Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #41 – “The Letter”! In the previous installment, Peter Parker continues trying to do the Spider-Man thing even though he has no costume. He tries going out in a mask with a sweatshirt and jeans, but it doesn’t work. He should really quit the Spider-Man gig and start banging MJ again, but that won’t happen. Peter Parker is a colossal dingus. He and Gwen are flirting more and more, but that’s stupid. Go for the redhead.

The issue ends with some man/woman blowing up cars with his/her electric powers. I don’t know if I’m supposed to know who it is. I don’t. As a result, it wasn’t much of a cliffhanger.

Shall we continue?

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #41 [July, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“The Letter”

I didn’t mention this last time, but something keeps repeating “GELDOFF GELDOFF GELDOFF GELDOFF” and it ain’t my novelty Mickey Mouse alarm clock!

This is definitely a man who’s doing the blow-’em-ups. He looks like a young Sebastian Bach from Skid Row and/or Gilmore Girls! The kids are reveling in the vehicular destruction until a gaggle of cops come barreling down the street. Cries of “Oh, man…” and “Ooooooh, man!” and “Bail!” can be heard as a filthy teenagers start running off in all directions.

Gwen is yelling, positively screaming, at Parker to shake a leg and get out of there, but Parker stays rooted to the spot. He glares angrily, probably because cops fucking suck.

“EVERYONE, FREEZE WHERE YOU ARE!”

Eep! It’s the bobbies! Kids are running out of the house, hopping fences, shooting up delicious heroin, and causing 9/11. MJ, ever the damsel in distress, gets knocked to the ground while attempting to leap a fence. “Ow! Some idiot stepped on my butt!”

Yeah yeah yeah, we’re all stepping on each other’s butts. Time to keep moseying. They run across a street – Parker, MJ, Gwen, and Liz – recreating the Abbey Road album cover.

Come together/Right now… Sorry, this is dumb.

They all end up at a bus stop with a few sultry prostitute types. “What happened exactly?” asks Liz. “Some dude, this lanky mutant dude, blew up a couple of cars right on the front lawn,” responds Gwen. Blew up with his mind, man. Dig it.

The prostitute types are like “His name is Geldoff, he goes to our school”, which either makes them not prostitute types, OR they all go to prostitute school. It has to be one or the other. Anyway, this Geldoff guy is a foreign exchange student. They don’t know what his deal is, only that he does some trick where he blows up stuff with his mind, man. Dig it.

If it’s a mutant, that shit is heavy. Liz’s uncle was a mutant and he died of mutant anal cancer.

Gwen, however, wonders how getting arrested would’ve gone over with the police force considering her dad was Coptimus Prime. This wondering leads to some very public sad-sackin’. “My dad would have died of embarrassment… You know, if Spider-Man didn’t already kill him.” Twist that knife, Gwenno! MJ stares at Parker’s stoic reaction. Parker comments on MJ’s really slutty outfit, but, like, in a nice way!

Bus a-coming. Each kid takes their own seat until MJ beckons her old squeeze over to her. “What’s so funny?” Parker asks her after he catches her smirking. Here’s what’s funny, bro: Your DICK is hanging out of your PANTS! Also, why take the bus, idiot? Go be Spider-Man and swing on out of here.

He can’t be Spider-Man. He lost the costume. MJ laughs at this fucking ninny. Not much else happens. Things are awkward.

We need to discuss, at length, the sex that we are currently not having.

So MJ stops Parker to talk about a folded envelope that she pulled out of her purse. “If I give it to you…” she hesitates, “…will you promise not to open it till you get home?”

BIZZZORRRT BRRTTT!! Well, now you’ve piqued the kid’s curiosity! Gwen and Liz look on as Parker doesn’t get a good answer on what the fuck it even is. “Just promise me,” MJ says again. He glares at her like that “me gusta” rage face, only he doesn’t look like he gustas at all. “Yeah. Okay.”

Then Gwen and Parker have this exchange. Ready?

“The hell was that?”

“Let’s go home.”

“Open the note.”

“I’ll do it at home.”

“Whipped. It’s okay, I know what it says.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Wanna bet?”

DOES GWEN KNOW WHAT THE NOTE SAYS??!*

*who cares

We don’t get left hanging too long here. Parker opens the note in the comfort and sanctity of his own jerkin’ hole and starts putting those reading skills to good use.

Gross.

So yeah, the note is a bunch of this kinda shit. And that she’s miserable. And that she wishes she hadn’t said a lot of what she said. Blah blah blah. After finishing the note, he bolts next door and leaps through MJ’s window, shattering it into seven trillion pieces and killing both himself and her in the process. “You mean it?” he asks. “I’m so scared, Peter,” she responds.

They get lovey-dovey. Here’s how he can fix this: 1) he promises no one else will toss her off anything high, 2) he promises to tell her every at all times, including which TV dinners he ate that night, 3) that’s it, really.

Then they kiss and make up. FINALLY! After all those issues. Bone the redhead, son! She’s the one who matters!

The next morning, someone had sprayed “GELDOFF RULES!!” all over the lockers with red paint. Parker finds it curious and disconcerting. Who the FUCK is this Geldoff guy and why does he, as they say, rule? “I gotta get over to that other school and figure out what the deal is.” Is he going to be the new Big Bad? Is he just some snot-nose kid like Parker? Does he poop his pants like Parker? Eat his turds like Parker? These are the questions.

MJ surprises him with a peck on the cheek. Flash Thompson surprises him too, but no kiss from him. Rude. “I gotta talk to you, Parker,” he says for the second time in two issues. Parker tells him, in a nicer way, to fuck right off. Again.

MJ has his back, all like “yeah!” Flash gets mad and storms off again, so we will undoubtedly get four more issues of him trying to approach the intimidating Peter Parker for more fireside chats.

He probably knows Geldoff and has been accidentally funding his various Bad Boy crimes.

Liz comes running up to the two lovebirds and shows them her cute little 2003 flip phone. She has a friend from another school who knows a guy who knows another guy who actually knows Liz’s friend, and Liz’s friend is personally currently seeing Geldoff blow shit up at this one school. Lots of “BOOM!”s are emanating from her phone. Kong wants to go over there and see shit get blown up. Liz does not want to go watch shit get blown up.

MJ pulls Parker aside and tells him that he must – nay – he MUST go over there and set shit straight. Costume or no costume! But here’s the funny thing, right? She made him another costume. Well, half a costume. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl hasn’t had enough time to finish it yet, but hey, it’s the “thought” that “counts”.

They scuttle over to a dumpster and he puts that shit on. It looks like a poncho draped over his smelly slacks. “Well, this is just embarrassing,” he says, embarrassed.

Tuck it in, son!

Final Thoughts

This kid looks like a fool-ass fool. I wanna see MJ put on the mask and start kicking ass. She really needs to dump this loser and stop being a fucking girlfriend. Yeesh.