Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Spider-Gwen (Vol. 1), Issue #3 – “Most Wanted (Part 3)”! In the previous installment, Spider-Gwen is still at-large and she’s hallucinating an awful new character named Spider-Ham, a wisecracking pig dressed as Spider-Man! I want to murder him in a well.

Frank Castle will stop at nothing to catch her, and Captain Stacy is worried. That Frank Castle is a ruthless piece of man, and Gwen isn’t exactly thinking straight these days.

Is that it? That’s it!

Spider-Gwen (Vol. 1), Issue #3 [June, 2015]
Written by: Jason Latour

“Every night, my dad rides the train home to Forest Hills.”

BOOOOORING. I’m bored! How about Captain Stacy walks a tightrope home 1,400 feet above the street? That would be much more interesting than “riding a train”. Jesus CHRIST, people.

Captain Stacy looks positively grumpy as he exits the train with all the other mouth-breathing yokels.

“Look someone in the eye and you’ll see more than who they really are–” Gwen narrates. “–you’ll learn who you are.”

Captain Stacy looks positively grumpy as he walks down his lonely, dark street. As he enters the house, he calls for Gwen, who is currently clinging to the top corner of the living room like a… well, like a spider. Like a dang ol’ spider.

“What does he think when he looks at me?” she asks herself.

“Damn it, Gwen. Why are you still in that costume?” he asks. “Are you trying to get caught?”

Gwen assures her old man that she’s a Sneaky Pete and that it’s impossible to catch her. “No one saw me. We’re safe to talk here–”

“This is our home, Gwen–” Captain Stacy scolds. “Not your secret headquarters.” In short, she’s a scrotum hair away from making a stupid mistake that will have FRANK CASTLE on her ass. Captain Stacy has done everything he could – talked to the bosses, ate a whole wedding cake – but now it’s out of his hands. She’s on her damn own.

Can’t see you, Dad! If I can’t see you, then you’re not talkin’!

Gwen asks what happens if she’s not around to save someone getting hurt. How will she live with herself? And Captain Stacy is like “YOU JUST DO, IDIOT”.

Then there’s a lot of “I know what’s best for you” and “You can’t control me, Dad” going on. “I’d give anything to stop lying, to stop hiding behind that mask. But how can I help anyone without it?” Uggghhh, Gwen’s not fucking listening. Stupid teenager.

Anyway, eventually they reach a mild understanding and hug it out. Suddenly, Gwen’s Gwenny-sense starts tingling. “Get down!” she yells.

The Vulture leaps through their fucking window, uninvited of course. He crashes straight into Captain Stacy, full force. Yellow smoke fills the room. Her spider-sense is overwhelming her. “You’re keeping secrets, Captain,” the Vulture sneers. “Dirty little secrets–” He lifts Stacy up by the shirt and asks him why Spider-Woman saved him from the Kingpin. What makes him so goddamned special? “It’s time to come clean, Captain. WHO is she to you?”

Gwen scrambles to turn herself into Spider-Gwen amidst the smoke. “You’re no match for my tiger style,” she says stupidly while flipping around some nunchucks! She makes short work of the Vulture, certainly.

I’m gonna go WAAA-TAH on your ass! I can WAAA-TAH all damn day! Now someone pour me a glass of waaa-tah.

The Vulture thinks this Spider-Like-Woman is a fool! The Kingpin wants her gone, see. Out of the picture, see. But she isn’t taking that seriously, at least not until she gets overwhelmed by that yellow smoke. The Vulture’s yellow smoke. Remember the Vulture? You damn well better, he likes being remembered. He likes being remembered for the genius that he most assuredly is! And Spider-Gwen facepalms as he rambles on and on about his super genius and how he’s going to tear down everything he built up just because he can. And then, w–

BANG BANG! Captain Stacy has a rag over his mouth to keep the smoke out as he shoots his gun all willy-nilly. “Get the hell away from her, you freak!” he screeches. Vulture says things like “HRRNNNNGH” and “HRRNRNRHNGN” before flying away with his “I’ll get you next time, rrrrnnnggghhh” groan.

The smoke dissipates – barely – as Gwen makes sure her dad is a-ok. But he’s not a-ok. He worries that she may have just revealed her secret identity. He coughs and hacks and wheezes while she’s like “uhhhhhh, he’s getting away, Dad.”

Captain George “Fancypants” Stacy tells his daughter that the police will step in and take of all this, but she immediately webs his shoes together and slips out of the house while he shouts and rants. The Vulture had slammed head-first into a cop car, breaking its windshield, sending its occupants into a tizzy to end all tizzies. Smoke swirls all around him, but this just makes Gwen able to find him faster. She tries to make this quick before the rest of the cops come.

Where I would put that third fist? Well, it’s none of your business until it’s all lodged in there, if you know what I mean.

Spider-Gwen and the Vulture duke it out for a few panels until she gets overwhelmed further by the gas. “Okay…” she thinks. “Maybe this wasn’t so smart.”

Can I step in for a moment and say that literally nothing is happening in this damn comic. Nothing is happening! Something happen, please!

Gwen coughs and loses Vulture in the yellow mists… until a menacing figure wearing a gas mask emerges. “CAPTAIN CASTLE? CASTLE, DO YOU READ ME? OVER,” his radio blares as he grabs Spider-Gwen by the scruff and hauls her away. “DO YOU HAVE EYES ON THE SPIDER-WOMAN? OVER.” But then she starts fighting back. More fighting, of course. Fighting fighting fighting. “DAMN IT, FRANK, DO YOU REQUIRE BACKUP?”

Spider-Gwen snaps. She absolutely fucking snaps and is completely tired of all this bullshit! She starts wailing on this guy, throwing him to the ground, yelling at him. And Castle keeps reporting back to his backup that, no, he’s got this all handled. Clearly.

No wait, I spoke to soon. He gets up and cattle-prods this teenage bitch to the ground. “No more running. No more hiding. You’re done, you freak of nature. And I want to see the look in your sick eyes as that sets–”

He pulls off Spider-Gwen’s mask and stops short, disbelieving what he sees before his very two eyeballs! A girl?? A teenage girl?? With hair all over her face?? Just a girl??

Did someone say something about a little fistin’?!

“Dad was right. I was stupid – sloppy –” Gwen says as she slumps against the ruined cop car. “Can’t just leave Toomes [Vulture] for the cops — If he’s figured it out. If he tells my secret–”

“No,” she realizes. Spider-Gwen is not a criminal. She won’t stoop. She finds the Vulture and webs him all up for the cops to come and scoop him away!

Meanwhile, Captain Stacy has, presumably, passed out in the yellow fog in his house. Someone jostles him awake. Ben Parker, his neighbor. SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT: Gwen Stacy is Spider-Woman at a time when Uncle Ben was still alive? How old is Peter supposed to be? What timeline is this? What’s going on? Where are my pants? Help! Help!

Ben helps Stacy up and out of the house before he gets asphyxiated on fart gas. As they mosey over to the Parker household, Gwen perches on the roof. “If there’s one thing May Parker knows – it’s how to get a man back up on his feet.”

And that’s it. That’s the end.

Final Thoughts

This series is dumb.