Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #48 – “Suspended”! In the previous installment, the Kingpin is back, baby, and he’s fatter and balder and meaner than ever! And he wants revenge against Spider-Man because the little shithead has cost him millions of dollars.

Parker is beside himself to learn that Fisk has beat murder charges and is back in the country. Meanwhile, a politician named Sam Bullit is running an ad campaign for his “against Spider-Man” platform. And to make matters worse, J. Jonah Juicy Jameson just fired Parker! D’oh!

Things are looking up!

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #48 [December, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Suspended”

Parker lets himself into Jameson’s office asking for his “zip discs” back, so lmao 2003. He paid for them with his OWN money and he’s going to GET THEM BACK. *a puff squeaks out of Parker’s butthole*

Jameson tells him to get on with it, and also he wasn’t fired for what he said. It was for how he said it! Parker thinks this is, and I quote, “a total load, man”, and he starts defending himself.

“It was how I said it? All I did was ask you a question. I wasn’t yelling or being anything but polite. I asked you a question.”

Oh wait, he’s going to talk a lot right now! Go make yourself a snack. Parker whines about how Jameson just didn’t like the answer to Parker’s question (which, by the way, was “why are we going after Spider-Man instead of Wilson Fisk”, in so many words) and then fired him as a hissy fit.

Jameson doesn’t like this act of assertiveness from young punks like Peter Pickmynose Parker. The kid is now DOUBLE fired! SECURITY! THIS KID IS BEING MEAN!

Robbie Robertson asks this mustachioed spaz if he’s just going to fire every person who wins an argument. “Jonah, I’ve known you for twenty years. I know you know that kid is right on the money.”

In short, fuck you Triple J. Ol’ Robbie’s taking his ball and going home.

Meanwhile, Parker puts on the Spidey costume and flies around town in an angry cacophany. “Now I’m going to have to go get a job at the mall or something. Excuse me, sir, would you like cheese on your hotdog on a stick? Cheese dog maker by day, superhero by night? This is my life?”

You’re fucking 15 years old, jerk.

Who’s that beautiful, dashing young man??? Couldn’t be New York’s Handsomest Vigilante???

Spidey stares at the Fisk building and cries about how one of his murderous enemies gets off scott free. Then he catches an anti-Spidey billboard and has a thought: “Hey, if I’m such a piece of crap… I might as well go over there and act like one.”

Our hero swings over to Fisk’s building while Fisk has a meeting with an advertising team. They’re weighing the pros and cons of more public appearances. Pros: New York’s larger businesses have always benefitted from his philanthropic endeavors. Cons: He’s fat.

In other news, people in the city still view him as a Kingpin of Crime. Because he is! The fat guy is Mr. Crime Man. And he shouldn’t present himself as arrogant and cocky while you whip your d–

THUMP! Spider-Man smacks into the window, which doesn’t break. And he just kinda starts sliding down to his certain death!… but, he’s able to grab onto the ledge just in time. Fisk walks over to the window and smiles down at the Spidery Nonsense before him. Then he gives Spidey a little “call me” hand gesture. Spidey gets fucking angry, man. Just starts wheezing and sniffing. He punches the window; hard. “Come out here!! Come out and face me, you!! You son-of-a–!!”

Fisk doesn’t waver from his victorious grin. Spidey gives up and swings away. He’s probably fifteen minutes late on his masturbation time.

The next day at school, Parker brings up Fisk during his class’s Current Events discussion. “Can we talk about this Wilson Fisk being allowed to walk around like he didn’t kill someone?”

The class collectively facepalms. The teacher will entertain this topic as long as Parker takes his masturbation time elsewhere.

“Well, the court said he didn’t,” responds the teacher.

“No. The court threw out the videotape of him murdering someone as evidence – didn’t say he didn’t do it.”

“Well, our legal system…”

“Sucks.”

“No, we have a system of checks and balances.”

“And it sucks.”

Parker asks the teacher straight up. Straight up now tell me do you really wanna… think this is right? Does she think it’s fair? She tells Parker that the judicial system has its flaws, yes, and he needs to look at the bigger picture… uh… well… Fisk does a lot of good for the city… and… and, uh… anyone have any questions about the homework?

WHEN FISK DOES A MURDER IT’S OK, BUT WHEN I PEE IN THE MALL FOUNTAIN IT’S A “CRIME”.

Needless to say, Parker starts openly ranting to the point where his teacher has enough and tells him to step outside and get the hell out of her class and also beat it. The whole class is affronted, like they can’t believe she just told a kid to leave for asking important questions.

“FINE!! I think I learned enough today.” Parker swings the door open and stomps his little boots out of the room. Next, he shows up at Aunt May’s work to tell her that he’s suspended. Suspended for, like, maybe being a little too rambunctious!

“You lose your job and get suspended in one twenty-four hour period,” May points out, looking alarmed and sad. “Are you sure you didn’t threaten her?”

