time on both Asgard and Earth. But again everytime Thor or Spidey try to hit the troll leader he disappears. So Spidey comes up with a plan. He has Thor send him back to Earth. The plan is for both of them to hit the troll leader at the same time on Earth as well as Asgard. This works and the trolls are defeated. Great story with one line that really stands out. Early on Spidey mentions how he has trouble understanding Thor and that Thor should watch more TV so he can learn modern English. Thor's reply is "Ah,I've enjoyed TV! Mine favorite relates the antics of a short yellow man who lives under the sea.... .... Robert the sponge with the straight trousers!" Great line that had me laughing very hard.
The final story reprints a story from Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four #4. Jeff Parker does the writing and Mike Wieringo does the pencils. Reed finally makes it back to Earth and he seems to have found a way to stop the invading aliens. We get about 5 pages of Spidey and the FF battling mutated animals. Then we find out that the Impossible Man should be able to defeat the evil aliens. This works and we get a nice happy ending. Over all this 4 issue long story was OK. But it really felt padded. It seems to me that the writer had enough story for 2 or at most 3 issues but was told it had to be 4 issues.
Spidey story was kind of lacking. But not so bad it really hurts the rest of the magazine. Spider-Man Magazine #4 gets a A-.