Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 3), Issue #1.5 – “Learning to Crawl (Part 5)”! In the previous installment, Clayton Cole’s Clash becomes more and more attention-hungry, narcissistic, and unhinged. Peter Parker wants to hang up the Spidey Suit, but he feels that Clash is his responsibility to TAKE DOWN and BODY-SLAM TO THE FUCKING FLOOR. However, his pursuits to fight and defeat Clash have led to disappointing his school counselor Mr. Flannigan, his science mentor Dr. Cobbwell, J. Jonah Jameson, and his maggot-ridden Uncle Ben. Parker cries at his uncle’s grave like a wuss.

How will he pick up the pieces?? This final installment in the story will tell all, my friends. Or it will tell nothing. It’s a 50/50 shot either way, honestly.

Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 3), Issue #1.5 [November, 2014]
Written by: Dan Slott
“Learning to Crawl (Part 5)”

Peter Parker watches the fight happening at the ol’ wrestlin’ hole. “Anyone here think they can last a round against Clash, the Sultan of Sound?!” yells Clayton Pee-Pants Cole to the crowd. Three men are already down in the ring.

“He crashed a live wrestling match just to show off,” Parker thinks. Like he didn’t do it first. Parker, as Spidey, watches from high up in the stands. “Now I’ve got you right where I want you, Clash… on a page one photo for the Daily Bugle.”

The next morning, J. Jonah Jameson rubs the photos on his genitals. He thanks Parker for a job well done while Parker leaves with a fat $0.38 check in his hot little hand. “Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Jameson,” he smiles stupidly. Better to make money off this nimrod than try to fight him again. The kid is good, see. Really good. Not worth the trouble.

“Someone’s gotta stop him! S’all I’m saying,” says a man on the street.

“What? This Clash kid?” asks another man who is gripping a newspaper.

“Yeah, he’s almost as bad as that other one… what’sisname. The TV guy. The one-hit wonder.”

“Think it was ‘Web Boy’. Or ‘Insect Man’. Or somethin’.”

Parker passes by these two with a forlorn face. Didn’t even make an impression on the public, you loser! Go cry about it.

The boy is getting back on the right track, though. He has made enough money to pay back Dr. Cobbwell for stealing all his expensive meth-making laboratory equipment. He has made enough money to pay back Principal Davis and Mr. Flannigan for stealing all their expensive A.V. equipment. And even though these two are sour about the whole ordeal, Aunt May hangs back and does her “he’s a good boy” spiel. He needs more counseling though, obviously. So, Mr. Flannigan, let’s make that happen, hmm? *snap snap*

“I don’t think so, Mrs. Parker,” frowns Mr. Flannigan. “The boy’s untrustworthy and a chronic liar. Far as I’m concerned, he’s a lost cause.”

Now it’s Aunt May’s turn to be sour. She shakes her bony, wrinkled fist at the man and storms out of the office. What nerve, right Aunt May? Poop on his face! Poop on his face!

Nice pity party, asshole. Who brought the dip?

Parker goes to gym class where he lets the entire student body throw dodgeballs at his teeth. Yes, that’s right, even the nerds are getting their shots in. Flash Thompson even punches him in the head, much to my joy! You love to see it.

Peter Parker eats alone in the cafeteria. Even Polly the Love Interest won’t sit with him anymore after stealing her favorite VCR from the A.V. room. She still had a tape of A Goofy Movie in it! Where’d it go, huh???

Meanwhile, Clash flexes his noodle arm and declares himself a “total badass”. “Me, Clayton Cole, that creepy kid no one’d give the time of day to. And now?” A woman shows him a large tattoo of his masked face on her arm. “I’ve got groupies!”

“Blow something up!” the woman says. Disappointingly, Clash does not blow anything up at that moment.

