Spider-Man, Jedi knights apprehend thief in Australia

SYDNEY - An Australian business owner dressed as Spider-Man Monday stopped a man from stealing a comic book as “Jedi knights” blocked the thief’s escape.

The incident occurred at Adelaide Comic Centre in Adelaide on International Free Comic Day, which is held around the world on the first Saturday of May, HeraldSun.com.au reported.

The Adelaide Comic Centre encouraged customers to dress as comic heroes and handed out free comics to mark the occasion.

The owner, Michael Baulderstone, who was dressed as Spiderman noticed a man “behaving suspiciously” at the back of his store and upon closer examination, saw that the man had put a book in his backpack, it said.

Baulderstone then chased and apprehended the thief.

“We had about 40 people dressed up as their favourite superheroes to celebrate International Free Comic Day, so he didn’t have much of a choice but to hand the X-Men Omnibus back after a little bit of a scuffle,” he said.

“I’ve had a look at the security footage and it shows Spider-Man running down the corridor of the shop, grabbing this guy, hauling him off,” Baulderstone said.

“Everyone in the store thought it was a play, that it was street theatre of some sort. It wasn’t until I said `Call the police’ that people started to realise,” he added.

“One of the funniest things about the incident was that I called for people to stand near the door and it just so happened we had people dressed as Jedi knights there blocking the exit, the Flash was there at some point too,” the report quoted Baulderstone as saying.