Spidey Makes a Comeback

You may remember way back somewhere about November, I wrote in this space how Batman was better than Spiderman. Several reasons: he has a car, he can fly (without relying on that messy web), and there were a few other compelling ones that I can't recall now, but they were good (and I even came up with one).

Today, Spidey appeared in the backseat, in the form of a kiddie laptop, and was making a big comeback. Ian was teaching Julian how to play the "Letter Power" game.

"Jul, you have to start it like this," Ian says, pushing some buttons. Now he's an expert. I can remember when he would follow us around the apartment asking us how to turn it on.

"Oh, OK, thanks Ian." I can see Julian in the backseat. He's shivering with excitement.

"What do you want to play, Jul? Let's play Letter Power."

"Oh, OK, let's play Letter Power," says Julian, total putty when his brother is showing him something cool.

Ian presses a button and then Spidey says: "Let's play LETTER POWER! ALRIGHT!" and there are some swashbuckling sound effects, like we imagine Spidey swinging from one letter to the next.

Then some suspenseful base notes as Julian is asked to find the letter "T". He presses the key for "X."

I hear some kind of game show waah-waah and then Spidey says: "NICE TRY! TRY AGAIN. FIND THE LETTER T!"

Julian presses another key and I hear the computer say "F". Man, he's a slow learner. Ian's starting to get annoyed.

"No, Jul, this is the letter T," and Ian reaches over from his seat to press the key for "T".

"Oh, OK, that's T, OK," chirps Julian. "IAN! Let's do another one. Let's do it! I can do it!"

Ian's getting tired of this game (that makes two of us). "OK, Jul, but get it right this time, OK. I can't reach over there."

Ian stretches over to restart the game.

"ALRIGHT! LET'S FIND THE LETTER "B"!" says Spidey.

The car is quiet except for the tick-tocking of the laptop as it waits for a key to be pressed. Julian presses something and then I hear Spidey.

"WOW! YOU'RE AWESOME!!!"

Thank God. He's awesome. Maybe Spidey wants to come over tonight and cheer him on while he eats his peas.