Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 3), Issue #2! In the previous installment… well, there were a lot of stories. But the main story covered Peter Parker’s return from consciousness after Doc Ock took over his body and started a successful company! So good for him, I guess!

Doc Ock had a girlfriend named Anna Maria Marconi, who is now Peter Parker’s girlfriend by the laws of the transitive property. And Anna Maria Marconi found a ring in Peter Parker’s dresser. And now he has some ‘splainin’ to do.

Oh yeah, and Parker is 28 years old so I can’t make constant references to Teenage Peter Parker Jerkin’ It like I do in Ultimate Spider-Man. Rest assured, though, he still jerks it for sure.

Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 3), Issue #2 [July, 2014]
Written by: Dan Slott

Today, in a room with no windows, a young, svelte woman looks through a cupboard, one of the many containing years upon years worth of food. “Hmm. Chicken marsala.”

She prepares her meal, pulls out a videotape of Spider-Man fighting Electro, and settles down for a lovely evening. With a “shwip”, she is able to hit the light switch with a dainty thread of webbing straight from her finger…

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THAT! I DON’T KNOW WHO THAT COULD POSSIBLY BE! We begin our story proper in Tribeca. The apartment of Peter Parker and 3’9” Anna Maria Marconi. Parker is trying to convince the young, short, short, short woman that he’s not the Spider-Man she knows. Nor even the Peter Parker she knows! She doesn’t even know what the fuck that’s supposed to mean. He tries to explain that his mind was swapped by Doctor Octopus, but this all sounds so stupid and made-up. I know I don’t believe it, and I’m supposed to! It’s part of the story!

But then she believes it, like immediately. “I have to cook,” she finally says. She absorbs information better when she’s cooking. She’s going to make cookies or something.

She calls Doc Ock “bold and decisive… yet surprisingly tender”, which also describes this awesome pot roast I made a few weeks ago. Parker tells Marconi, for what it’s worth, Doc Ock probably did love her maybe.

Presented without comment.

Marconi places the cookies into the oven, instructs Not-Doc-Ock to take them out in exactly 22 minutes, then fucks off for a mind-clearing walk. Peter Parker stands there in the apartment, alone and forlorn. lol

Parker gets a call from what I presume to be one of the Avengers. Duty calls, hotshot. Get your ass to the mansion.

Meanwhile, in the West Village, Max “Electro” Snuffleupagus visits the apartment of a hipster named Francine. Covered in tattoos and piercings. “Damn! Max Dillon. What brings you to my little hole in the wall? Does big ol’ bad Electro need a recharge? Come in and plug in.”

So, Electro accidentally destroyed an entire prison and needs a place to crash. Francine has a lady boner for this doofus, so her home is his home. Just don’t touch the vegetables.

Electro’s fizzling and popping all over place. He’s charging up, causing Francine’s piercings to tug at her face. “Sorry. My power’s been acting up. You should probably keep your distance.” And Francine is like, “nothin’ doin’, toots, I like a little foreplay.”

AVENGERS TOWER. After 12 security scans, Captain America is ready to believe the Spider-Man is indeed Spider-Man. BUT!… “I still have two questions, Spider-Man. One, why are you 28 minutes late?”

The answer to this is that he had cookies in the oven. And he brought some to share!

“All right, that brings me to number two,” Cap continues. “Why are you wearing pants?”

Well, sir, for one thing, we live in a society.

Spider-Man launches into his whole “waah, muh brain was switched” and then “waah, some lady zapped off all my clothes” and then “waah, Doc Ock changed my web formula and after creating web underwear my pants are stuck”. We’ve all heard this song and dance before.

Now Cap asks for a full medical scan, which confirms that Spider-Man is exactly who he purports to say he is. Cap isn’t convinced, because he doesn’t understand how to make connections, so he wants to wait for Tony Stark to show up so that he can explain it to him with puppets.

After Cap is finally duly convinced, Spider-Man punches him in the face for knowing that Doc Ock switched his brain out, which is something that I, the reader, have to infer. This causes the paranoia all over again, so Peter Parker is an idiot and we definitely won’t get out of here before lunchtime.

Oh wait, Parker is mad that the Avengers knew that Venom was Flash Thompson. Whatever, I’m sure that’s going to be in a comic book I’ll read when I’m 56 years old.