NO! AND IF SHE SAYS I THREATENED HER THEN I WILL SWING A FUCKING SHOVEL IN HER FACE! “All I did was, like, ask about – do you know this Wilson Fisk thing? The guy murdered someone on videotape and now he’s all like walking around free…”

May takes this to mean that Parker is actually projecting his anxiety over Uncle Ben’s murder. Don’t forget, that murderer is in jail. Hard time jail, man. Death row. Bread and water. He will never hurt him again. Parker frowns and doesn’t have the heart to correct her and continue the discussion, especially since she spills her own guts about her husband’s gruesome, grisly, icky sticky murder.

Score one for May Parker, bitches!

May picks up the phone and calls the Daily Bugle, much to Peter’s complete chagrin. He makes this really funny face like he’s choking on a clown. May calls Jameson a shallow-minded, inconsiderate piece of rat shit with a Hitler mustache and slams the phone down! You go gurl.

Cut to Ben Urich in District Attorney-hopeful Sam Bullit’s office. Interview time! Mr. Bullit, your campaign strategy is to demonize Spider-Man even though stuff like crime and prostitution and Macy’s Parade floats with holes in them are running rampant through the streets of their fair city. Speak on that plz.

And it’s the same old spiel. Spider-Man is a symbol for crime. Masked men and women can’t be running around the city going nuts and stealing purses and beating up giant octopusses. “I think it’s affecting the city in a profound way,” he adds. “I think the damage is to our souls… and it’s time to take back control of our streets.”

Urich is a little skeptical of this stance, but humors the Bullit Man nonetheless. What about the superheroes that work for the government?

Oh, those are ok. Captain America? He has a boss! Spider-Man ain’t got no boss! Spider-Man is bossless!

What about mutants? Are these people also similarly dangerous to the city just because they get a bad rap? “It’s a complicated issue and I’m still looking into it,” Bullit responds. The President of the United States says humans and mutants can live together in harmony, but if I’m reading between the lines here, Sam Bullit wants to shoot all the mutants in the skull with his AR-15. Is that right, sir?

Urich doesn’t like the way this guy smells.

Fisk borrowed Bullit’s shower curtain that day.

Bullit makes a face of arrogant victory until Urich points out the picture behind him of Fisk fishing with he and his law partner. “That was a hell of a fishing trip,” Bullit comments suspiciously. Urich asks if Wilson Fisk is also someone who needs extra public scrutiny. “How do you mean?” Bullit asks. He means, uh, the man killed a guy on video and he’s walking around taking giant dumps on the sidewalk as a free man. Bullit’s law partner, Walter Dini, is his personal “lawyer”. Care to comment?

Well sir, Bullit doesn’t like this line of questioning one bit! “I thought we had an understanding.” Bullit grits his teeth. Urich doesn’t back down. Here’s here for FACTS. This is JOURNALISM at its most pure, and he’ll get decapitated by the Taliban if he has to in order to get the scoops he needs! Darn tootin’.

“I just wanted to know how your affiliation with mob lawyers would affect your–”

“Mob lawyers? There’s no such thing as mob lawyers.”

“There’s no such thing as–?”

“There are lawyers that work for the mob, which is an entirely different–”

“So you’re saying that that there is a mob and that your law partner works for them?”

“No, you’re putting words in my–!!”

“You just said – I can play it back–”

“I was trying to argue the term — the term you used.”

“Did you or did you not just say–”

“See, there’s these–”

“–that your partner worked for the mob.”

I’M THE GOOD COP AND YOUR THE BAD COP! SAY IT!!

Bullit grabs Urich’s recorder and breaks it against the desk. “You lookin’ for trouble? You lookin’ to get hurt?” Bullit points his ugly finger at Urich’s face. “We had an understanding.”

Well, J. Jonah Jameson is floored to hear this news. And Urich is floored to tell his boss that he had a sneaky secret unsmashed tape recorder in his pocket. Jameson is a little miffed; Urich was supposed to just do a simple interview. Not a motherfucking interrogation! Grrr!! “We’re endorsing this man.”

Urich was fine with that, but he asked a simple question and the guy started falling apart immediately. He just fed him a little more rope, is all. And then he threatened him. “Jonah, this whole thing stinks. This is so beneath you.”

Jameson tells Urich to watch his mouth. Urich doesn’t back down. He never backs down. He’s like Tom Petty, except Tom Petty backed down by dying.

“Jonah, seriously,” Robertson pipes in, “all this just to hang a guy in a costume? I just – I really don’t understand. What is your problem with Spider-Man?”

Jameson gives one of those famous J. K. Simmons stink-eyes.

Then the phone rings.

And it’s May Parker.

And, well, we know how that turns out.

Final Thoughts

That bitch boss, yo. Jameson is going to beg Parker to return to his old post lest he feels the unbridled wrath of Aunt May. She’ll flay him alive.