Clayton Cole’s confidence is so high right now, he becomes emboldened to call the girl he has a crush on. Her Facebook page is open on her computer. “Polly? Polly McKenna? It’s Clayton Cole. We met at the science fair,” he smiles devilishly into his phone. “Yeah, it was a crazy day. Hard to remember most of what went down. So I was wondering if you wanted to hang out tomorrow…”

NO! DON’T DO IT! AHHHH! RAPE! RAAAAAAPE! NO MEANS NO! AHHHHHHHH!!!

Elsewhere, Peter Parker lies down in his bed ruminating over fighting Clash at the science fair and fucking up his reputation forever and ever. “No good deed goes unpunished, right? That’s the takeaway from this,” he thinks as Aunt May enters the bedroom ready to apologize for pawning off his problems on other people. He doesn’t know what the fuck the old hag is talking about. She tells him to shush.

“So… where to start…” she says, sitting down uninvited. “Did you and your Uncle Ben have the talk about becoming a man…”

Is this still about sex?

She means the whole power and responsibility thing, but he thought she meant unprotected boning. He’d probably rather talk about that. He might like boning. But no, she blah-blah-blahs about being good to neighbors and having heart and being driven and smart and then she sneezes the teeth right out of her head. The dentures land on Peter’s leg. He screams bloody murder, and I wish it ended there. I really do. But the dentures are just those fake clacking teeth, and Peter starts laughing hysterically. “Gotcha!” Aunt May says. Her disgusting dentures are still in her mouth! What a joke!

Anyway, so Uncle Ben? He liked to laugh too. Laughter is the best medicine you know, other than lethal levels of morphine. Have some fun in your life. Stop being such an ugly, nerdy stick in the mud once in a while. Well, bye.

“Been doing this all wrong,” Parker thinks as he dons the costume. “I’ve tried to honor how you died… when I should have honored how you lived.” Peter smiles as he puts his street clothes on over the costume. Time to fuck some ass! Er… kick. Kick some ass.

Clayton Cole isn’t smiling. He’s far away outside the school that he doesn’t attend because he’s a homeschooled weirdo. He’s nervous as the dickens. He doesn’t know how to act around other kids, let alone the girl that he likes. “Can feel my stomach knotting up,” he says. “Why would a girl like Polly McKenna want to waste her time on me?”

Great question. The best insight you’ve had this whole time. Unfortunately, his brain spasms and he decides to show up as the confident Clash instead. Everyone on the school grounds screams and yells to call the cops. They all wonder what the idiot who trashed the science fair is doing at their school. He tells Polly that he’s looking for a little action. This is definitely not a keen awareness of normal social behavior, I’ll tell you that much for free.

Sensing the danger, Parker rips off his street clothes. A.V. nerds run up to Clash and tell him to stay away from Polly. Clash uses his soundwaves to knock them across the room… but they are saved by a soft web catching them before impact against the wall. Spidey’s back, baby!

The students cheer Spidey on as he does flips and cartwheels, then snatches Polly up with webbing. “This is how you pick up a girl,” Spidey says smugly. Clash yells that the Human Spider is ruining everything yet again. Spidey causes everyone to laugh at Clash’s expense, which makes Uncle Ben smile up at him from Hell.

Go fly somewhere else, little insecure mosquito. You’re buzzing in everyone’s ear.

Eventually, Spidey wins. He webs Clash against the wall and unmasks him. Clayton is all “wah wah wah no one knows who I am” and Spidey says “Sure I do, you’re the first one to ask me for an autograph.”

He gives him autograph like a Nice Boy.

Clayton is totally chuffed! Now he likes him again all of a sudden and everyone lives happily ever after.

“Hope you were watching, Uncle Ben. ‘Cause I did that for you. Kept everyone safe. Kept them from being scared. And I made it fun. It doesn’t matter that most of ‘em wouldn’t have lifted a finger for Peter Parker. That’s not why you do it. You do it ‘cause it’s the right thing to do. Because it’s what you would’ve done. You were more than a father to me, Ben Parker. More than a role model… You were my hero.”

*trumpet fart*

Final Thoughts

This version of Peter Parker is a complete dork and I wish Clash could have at least shanked him just a little bit. Alas.