Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 3), Issue #3! In the previous installment, Peter Parker gets used to his now-girlfriend Anna Maria Marconi, the Avengers run tests and diagnostics on him to make sure he is indeed the real deal, Electro’s powers are going haywire and killing Tribeca hipsters, and Doc Ock’s influence has really done a lot of damage.

Peter Parker, CEO of some company that he has no idea how to run, decides to hold off on cybernetics research in favor of figuring out how to turn off Electro’s power.

Oh yeah, there’s a woman in a bunker, but they’re only kind of hinting at that right now.

Look out, Spidey. Black Cat’s gonna cross your path.

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

We begin in the windowless room that I’m not supposed to know about yet. The young woman within the “windowless room” walks on the ceiling, bored out of her mind. “Same walls, same ceiling, same books. Same everything.” She has pictures on her wall of the family she hasn’t seen in years…

Suddenly a robotic voice shrieks “WARNING. ZONE 2 BREACHED. WARNING. DO NOT LEAVE ZONE 1.” Well, I guess it doesn’t shriek because I put periods instead of exclamation marks, but you know how it is.

Good thing this young woman has all the time in the world to try all the six-digit combinations to turn off the alarm! A man on a little video on the keypad chimes in. He tells this woman, Cindy, he tells her, if she’s hearing the message, he can’t stop her, but he tells her that she shouldn’t leave the bunker. “Not just for your sake… but for the rest of us.”

Whatever, douche nozzle. She continues punching some numbers in… but then thinks better of it. “Damn you, Ezekiel…”

Bunker life is the pits, man. No Starbucks anywhere.

WELL THAT WAS FUN. I WONDER WHAT WILL HAPPEN THERE! Cut to the Upper East Side where Black Cat is attempting to disarm her own six-digit keypad. She does it on the first try. ‘cAuSe ShE’s LuCkY…

It’s her old penthouse. It’s where she used to have everything until Spider-Man took it all away from her. Blah blah blah, cry me a river you cunt from heck.

A couple of nerds peak around the corner. “Edgar! It’s a burglar!” Edgar. One of them is named Edgar. Black Cat’s going to rob these nerds blind.

Later, as she sips some champagne, she realizes that she doesn’t actually have nothing. Everything that’s within her grasp is hers, technically. Like a second-rate Catwoman (or first-rate, honestly). And she vows to “make Spider-Man squirm” before she kills him and guts him and eats him for dinner. Yowza.

In Alphabet City, wherever that is, in an abandoned building where the lowlifes chill for the night, Electro pulls his pud under a blanket of newspapers. He fizzles and pops while have nightmares about Spider-Man fucking with his life. He’s so agitated that he accidentally sets the building on fire with his electrical energy! You hate to love to see it!

Looking good there, Magnum P.I.

In Parker Industries, Peter Parker tries to get on everyone’s good side by being the FUN BOSS! He looks like a tool and nobody’s up for any of it. “Is he bipolar?” asks one scientist.

There’s good news for Mr. Boss: the lab has created a tracking device that can pick up Electro’s electric signature. Fan-diddly-tastic! Time to go bag us a sparking bitch.

Sajani is less than thrilled. Trading in one obsession (Spider-Man) for another (the guy who’s not Spider-Man). Parker defends himself by saying “WHUH WHUT I’M JUST TRYIN TA HELP DA CITY!”

“I do not get him,” Sajani gripes after Parker leaves. “We spend all our time developing nano-tech, and he wants to flush it on a whim?” The cross-eyed Anna Maria Marconi tries to defend him, calling him “easily-distracted” but conveniently avoiding the real fact that he’s no longer Doctor Octopus.

Marconi will keep her nanite research going. She promises to talk to Parker about all this later IN BED during THE SEX. But, as Marconi finds out quickly, researching nanites is tough work all by oneself. Too bad Doctor Squelchy Octopus didn’t trust anyone with his notes and findings and jars of brains.

A nearby robot perks up and asks Marconi if she needs assistance. “Well, that’s convenient,” she thinks. And we’re off!

Back in Alphabet City where the building done burned down, the firefighters assess the situation rather boringly, I must say. The Parkermobile drives on up, having had picked up Electro’s scent. He orders his crew to get readings at a safe distance while he goes and gets snacks! And by that I mean “puts on his Spidey jammies”.

The local news crews filming the scene have now picked up Spider-Man swinging around aimlessly. Black Cat watches this on her TV all “muahahaha.

J. Jonah frothing and spitting again.

J. Jonah Jameson gets interviewed at the Fact Channel studios (where “Fake News” is just another fad!) He goes pretty nuts right away, hootin’ and hollerin’ about getting shamed out of being mayor anymore. “I faced crises that would’ve had you pinheads curled up in the fetal position, sobbing for mommy,” he gripes. “I regret nothing. I apologize for nothing.”

And, of course, just like everyone else, he blames the Heroic Spider-Man.

The newswoman is like “I’m not actually interviewing you, dingus. Do you want a job here?” Jameson immediately grins like a psychopath.

In Alphabet City (where the fire is on fire!), Spider-Man flies into the burning building to do… something? He meets a man named Ollie, who is presumably Mary Jane Watson’s new boyfriend. Together they rescue a kid who just happens to be sleeping in the homeless hovel. They bond over this moment that lasts thirty seconds. But then Ollie steps on a weak floorboard and drops halfway through the floor.

“Looks like your pal ran into some bad luck,” says Black Cat, who shows up in the impossibly-still-on-fire building. Spidey thinks she’s here to help, but she’s got other things in mind… (like hot dogs, maybe? idk)

Black Cat slashes at Spider-Man, who wonders loudly what the hell her problem is. “You have the nerve to ask me for help? After what you did to me?”

At this point Spider-Man tries to do the whole Doc Ock explanation, but it doesn’t come through. “I DON’T CARE!” Black Cat yells in giant red block letters. So Spider-Man goes all in and pretends to actually still be Doc Ock. “I’m still Otto Octavius! And now… the die is cast!” he says like a complete fucking dork.

Black Cats gets spooked and decides to leave. “Okay. I’ve pushed my luck enough tonight,” she says anticlimactically. Spidey can’t believe she fell for it. Whew! “Did I really talk like that for months and no one noticed?” Now back to the fire that’s killing everyone… like Ollie, who is worse for wear.

Yeah, I’m just dying here while you slap-fight with cat ladies. Don’t mind me.

Spidey saves Ollie and all the firefighters outside rejoice! Mary Jane is there too! They embrace each other in front of limp-dicked Spider-Man, but then he disappears into the night…

Meanwhile, Parker’s team has somehow lost the 200-pound Electro Sensor…

It’s because Black Cat stole it…

And she’s still going to make Spider-Man pay whether he’s an oozy octopus or not…

So she asks Electro, who is cowering on a rooftop, for help…

And together they’re going to get rid of…

The one who wronged both of them…

That’s right. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Final Thoughts

Who gives a shit about spindly little Spider-Man anyway. Let him live his sorry life of Stouffer’s dinners and tiny dwarf girlfriends. I’ll be in the can.