Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #12 – “Battle Royal”! It’s now October, 2001. The planes hit the towers and Spider-Man is trapped in Fisk’s building again! In the previous installment, Peter Parker did some research into Fisk’s security system and discovered that his top-of-the-line ultra-expensive security setup records and stores DVDs of all security footage, so Parker decides he needs to break into Fisk’s property again to steal the discs that contain footage of his unmasked face. And he does just that, but he makes a big fat scene while doing it; taking out security guards, drawing attention from Fisk’s crew by causing the power to go out in the whole building. That kind of thing.
So, of course, Spider-Man gets caught. And now he’s being held down, and the electric guy is going to zap the shit out of him!
My guess is that Spider-Man will do a backflip out of the way and run off anticlimactically! Let’s see!
Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #12 [October, 2001]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Battle Royal”
Look out Spider-Man! Ol’ Zappy comin’ to getcha!
And yeah, just like I said, Spider-Man does all sorts of flips around the room. Show me a real life spider who flips around, I implore you.
Spidey shoots his web jism on both of Dapper Dan’s handguns, rendering them quite useless. Zappy Hands huffs and whines. Spider-Man’s inner cheerleader is terrified, but the dude presses on. “You’re smarter than all of them put together,” he thinks. “You can do this. Just keep one step ahead of them and…” WHOOPS! That big Ox guy grabs Spider-Man’s little twig leg and fucking smashes him against the room’s equipment. Ha! Now he’s going to be all like “OhhhHHhHHhHHHhhHh, MJ, I can’t go on a date with you, I’m sore! Waaah waaah waaaaah.”
Spider’s all limp. Zappy and the Gang argue about what to do with him. Zappy wants to kill him. The others want to take him to Fisk per his request. As they get caught up in their little disagreement, Spidey springs to life, does his best Jon Lovitz impression (“ACTING!”), and flips around some more! He causes quite a confusion! Zappy accidentally fries Ox a bit during the fracas!
I’m the only mutant freak allowed ’round these parts, Zappy.
Ok, is this over yet? Spidey keeps thrashing and kicking and these four grown men are no match for him. All the while, he shoots them constant funny-boy quips like he’s been reading shitty Silver Age comics all his life. Eventually, the rest subdued, Spider and Zappy fight one-on-one, and Spidey is very curious about where Zappy got his powers. He tries to interrogate him as he has Zappy’s wrists gripped so that Spidey can’t get hurt, but Zappy is all “not telling!” about it. Spidey starts bargaining: “I’ll tell you how I got mine…”. Zappy doesn’t give a FUCK, however, and tells Spidey to eat shit and that Fisk’s crew is going to murder him and his whole family. Spidey reacts to this by kicking a conveniently nearby water pipe, which splashes Zapmaster and causes him to kind of fizzle out and/or explode a bit or something. I don’t know, it’s unclear. He’s defeated though. Ho hum.
Nice backpack, dork.
“I won. Wow. How about dem apples.” Spidey says to himself. He pokes Ox in the face, “HEY! Big guy, you still with us?” And then Ox groans and speaks, verifying his consciousness! Spidey tells him to do the right thing and “march your incredibly stupid butt right to the cops, FBI or whatever” and confess because Wilson Fisk is fucking finished one way or another. Ox obliges with no argument whatsoever.
Triumphant in his victory, Spider-Man makes his way out of there with little urgency or pressure. However, he stops in his tracks when a voice behind him starts speaking.
“I don’t know what you think is going to happen, but there is no way in this world that you will leave here alive.” Oooooh, spooky! Who could it be? Flash Thompson?!
Nope! It’s that 800-pound piece of shit Wilson Fisk, positively bursting out of his circus tent-sized button-down shirt! He demands to know who Spider-Man is working for, and Spider-Man keeps his macho tough-guy facade and tries not to squeak at Fisk too hard with his puberty voice. He starts to launch into a drawn-out I’m-the-good-guy-and-here’s-why-I’m-trying-to-thwart-you trope of a monologue, but it’s subverted when Spider-Man grabs some notes because he can’t remember what he was going to tell him when he would get this opportunity! And the notes are just one fat joke after another, which really pisses Fisk off. And, honestly, with all honesty here, and I’m being honest about this, I cracked up at this. This is some good comic book shit right here, folks.
Fisk has had ENOUGH, sir. He bellows and lunges at the child (who leaps away). This sudden lunging from Fisk tears up his shirt completely, which was already strained past reasonable limits. Spidey keeps jumping out of the way, delivering taunts, digging his grave deeper and deeper in my opinion. This Fisk guy crushes heads! Don’t Fuck With Fisk!
Eventually, though, Spidey shoots his webs and pins him to the wall. He lets Fisk know that he wasn’t here to fight him (“Any idiot can do that.”), he has something much better planned! Then he shoots a money shot into Fisk’s face and skidaddles, leaving Fisk angry and bewildered and, possibly, slightly aroused??
Back at home, Peter Parker has a pile of stolen security footage DVDs. After getting on his computer and confirming the disc with footage of his barely-conscious mug on it, he snaps that one in half. And as he peruses the pile of discs, how’s this for some organically written monologue: “I have to make sure that the one thing I’m looking for is on one of them. I am looking for that one thing…”
I hope you enjoy the porniest porns from my personal collection, Mr. Urich, sir.
And hey, at least we don’t have to wait until the next issue to find out what “that one thing” is. The footage Parker wanted to find was Fisk crushing Mr. Big’s head. Parker drops off the disc to some guy at the Daily Bugle who I should probably know named Urich. Was he in Kevin Smith’s Daredevil? I don’t remember! As you can see there, Parker left an anonymous note for him. Urich, stammering somewhat after watching the footage, takes his bounty into J. JONAH JAMESOOOOOOOON’S office. Where they will both watch it and jerk each other off! What! Sorry, guys, my blog is rated E for Everyone! My bad. They’ll just jerk each other off without watching it. There, that’s better.
Satisfied, Parker dials up MJ, who happens to be AT THAT MOMENT wrapped up in nothing but a bath towel on her bed. He invites her over to his house tomorrow after school. “I’ve got something really important to tell you.” Thinking that he’s going to literally tell her ANYTHING else except “I’m that Spidey hoser”, she agrees and it’s a date.
The next day’s headline: “AMERICAN KINGPIN OF CRIME CAUGHT RED-HANDED ON TAPE – WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN”. Wilson Fisk already seems to be off on some remote island. His nervous lawyer tells him he can fix this, but will take time. “NOT! GOOD! ENOUGH!” Fisk bellows, but then when the lawyer is like “I can fix this, but they caught you murdering a guy on tape, dude. Cut me some slack.”
And Fisk…
…without a word, he walks away.
Final Thoughts
Does this Fisk dude have a spinoff? I want to see his murderous fat man antics!
One more issue left of this storyline. Parker’s going to tell MJ he’s Spider-Man, she’s going to freak out for no less than 30 issues, Fisk will be back with a vengeance, the Green Goblin’s going to bomb the Parker house and bone Aunt May’s corpse, and J. Jonah Jameson is going to jump into a tub full of maple syrup while rubbing Spider-Man polaroids all over his body.
That’s my prediction, anyway. Prove me wrong, Issue #13! I dare you!
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