Mad Magazine closed off 2011 with a final, beautifully detailed and devastating three-page comic-book style putdown of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and its (literal) growing pains.
It’s item #18 in MAD’s list of The 20 Dumbest People, Events and Things of 2011, and is subtitled “Is There a Dr. Octopus in the House?”
The jokes are dead-on, from the fake cover titled The Amazingly Dangerous Spider-Play, with its issue date crossed off multiple times a la the show’s many postponed opening nights. The first page riffs on the Marvel Comics habit of giving superiffic nicknames to its artists and writers: “Featuring ‘Boring’ Bono! ‘Excruciatin’ Edge’! ‘Jobless’ Julie Taymor! and a faceless cast of victims!
MAD has mined this turf multiple times in the past year, and the satire has been more than superficial. It has real spider bite.