Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #59 – “Hollywood (Part 6)”! In the previous installment, in an incredible bout of bad luck, Spider-Man’s plane lands in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In an incredible bout of good luck, he’s able to escape the Brazilian feds, sneak into the cargo hold of an Atlanta-bound flight, sneak into a crate in the cargo hold of a connecting flight to Newark, and bound his way home before Aunt May could discover her little pants-pissing delinquent nephew being a naughty curfew-breaking piece of shit.

But, ever since Gwen Stacy discovered a Spider-Man costume in an old trunk in the basement she’s been out of blood! So Parker gets a big, fat gun to the face as a Welcome Home from Brazil greeting, and Gwen’s going to splatter his brains all over his Shania Twain posters. Welcome to Queens, bitch.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #59 [July, 2004]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Hollywood (Part 6)”

Parker is currently standing there garbed as Spider-Man, sans mask, with a loaded gun pointed at his chest. This is it, buckaroo. Pull out every last gambit you might have. Tell her that you didn’t kill her father. Tell her that someone else killed her father! Someone dressed as Spider-Man who definitely wasn’t the actual Spider-Man but, in fact, some jerkass fake mean Spider-Man.

WITH TEARS IN HER EYES, Gwen shakes as she keeps the gun trained on Parker’s emaciated chest.

“Hello? I’m home.” The call of the devil! Aunt May is back from Sex Vacation! Quick as a wink, Parker snatches the gun out of Gwen’s hand and pulls her aside, mouth covered, for a very hushed and very one-sided tête-à-tête. “Listen, listen to me! I didn’t kill your father. I didn’t. I am Spider-Man. Yes. Okay. But I would never in a million years kill anyone. Ever. It’s the opposite of what my whole entire life is about. I’m trying to help people. Not hurt them.”

Gwen gets an earful of excuses and diversion tactics. Grab up that gun, kiddo! Shoot this kid through the eyeball!

“And, listen, the cops told you it was a copycat guy in a Spider-Man outfit. They told you. The guy admitted it!! It was on the news. And I was with you, right next to you, all day the day your dad died!! The entire day.”

He’s starting to make a good point here, but I still think a bullet through the occipital lobe is what the doctor ordered.

“I was with you when you found out, I was there with you.”

Okay, we get it.

Aunt May, with her snazzy gray bowl cut, serenely checks the mail on the table. Parker continues to plead his case, saying that he didn’t tell Gwen because he didn’t want to see her hurt, or Aunt May, or Uncle Arthur, or Cousin Oliver, or any other characters from sitcoms from 50+ years ago. Parker begs for her to believe him, and he begs to keep Aunt May out of this for now.

Parker takes his hand off of Gwen’s face and she just stands there doe-eyed staring at the Spidery-Manned figure before her. Gasping, she runs out of the basement’s outdoor exit, slamming it behind her, drawing the attention of Aunt May.

Oh, the Octopus Man knocked out my tooth while I was masquerading as a superhero! I mean, ouch, dodgeball!

May notices right away that Peter’s cheek has ballooned up to the size of a miniature horse, so he makes up a flimsy story about losing a tooth during gym. She makes Peter an appointment to the butt doctor immediately, and they’ll squeeze in a trip to the dentist if they have time.

While Peter naps, MJ pays him a visit by thoroughly scaring the shit out of him after touching his arm. Scaring him so badly that he falls out of bed and lands on his bad cheek! He lands on a LEGO Eiffel Tower on the floor right on his cheek! Ha ha ha ha, ouch!

MJ said the Doc Ock thing was all over TV. She wanted to make sure her boyfriend was still alive (barely, but only because Gwen didn’t pull the trigger). MJ asks if it was true that he left the country and went to Brazil and fucked girls on the beach. It’s all true! It’s all true!

Let’s check out the TV. They won’t stop yapping about the fight. Here, look: *turns to Fox News where Hannity is taking a giant dump at his desk while turning purple in the face about the southern border crisis*

The news reports that Octavius had been apprehended by S.H.I.E.L.D., which makes Parker smile for the first time in about 20 issues. He learns that the media has been tracking the fight from the Lincoln Tunnel to Sao Paulo, Brazil and back again. He learns that the fight stopped traffic all day, that it halted production on the movie, that the whole fight was likely captured by the camera crew. He sees Avi Arad go “Hell yeah, this Spider-Man thing is aces, and we were all there to witness it, and we’re looking to clear the footage for distribution! Aww yeah, baby! Sam Raimi!” He learns that dressing in drag was the biggest news story of the biggest news story.

