Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #40 – “Average Bear”

* Part 1 of 6 of the Irresponsible storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #40 – “Average Bear”! Allow me to cram yet another Ultimate Spider-Man story down your throat! In the previous storyline, Peter Parker catches up with an old, old friend named Eddie Brock. Both their dads were partners in their cancer cure research, which involved a black goo that could form around a person as a suit. Long story short, it fucks up Peter Parker for about one issue, then it fucks up Eddie Brock, and then Parker becomes a sadboi who wants to quit the Spider-Man gig, but then Nick Fury says “no”.

MJ still won’t take Parker back because he just won’t quit being Spider-Man. He doesn’t want to be Spider-Man anymore and yet he won’t quit doing it! Why not?!

Maybe we’ll find out next? But probably not.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #40 [July, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Average Bear”

Cover Analysis: butt

Peter Parker tries to buy a new costume at a sporting goods store. He’s all like “I need something tight-fitting that shows off my thunder thighs, like a leotard or a wrestling uniform or like a Spider-Man costume” and the guy at the counter is like “What the fuck are you even talking about?” Needless to say, Parker is unsuccessful.

“I have no costume.” He runs across town. “I’m a superhero without a costume. I don’t even have a cool leather outfit that would pass for ‘costume-ish’ in this more cynical world I live in.” So, the funny thing here is, of course, that Parker wants leather. Should’ve known.

I forgot what happened to his costume, but he ain’t have it no more. How’s he gonna get a new one? He can’t sew! MJ can sew, but she’s got a bug up her butt at the moment. If he orders tights over the internet, Aunt May is totally going to open it first and there will be a laundry list of questions like “what’s with the tights?” And that would suck, because Parker would have to be like “I wear tights now.”

“Maybe I can get the costume from the jerk who was running around dressed as me robbing banks.”

In school, the teacher announces the resurgence of the school telenews program. “I will be the faculty advisor on the project,” she says, “and will be selecting students to work both on and off the camera.” A perfect opportunity for Parker to do some Spidey posing! And– wait a minute! D’oh! No costume! D’oh!

Oh shit, my homoerotic poetry!

MJ notices during Ms. Teach’s spiel that Parker is staring at Mars. “What’s the matter?” she writes in her notebook. Parker glares at her like she’s the sun and he wants to burn his eyes out. Intense, man, is what I’m saying here. MJ looks taken aback by his if-looks-could-kill look, which could kill her. He responds with his own chicken scratch: “Why do you care?” Oh snap!

Here’s the back-and-forth:

“I care.”

“Well, which is it? You can’t have both things.”

“I can’t care?”

“If you care, then why are we not together?”

This takes MJ to Frown Town, which is adjacent to Clown Town (where Parker is the mayor). Then she gets an idea, and I bet she writes something good about his dick when the teacher snatches the notebook right out of her hands! She embarrasses both of them in front of whole class like a cunt from cunt hell. End scene.

Enough of that comic relief! After school, Parker calls up the WWE except it’s a fake WWE. It’s the FFW, the Full Force Wrestling Co., and he pretends to be a representative from Hasbro looking to make toys based on their wrestling characters! He probably sounds 15 years old here for reasons that are plainly obvious to ME, but probably not to you. Dummy.

Whatever little stunt he’s trying to pull immediately falls flat. Enough of that comic relief! Flash Thompson and his Wonderful Bowl Cut approaches Parker with a look of truce on his face. He just wants to talk, no wedgies or noogies or acid in the face today. Parker doesn’t believe this kid as far as he can kick him in the nuts, which he can’t do because Flash is about 40 feet taller than him.

Parker calls Flash a jackass and walks away. Flash looks sad. Kong asks what the fuck’s the matter. Flash looks sad. AND THEN WE DON’T GET TO KNOW WHAT FLASH WANTED YET. Maybe he wanted tips on how to bone MJ with gusto.

