Mayor Bloomberg is always asking the questions nobody else would ask. I mean, we've had some great mayors in the past, but none ever posed the question, "How about if we turn all the major streets into pedestrian plazas so New Yorkers will never be more than three feet from a panini?"

Still, recently he surpassed himself, wondering "Are all unemployed New Yorkers just brain-damaged, comic-book-reading layabouts?" Evidently the answer is yes, because this year the billionaire financier's primary attempt to lower the unemployment rate is a five-page lecture in a Spiderman comic book.

On the first page, Peter Parker talks to his aunt about being flat broke and unemployed. She tries to cheer him up. He's a photojournalist, right? This is a fine opportunity for him to either branch solely into journalism or morph into a photograph. Peter offers a pregnant woman his seat, but before she takes it she notices it's covered with ink. Because Peter's favorite pen has leaked! Then he literally runs into Mayor Bloomberg, who apparently travels with the only 5'6" bodyguards in town.




Turns out cash is falling from the sky because some evildoer robbed a bank. Peter fights him and wins, then he flies back to Mayor Bloomberg.


Thanks to the mayor's advice, now Peter knows he can find work, even though nobody's hiring. He offers Bloomberg his thanks and a tie to replace the one he ruined. And we close with happy feelings all around, though maybe it just seems that way because the mayor's gone.

So, did you get the lesson, New Yorkers? Yes, you should stay positive when you're looking for work, even though "no available jobs" kind of means this is pointless, and you'll be like the loser at Musical Chairs circling the room in search of an overlooked settee. But definitely wander the streets, because eventually you'll stumble on a bank robbery, and as the old superhero adage goes, "If it's dropped by a crook, consider it took."