Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #42 – “Temptations”

* Part 3 of 6 of the Irresponsible storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #42 – “Temptations”! In the previous installment, MJ gives Peter Parker a long, sappy letter she wrote about 1,400 years ago about how much she loves him and how much she has always loved him and I didn’t believe a word of it! But, they get back together, and it is good, and she whipped up half a costume for him. Now he’s going to beat up bad guys with a Spider-Man poncho. It’s going to go poorly, but who gives a shit? Spider-Man is back, baby.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #42 [August, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Temptations”

“I would really like to make out with my girlfriend!!” Spider-Man is crawling around a brick wall in his pants and socks, Spider-Manned up only from the top to his waist. “This is not that.”

At the top of the building, he spots a plume of smoke from about a block away. Police are going after it, but not firefighters. Apparently, the police now fight fires. At least they’ll be doing something for once.

Half-Spider-Man is self-conscious about his exposed gray pants. The mocking might even be worse than getting his tender little butt kicked. Maybe he can talk some sense into the Geldoff guy who seems to geld off on blowing things up! Did that joke land at all? It doesn’t look like it to me.

God, he would really like to stick his tongue down MJ’s throat right now…

Focus! Focus, son! Cars are exploding! Semi-Spidey confronts Geldoff, who is all like “vhat ees thees?” while the crowd around him mocks Spidey’s lack of a full costume. It doesn’t matter, Spidey’s got the upper hand here! THWIP SPACK SPACK! Take that Geldoff, your hands have now just become spidery egg sacks. Take that, bitch! Haha haah haaah! And–

Geldoff’s hands start glowing blue with incandescent energy. The crowd around Geldoff wants him to kick Spidey’s ass. The principal of the other school comes out. The police are showing up. It’s a scene, to be sure. Not handled very well. Poor inconspicuousness. D- work.

Ok, the police are here and Geldoff starts freaking out. He can’t be caught by police! The police don’t like him! The police are like “hey, Geldoff, we don’t like you” and they keep holding their guns at Geldoff’s temple point-blank and killing him. It’s very rude.

Vey vill send me bahk to Moldova. Please to be giving me your help.

Geldoff doesn’t want to get arrested and sent to Hell Jail, so when Spidey THWIPs his way up with his webbing, Geldoff hangs on tight to the back of Spidey’s poncho. “HEY!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET OFF!!” And, oh, Geldoff will not Getoff. And then he starts plummeting toward the ground to his certain death! But then Spidey THWIPs him at the last second, saving him.

They land all rough-and-tumble on the roof, and Spider-Man gives the guy a stern lecture about being an idiot. He almost got himself killed, then people would’ve blamed him, and that’s not good PR. So why was he doing all this shit? Hmm? Huh? Well? Answer. Well? Huh? Hmm?

“I vas at this rockin’ out party and I vas a little plastered, you know, and I vas blowing up the parked cars for fun.” Geldoff looks like a beautiful young woman in this panel, holy shit dude. If I were Spider-Man I’d be showering him with all sorts of make-outs. “You know, just for the giggles. You know. And the principal, he got a list of names and suspended half the team. And we’re coming up on the season finals and I got mad and told him: he don’t put them back then I got to protest him. So I blow up his car to make him unsuspend them.”

Sounds good, Boss! Heh heh. Spidey will just be going now, and f– BUH WHAT?!

So he started blowing up other cars. He just kept on blowing up dang cars! He couldn’t stop! You know. You know. You know.

“Listen…” Spidey does a classic facepalm. “You’re — you’ve got amazing abilities. Amazing!! And the best thing you can think to do is blow up the principal’s car? Show off at parties?”

Geldoff doesn’t listen. He enjoys the wind whipping through his luxurious head of hair.

In short, he has the power to scare the shit out of my mom.

“Let me see vhat is going on under the mask.”

“You touch my mask, I’ll drop you like a bag o’ ham.”

“I have the thing–” Geldoff continues. “I can look at something and I can make it exploding.”

