US News

Times ARE tough: Spider-Man gets fired

Even a résumé that boasts of saving the city from Doctor Octopus and sparkling references from the likes of Captain America can’t keep Spider-Man off the unemployment line.

The wall-crawler’s hard-luck alter ego, Peter Parker, will get canned by boss J. Jonah Jameson and join the country’s out-of-work millions in a storyline that starts in this Wednesday’s “Amazing Spider-Man” No. 623.

“He couldn’t have lost his job at a worse time,” said “Spider-Man” editor Steve Wacker.

“He’s going to struggle with unemployment and trying to save the city while he can barely afford to keep a roof over his head,” Wacker said.

While the Queens native has been jobless before — he’s been a personal assistant and teacher and has tried to get a hack license in the past couple of years — he’s always been able to fall back on freelance photography, selling shots of himself in action as Spider-Man.

But not this time.

Parker, who’d been working as a photographer for newspaper publisher-turned-mayor Jameson, gets busted for doctoring a picture to clear the wrongly accused Jameson of some illegal activity.

“It’s the old Parker luck,” said Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada.