Pitch: SPIDER-MAN: SIDEKICK OF THUNDER

Street level in Manhattan, New York. Chunks are missing from buildings. Avengers are lying strewn around the place. We glimpse the Destroyer armor beating the crap out of Thor. Spider-Man barely rises from the pavement, half his costume torn away. He sees the beating Thor is taking. He sees Mjolnir, Thor's trusty magic hammer, lying in the rubble. It's upside down, so we have to turn the comic upside down to read the inscription. Only the worthy may lift it. Spidey actually twists his head to read it. He decides, what the hell.

"I'll help you, big guy. Hang in there."

Spidey braces. He grasps. He lifts.

It won't budge.

He struggles. We can see every muscle in his body stand out through the spandex. Nothing.

"To me, Mjolnir!" Thor calls from off-page. The hammer flies from Spidey's grip and to its master. We hear Thor saving the day off page while we see Spidey just staring.

Skip forward. Peter Parker is with his girlfriend. Mary Jane or a new girl? Depends on what Marvel's doing. The conversation goes the same either way, because girls always treat him the same. He's trying to explain how he should be able to lift that hammer, how close everyone came to dying, and that he couldn't do anything worthwhile. The girl is preoccupied with something trivial and blows him off, because like I said, girls always treat him the same.

A pundit questions if Spider-Man doesn't create more crime than he stops. J. Jonah Jameson is a jackass in some needless way. There's a new blog like Icanhazcheezeburger, which is just every photo of him looking stupid (anyone can add them, and it the last photo we see was uploaded by user "MJ").

We see a giant robot on the horizon. Spidey looks for a place to change. We see Thor fly in and decapitate the robot before Spidey's even in the alley.

"Fine then."

He buttons up his shirt again and walks in the direction Thor is flying.

Somewhere, Norman Osborn has planted a bomb in Parker's apartment. Tonight it will kill him.

Yes, tonight.

Tonight...

Tonight comes. Parker has not returned to his apartment. Osborn is unhappy.

On the rainbow bridge, Thor is trying to shoo Spider-Man away. Spidey is in the spandex, with luggage.

Thor proclaims, "Gods don't have sidekicks."

'"What do you call the apostles?"

"Who are the apostles?"

"That's the sort of thing I can look up for you as your sidekick."

Spider-Man explains that he needs a vacation, but he has a bad history with vacations. If he tries to take a full break, somebody he loves will get kidnapped or some psychopath will wire his apartment with bombs. It's happened before. It always happens. But if he takes a summer as Thor's sidekick, maybe things will be different. He can pretty much coast. And if there's trouble? Thor can hit it with something heavy.

"But you're a world-respected hero."

"You bench press the moon. I can't even save my Aunt's mortgage. Please. Don't break my heart here. I'll turn into a supervillain."

So begins the miniseries, SPIDER-MAN: SIDEKICK OF THUNDER

Spidey builds a web hammock to ride that's suspended from Thor's hammer. When he sees a magazine cover posing Mary Jane and Tony Stark, he retaliates with his own photo-shoot of Spider-Man and the Norse Volley Ball Team. In a very special tear-filled issue, they figure out why Hogun the Grim looks like the only Mongolian in Asgard. At one point Spidey trolls his own villains (Doc Ock, Rhino, Hobgoblin), luring them into fights and then dropping Thor on them. "Dropping The Thor" is a running gag in the series. Sometimes Spidey saves Thor's bacon with smarts and looking out for him, but largely it's him in spandex try to fit in with Valkyries and bear-cloaked warriors.

Every issue ends with Norman Osborn, looking increasingly disheveled, staring into monitors waiting for Parker to come home and be blown up. Eventually he kills time with a Nintendo DS. When Spidey finally feels rested and returns home, he disarms the bombs without trouble. Osborn does not notice, for by this point he has taken up playing Pokemon and is too engrossed with tracking down a Victini to care.