Geldoff shows Spidey. He looks at a barrel on the rooftop and focuses. A big, blue ball of energy forms in his hand. Grows and grows and grows, then… boom.

Spidey calls him a mutant, which offends the ever-loving fuck out of this cocksucker. “Mutants are devil’s children!!” Geldoff looks like he’s about to send Spider-Man’s entrails to Staten Island. “You say that about me one more time, and you vill have the trouble!”

Spider-Man backs off. Geldoff gelds off.

“What’s, uh, what’s the accent?”

“Vhat accent?”

“Where are you from?”

“Oh yes, I am an orphan. Originally from Latveria.”

There’s that fake-ass Latveria again. Popping up everywhere. Everyone’s from Latveria these days, aren’t they? His adopted parents learned about his powers just recently. They are not too happy. They are scared now. They also think this mutant is a mutant, but the mutant is really adamant about how mutants are the devil’s playthings. Or children. Whatever he said.

It works like vampires. Get bitten. Lose your soul. Hunger for blood. Garlic sucks now.

When asked how he got his powers, Geldoff doesn’t know. “Maybe I am – how you say – a magic man.” They drop the subject, and Geldoff earnestly wants to know why Spider-Man wears the mask. “You’re like – you know, famous. Why not just be all the vay the famous?”

Spidey doesn’t want to be famous, he just wants to cavort around in a very bright suit and be in the newspaper and on TV all the time. That’s all! “I don’t want to be Spider-Man all the time. I want, y’know, to do what I can for people, help people out, and then live a normal life when I’m not.”

Geldoff’s big, bright, blue eyes light up like big, bright, blue Christmas LED lights. “I should maybe get an outfit, huh?” Spidey still tries to get through to the kid to use his powers for good instead of vandalism-type endeavors.

Well, here’s the thing: everyone made fun of Geldoff until he started blowing shit up. Now they either think he’s cool, or they’re just really scared of him. “I meet the girls,” he adds, pointing out yet another benefit of the irresponsible exploding stuff with his hands thing. “Sure, some people they scared of me, but I like that, too. Good to have someone scared. Maybe I blow you up and be famous for girls.”

Ha, we knew it would come to this. Spider-Man had this in his back pocket for just such an occasion: “Okay… well… instead of that, how about this… ‘With great power comes great responsibility’.”

Geldoff looks at Spidey like he just came off the boat from Lateveria or something (fake-ass country). Why should he help people with his powers? He looks like it’s a foreign concept. Didn’t they help people in Latveria? Or did they just roam the Latverian streets stealing Latverian bread from Latervian marketplaces?

BAM! BAM! AAAIIEEE!

Oh no! Something’s going on at the ol’ currency exchange below! “Everybody freeze!!” yells a bad guy of sorts. Spidey tells Geldoff to stay on the roof, but Geldoff wants to come with him and blow some shit up real good! Nope! Stay there and watch a pro, son.

Three robbers wearing, respectively, Batman, Captain America, and Iron Man masks are looting the establishment. Spider-Man tells them to knock off the shenanigans. Capt. ‘Murrica shoots his gun off, which misses Spider by about four inches. Then Spidey webs his gun and pulls his body toward him, clocking the guy in the mug. He’s out cold. The other two are like “okay, man, sorry” and they start backing off.

Looks like the situation has been neutralized handily and–

EXPLOSION!

Now the clientele are almost all dead! Thanks douchebag. “Huh? You like?” Geldoff smiles. “Kicked some of the butt that time.”

Taste the back of the hand, whore!

Confrontation ahoy! As you might imagine this culminates into Geldoff threatening to blow up Spider-Man again. “Huh?? Yeah? Never tried it. Wonder what would happen I do it to a Spider-Man?” He raises his hands in the air like he just don’t care, preparing to fill them with blue balls.

Spidey stays silent. He just stares at him.

Well, actually, he stares past him.

Because behind Geldoff are three beautiful women in X-Men outfits. They’d like to talk to Geldoff.

He’s one of the devil’s children.