Let’s turn our attention to the streets where a gaggle of toughs are chasing a young woman with groceries for reasons I cannot discern! She drops her bags and they corner her in an alley with a dead end. One of them brandishes a switchblade. If they can’t have her Wonder Bread and their Uncle Ben rice, nobody can!

Running a marathon isn’t as fun as it used to be.

She’s about to get poked in the ol’ throat, but the familiar THWAP of spider spooge hits the thug’s knife hand. Spidey drops down wearing a mask, a sweatshirt with a picture of a spider on it, and jeans. The thugs look at him incredulously, all like “the fuck are you supposed to be?”

“I’m Spider-Man. Read a paper.”

“Where’s your costume?”

“Your mom’s washing it for me.”

This leads to a wind-up and a punch, but Spider-Man ain’t taking punches, no sir. He SMACKs and FTUNKs and CLUMPs them into a corner, then he THWIIIPPPs a big aerosol can full of web gunk at them. They cry and bitch and moan about this, but we all know better than to complain when offered some of Spidey’s webs. It’s an honor, actually.

Spidey turns to the woman to make sure she’s ok, but she’s startled at the missing eye of his mask. Shit. OK, everyone… uh… please help find it the ground somewhere. Thanks in advance.

I dunno, this could work for him. There’s got to be a fetish website out there for superheroes showin’ some skin around the eyeball.

Pretty pathetic stuff here. Superheroing involves finesse, not this bush league second-rate flailing around. Later, having secured the glass eye, he attempts to sew it back into the mask; or glue or hammer or whatever it is he’s trying to do to it. It’s not working. He wants to throw a fit about it, which is in-character for sure.

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs of the basement freaks out our hero, who throws his unsuspicious clothing into a chest and slams it shut. It’s Gwen Stacy, geared up and ready to hump this kid’s face. “Are you going to that party tonight?” she asks him, clearly forgetting that Peter Parker hasn’t been invited to a party since he was seven years old.

And, of course, Parker doesn’t know what the hell Gwen is talking about. They exchange some very flirty banter, such as:

“No one tells me about parties.”

“No one tells me either.”

“Know why?”

“Because we have no friends.”

“We’re losers.”

“Sure, but, you know, by choice.”

She asks again if he would like to go to the party, and Parker doesn’t get the hint and decides that, no, absolutely not, he would not like to go somewhere where he might get some action and some delicious Miller Lite. Gwen decides that something fun may happen at the party. Parker decides that nothing fun ever happens anywhere… shit… he’s starting to sound like me.

“Why does everyone have fun at these things but us?” Gwen asks.

“I do not know.”

“I see people. They have fun. Why aren’t we having fun?”

“I do not know.”

“We’re fun.”

“Not really.”

“Why can’t we go to a party and have fun?… Let’s go to a party and have fun.” She smiles at him. “Let’s do it. Let’s be fun people.”

Ughhh, why? Why why why? In classic Parker fashion, he looks like he just filled his diaper with two-week-old diarrhea. The next panel, they’re at the party. And they both look miserable! What a great plan this shook out to be!

Parker wants to leave until two very attractive young women show up looking all slutty and enticing. Everyone turns their heads.

Yo, Monica and Rachel in the house.

Both these girls look in Parker/Gwen’s direction and then walk by frowning heavily. It turns out that one of them, the one with the raven-haired bob, is actually MJ! The other one is what’s-her-face, MJ’s friend. Liz? I think it’s Liz.

Gwen says their ploy worked: it got Parker’s attention. And now Gwen is satisfied, and now they can go home and do some of that face humping we talked about earlier!

They don’t even have time to think about leaving further. A very loud BOOM rocks the house. The party patrons all leave to see what all the hubbub ruckus is about! Some woman just blew up a car! Then she blows up another! Frikkin’ awesome, dude! Woop woop!

It might be a man actually. A man with electric-ball hand powers. He/she glances over his/her shoulder and stares right at Parker.

Gulp!

Diarrhea in the pants.