He’s duking it out with the deadly Doctor Octopus on the silver screen on June 30, but in the meantime, Spider-Man is taking on an even tougher foe – illiteracy.
Starting tomorrow, Marvel Comics is flooding schools and libraries across the country with 2 million free Spider-Man comics in a bid to encourage youngsters to read.
The Manhattan-based publisher is also sending out 2 million posters announcing Marvel’s Summer Reading Challenge – a contest aimed at getting kids age 6-11 to read more books.
Contest participants have to read five books and then send in an essay saying which was their favorite and why.
Grand-prize winners will get $1,000 worth of Marvel merchandise, and first-prize winners will get free one-year subscriptions to two youth-oriented comic books.