Ornament Review: Spider-Man - Comic Book Heroes #2 - 2009 Hallmark Ornament

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Good ornament enhanced by the use of actual comic book material

Cons: A couple of small issues overshadowed by the coolness factor

The Bottom Line:

This ornament is

Some comic book history

That brings out the geek

I'm Geeking Out Over the Spider-Man Entry in the Comic Book Heroes Series

I'm not a big comics guy, so I started the Comic Book Heroes series on a whim.  I liked the second entry, Spider-Man, when I got it.  But the details of it make it so much better than I originally thought.

This series of Hallmark ornaments depicts a well known Superhero literally bursting out of the pages of a comic book.  It's a three dimensional ornament with a six page comic book behind it.  That's right, you can open the book and actually read a very quick origin story for the Superhero in question.

Spider-Man was the focus of the second ornament in this series.  The cover is of Amazing Fantasy and shows a sky line slightly crooked.  If you look closely, you can even read a bit of dialogue behind the characters.  Spider-man is swinging across the front of the book.  He's holding on to a clear plastic tube that is attached to the front cover.  I thought that was a neat touch.  He's carrying a man in a green suit as he swings through the city.  While we aren't told for sure, I'm guessing this is someone he's just saved.

When compared to the first ornament in this series, this one looks like a let down at first.  While the book is the same size, Spider-Man is much smaller than Superman was.  In fact, I had to measure to make sure that the books were the same size.  However, when you look at the characters and ornament without the comparison to last year, Spider-Man looks just fine.  Also, the copyright information and little Christmas tree symbol with a 2 in it are on the back of the book.  They are small, but I thought it was cool how they hid it on the first in the series.

But something made me stop to do some quick research on the internet just now.  And that's when I discovered something very cool.  Instead of creating a new cover, they used the cover of the original Spider-Man comic book for this ornament.  Spider-Man was originally introduced in Amazing Fantasy (and only cost 15 cents).  And Spider-Man and the guy he is rescuing were part of that cover as well.  I don't know how much of the six page comic book inside the ornament is taken from that original issue, but the first paragraph is as well.  I'm not much of a comic book guy, and I pretty much know my Superheroes from the movies, but I thought this was wicked cool.  I liked it fine before.  Now I think it's awesome!

The ornament consists of a thin book with a figure in front of it.  You can get it to stand on its own, but you've got to open the comic book pretty far to do that.  There is a hook coming out of the book's binding.  When the book is closed, the ornament hangs pretty much straight.  But the more you open the book, the more it tilts back when you try to hang it.

I thought the Comic Book Heroes series was cool the way they combined Superheroes with comic books.  But the choices and detail they chose to do for Spider-Man pushing it over the top.  I am going to have to do some serious research on future ornaments in this series to make sure I am not missing out on anything else cool like this.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Comic Book Heroes series.

Original Price: $16.50