And now back to Cheryl with the weather.

Parker asks MJ if she talked to Gwen at school. Well, sir, Gwen wasn’t at school. She was spotted jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge! But seriously, she gone. “She found out my secret and she wigged out,” Parker admits to MJ’s complete surprise. She just about pulls out a gun and shoots him through the eyeball. “You told her??”

WELL, LADY, HE DIDN’T HAVE MUCH OF A CHOICE! SHE WAS CRYING AND HOLDING GUNS! Parker still wonders how Gwen made the connection, but it sounds like Gwen decided to check the basement for a Spider-Man suit for no reason yesterday, because… uh… MJ was over and might have gotten really emotional during the live footage. Heh. Uhm.

Parker is about the throttle his girlfriend with a tire iron, but then Gwen suddenly shows up at the basement door. “I was going to find out eventually because, like, I’m not stupid.” She looks like she’s calmed down! Not puffy and cry-y. She ran away, went to the movies, hung out at the library to, you know, read up on all sorts of newspaper articles about her dead daddy. That kind of thing. She feels better now, of course!

“Do you know I didn’t kill your dad?” Parker asks, opening the wound up all over again.

“Yeah,” Gwen responds.

WELL, ISN’T THAT DUCKY?? We can all get along again, then! The only people in this room that knows are present company. That’s *counts on fingers* three total. Gwen agrees to keep her lips sealed. After all, Aunt May took her in as one of her own. She owes the Parker household everything; at least a couple of bucks, honestly. She will do anything to help keep their friendship and protect the identity and safety and yada yada yada. Who wants lunch?

The three of them laugh it all away and, for another five minutes, are teenage kids again. “I wasn’t going to shoot you,” Gwen says a little too unconvincingly for my liking. Parker knew the whole time because his Spidey-Sense wasn’t tingling! That’s a thing, Gwen! You’ll learn about all the things soon enough, of course! What a great new chapter in everyone’s friendship! HAH HAH HAH HAH!!

*threesome commences*

Hey, yeah, you’re the guy from Pulp Fiction!

Meanwhile, Nick Fury has Doc Ock set up in some super-secret warehouse lab strapped up Hannibal Lecter-style. Fury introduces himself and starts yammering about how he has to do his job, and part of that job is being a dick to the Octopus right now. He calls him murderous, insane, and smelly stinky fatty! “I have had you sedated just enough so that you can’t control your arms mentally… but not so much that you will miss out on what we are about to do.”

Nick Fury initiates the sequence, and Doc Ock utters a meek “No.”

S.H.I.E.L.D. drops the metal arm apparatus in what is giant vat of either lava or spaghetti sauce. The arms writhe and twist while Ock screams and howls like a damn monkey. “OH GOD!! OH GOD, NO!! PLEASE, IT WAS ME!! NOT THEM!! IT WAS ME!! AAAGGHHH!!”

lol

They wheel the demented sack of tentacles and suckers out of the room while the arms melt. “Keep an eye on it for a while,” Nick Fury says to the soldier guarding the vat. “Just in case.”

FOUR MONTHS LATER, it’s the biggest opening in box office history! $176,000,000 on opening weekend alone! $545,000,000 worldwide after only four days! Thank you, live footage of superhero/supervillain battlin’!

And Kong? Well, Kong’s the real hero here! He was in the movie! And he’s getting all the attention at school while Peter Parker frowns at a neighboring cafeteria table. Flocked by pretty girls!

“Yo, Peter. MJ. You guys get to see it yet?” asks Kong.

“No, not yet,” replies MJ while Parker growls.

“I actually don’t have enough money to buy a ticket,” Parker sneers.

“Well, I totally hope you go,” Kong smiles.

“Yeah, I heard it’s awesome,” Parker snarls.

LOL!

Final Thoughts

Looks like Tobey Maguire wins in the end, folks! Look forward to seeing more of his work in The Boss Baby where Kong stars as “Stupid Poop Baby #2”. Until next time!