In every installment of I Love Ya But You’re Strange I spotlight strange but ultimately endearing comic stories. Feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have a suggestion for a future installment!

In honor of that football game that is set to start in an hour, I thought it'd be fun to share with you the time that Spider-Man saved the universe by winning a game of football against a bunch of kids!

In "Web of Spider-Man" #34 (by Jim Shooter, Sal Buscema and Vince Colletta), Spider-Man was just hanging out on a roof watching some kids play football (which is apparently a thing he does) when one of the younger kids (who were playing much bigger kids, so they were getting their collective ass kicked) got injured. The bigger kids were going to force them to play a man down or else forfeit. Spider-Man figured that he should address this injustice, so he volunteered to play in place of the injured kid. The big kids allowed it, but insisted that Spider-Man receive a series of handicaps...

Meanwhile, the Watcher was attacked by this jerky alien who had bet another jerky alien that he could sneak up and capture the Watcher. He had done so using a weapon that he had recovered from Battleworld after it had been destroyed in "Secret Wars." It was from Galactus' collection, and as we know from Galactus' classic first appearance, that dude has some crazy powerful weapons in his collection, and this weapon was no exception. Meanwhile, the jerky alien wanted access to Watcher's own collection of weapons, but the Watcher's stuff isn't accessible by anyone but the Watcher. So the jerky alien offered a bet - if he won, Watcher would give him his weapons and if he lost, the Watcher would be set free and he would give the watcher the weapon he stole from Galactus, a weapon so powerful that it could threaten the universe.

They ended up deciding to bet on the football game Spider-Man was playing in, which was 56-0 at the end of the third quarter!

The alien then sneakily gave the biggest kid on the other team superpowers and he crushed one kid, and the game was going to be forfeit, but the first kid who was injured decided to come back into the game...

The Watcher then punished him for trying to welch on the bet, so he transformed him into a playing card and put him in a deck in Las Vegas (the Watcher is stone cold).

Very cute story.

If anyone has a suggestion for another weird but awesome story, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com. Enjoy the Super Bowl, everyone!