Cap apologizes for his transgressions. Spider-Man helps him up off the floor. We all kiss and hug and have a good time. For now, Flash Venom is in space and he can’t be helped. That’s a problem for another fantastic Amazing Spider-Man storyline! Now, what the Avengers want Spider-Man to do is hold down the fort until they’re back from fighting crime. Think you can do that, sport?

You’ve been trying to get my pants off for years, Captain.

Spider-Man decides to not do that immediately. He travels to his lab so he can find some solvent to dissolve the web underwear away from his pantaloons. He runs into Sajani, who has been trying to get a hold of him for over an hour now. “There’s a major problem!” she yells.

The glitch has spread to the nanite system! Fix it, sir!

Peter Parker is in way over his head. He barely has a high school degree.

Anna Maria Marconi pops into the room wearing a lab coat; reminds Peter Parker that he got her a job here, dummy. “Sajani, excuse me. I need to speak to Peter right away.” It’s relationship drama, certainly more important than nanite glitches. I hope you understand, Scientist Lady.

“I’m pregnant,” Marconi says with an overdramatic face. Parker and Sajani stare at her. Sajani excuses herself. Forever.

But, haha, Marconi just said that to get her out of the room! What she really wants to do is teach Parker about nanites because he clearly knows jack shit. A real act of altruism. In a perfect world, Parker would look the fool in front of everyone until the company goes bankrupt. It worked for Donald Trump.

Back in Francine’s apartment, she tells him that she was worried at first that Electro had switched alliances. Working for Spider-Man? That would have been rich! No, no, he was under the influence of mad Doc Ock experiment powers. But Electro doesn’t know that. He thinks Spider-Man did it. And now his electricity powers have taken a beating because of it.

Francine leans in for a smoochy-smoochy and she gets electrocuted. She’s probably dead! We’ll see that later. It’s way more dramatic than how I’m barely describing it, but I’m not going to give it the satisfaction.

But yeah, it’s a lot like this actually.

In Parker’s lab, the power goes out suddenly. He knows immediately that it must be Electro’s doing, so Marconi gives him permission to put on his costume with the pants and everything and go out and fight the crime. But Marconi has solvent to dissolve the webs. She’s earned a raise.

So Spider-Man finds Electro and he’s all like “NRRRAAAGGGHHHH!!”, zapping all over the place. Spidey tells him to cool his jets, which Electro finds chuckleworthy. “This is all your fault! You did this to me! You and all your freakin’ experiments!”

Spidey goes “buh-whut” and decides that, again, Doc Ock has fucked around and other people are finding out. Well, in the meantime, Spidey decides to try to be diplomatic and offer to pool their ideas together to find a solution to this whole “electricity is going everywhere and killing hipsters” problem.

A crowd has gathered. Electro is not taking Spidey up on his offer. He doesn’t want to be a lab rat again, for starters. Also, fuck you, Spider-Man.

Spidey’s Plan B involves luring Electro to a fire hydrant, which soaks him to the point where he flies off going “D’ooooohhh, Spider-Man! You win again!”

The gathering crowd had had a secret individual. Black Cat, whom Electro busted out of the joint by accident. She now thinks they’re even, but she should still keep an eye on him…

Spider-Man doesn’t have time to celebrate his victory. His phone rings again and it’s the Human Torch. They meet at the usual place: the top of the Statue of Liberty for some reason (in, yuck, New Jersey). Spidey waits at the top, but Human Torch can’t get up there because he lost his powers. Who knows why, I certainly don’t. “You know, a while back, when I ‘died’ in the Negative Zone, it was weird for me coming back to the real world, too,” Human Torch says unhelpfully. Treat it like a clean slate! You’ll buck up, pardner! In the meantime, he’s a thumbdrive of all the TV, movies, and music that you missed out on while you were switched off. Have you heard of Kendrick Lamar?!

Parker thanks him profusely with sex.

Undoing all the Doc Ock damage will take some time. He created robot spiders. Creating an evil, secret base. You know how it goes. This gives Parker an idea…

The next day, Parker rounds up his staff and tells them that cybernetic research is on hold indefinitely. Time to figure out how to trap and depower Electro, and then build a new prison. A better prison! One with lots of security and plenty of conjugal visits!

Nothing could go wrong, right??

Final Thoughts

Right!