Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1) Issue #2 – “Growing Pains”! In the previous installment of the series, Peter Parker is a nerd who gets shoved around a lot at school and is overflowing straight out of his eyeballs with teenaged angst! Mary Jane is pretty but you’re a nerd, Peter Parker, so don’t even bother! On a class field trip to Norman Osborne’s Chocolate Factory, Peter Parker gets bitten by a spider like some hapless dipshit! Yada yada yada, he gets strong and can climb walls, we all fucking know this origin story. The issue ends with Peter Parker hanging on the ceiling of his bedroom and he’s all like “I’m soooo stoned.”

What will Peter Parker do with his brand new powers?? Will he spin webs in the rafters with words in them in order to save Wilbur the pig from being cooked into bacon? Read and find out!

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #2 [December, 2000]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Growing Pains”

OK, welcome back! I trust that you finished reading the above recap for Issue #1 less than seven seconds ago so I don’t need to bore you with a recap, right? Peter Poopypants Parker hangs from the ceiling and-

Whoops, sorry! OK, so Issue #2 begins with a hilarious nod to Ben Stein’s character from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off by writing out the entire scene from the movie, verbatim, where he’s being a boring high school teacher! It takes about seven panels to get through and then it ends with Parker having a fit at his desk and then all the other students make fun of him again! I’m quite looking forward to Peter Parker being bullied for 141 more issues.

So after shooting a real humdinger of a quip back at our cuddly, obese schoolyard antagonist Kenneth “Kong” McFarlane (“Hey! How about you shut that stupid face of yours or I’ll shut it for you!”), Peter Parker excuses himself to the bathroom so he can smile vaguely in a mirror for a bit. He discovers that he grew some muscles. You know. Like a spider?

Harry Potter grew some muscles!

We are transported to after-school basketball practice. Even the gym coach makes fun of Peter Parker! Will the ridicule never end? Over by the wall, Flash “Bowl Cut” Thompson is hitting on Mary Jane with the subtlety of a basketball to the face. Speaking of which, Parker throws a basketball at Flash’s face! After some exchanges of testosterone-fueled smack talk that, frankly, well, I just don’t know how there were any survivors in the aftermath, the coach sends Flash to the showers so that he can probably spy on him through a peephole he drilled through the wall in his office. Mary Jane thanks Peter for sticking up for her. Peter beams like a doofus.

AFTER-SCHOOL SMACKDOWN! LET’S GET READY TO RUUUUU- ok, this is lame. Peter just keeps dodging all of Flash’s punches. Bring the hurt, son! Here’s what happens: Peter stops a punch with his hand and breaks about 450 of Flash’s hand bones. Flash cries about it. Pfft.

NNGG…AAHH! THAT WAS MY JERKIN’-IT HAND! WAAH!

Peter Parker, like a pussy, immediately regrets hurting Flash, but this cumsock deserved it so what’s his problem? There’s even a tear in his sad, little eyeball! Spider bite! Take advantage, yo!

This decimation of Eugene “The Flash” Thompson becomes the talk of the town. Kenny “King Kong” McFarlane is chatting with Harry in Osborne Manor about it over a bag of chips. “He just broke Flash’s hand and said ‘Next time I’m gonna KILL you!'”, Kong says with an air of bald-headed reverence. Beat up Flash! Laid the smackdown! Norman Osborne is in another room eavesdropping upon Kong’s poetic storytelling. “That guy is like a scary alien freak, man. First, what? Like he doesn’t say two words all year. Nuthin’. Just all in full geek-mode, right? Then all of a sudden he’s all — he’s all breakin’ his desk in half, then he’s all up in our face. Then he’s all smackin’ Flash down.” Ahh, Kong, you’re a cherubic treasure.

Norman Osborne is intrigued by hearing that his monster spider turned meek little Peter Parker into some jock-destroying little Peter Parker. He accosts his mumbling, apprehensive son with a proposal to let Peter have tour of laboratory after school the next day AND GEE I WONDER IF HE HAS SOME SORT OF ULTERIOR MOTIVE ABOUT THIS? Harry answers with a “huhh, burrhhhhh, uh, huhhh, yeah, ok” and Norman walks out of the room with a devilishly furrowed brow and a devilish ear-to-ear grin. Harry looks at him with an “I finally got Father’s approval” glint in his wet doe eyes.

Easy, tiger. You don’t want to be sent to your room without dinner, Spider Boy.

Back at the Parker household, our favorite ponytailed uncle gets a call from the Flash family. It seems that Flash’s hospital care is costing a pretty penny, and if Uncle Ben doesn’t cough up the dough then Mr. Flash is going to sue the pants off of them. Uncle Ben says “you don’t have to sue to get my pants off, Mr. Flash” and then he winks into the phone receiver. Actually, he looks pretty grim. I suppose ol’ Benny didn’t have it in him to put on his sexy charm after being told that Flash’s hospital bill is $2,500. Aunt May finds it harder to keep her cool about this. “Peter, this is not the way you were raised. This is now how human beings behave.” That’s pretty stone-cold, May. Just because you’re out $2,500 bones doesn’t mean you can treat your non-biological charge like some sort of MONSTER!! Like some sort of CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON!! Like some sort of SPIDER- oh, wait. As you can see to your left, Peter takes umbrage at this indignantly. When Ben jumps in to defend May, Peter runs away shrieking “YOU TAUGHT ME TO BE A WIMPY LOSER LIKE YOU TWO!” Ha! Points for Peter here in my book, that’s some funny shit!

May and Ben are in pickle. Their adopted son sucks right now, and they have to give a bunch of money they don’t have to some other snot-nosed kid’s family. As they discuss their options, Peter sits at the top of the stairs in a shameful chagrined fashion.

Peter Parker bolts up out of his bed at 3am. He suddenly has an urge to run out to an abandoned warehouse-type building to climb around the walls and throw some cars around. He feels alive!! I think he’s an idiot. Peter apologizes to his aunt and uncle the next morning. They notice that he’s not wearing his glasses. He’s got spider-vision now, bitches. Spiders don’t wear glasses!

Harry Osborne, with Peter in tow, bring their golden tickets to their tour of Norman Osborne’s Chocolate Factory. They pass through DOCTOR OTTO OCTAVIUS’ working station and he’s a big scary guy! Boo! As Peter fancies all the, uh, animals that Doc Ock is keeping in airtight green vessels, Ock stabs him really quick with a motherfucking needle and draws some of Peter’s blood. “WHAT THE CUNTING FUCK?” says Peter, essentially, while Ock goes “Whut? Whut?”, essentially. As Doc Ock grins triumphantly, Peter runs away like he was just getting lecturing by Aunt May!

Look out Peter, a DANGER is occurring!!

Doc Ock studies the blood sample and learns that Peter Parker is as healthy as a horse! And not even one of those sick horses that you need to turn into glue, he’s as healthy as a healthy horse! Norman, intrigued by this news, dismisses Ock and calls his other lickspittle lackey into his office. Norman tells him that we wants to duplicate the Bitey Spider incident on another human subject. His lackey smiles in quite a sinister fashion, but then his eyes bug out when Norman asks him to pull his own file! DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNN!!! DUN DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNNNNN!! DUNN DUUUNNNDDUNDUDNDUDJ

FINAL THOUGHTS

What’s this Norman Osborne guy up to?! Is Flash Thompson actually hurt or is he faking for sympathy?! What does MJ see in this Peter Parker piece of shit?! Who’s dick does Harry Osborne have to suck to get his dad’s respect?!

These final thoughts are stupid! I guess I don’t have any real final thoughts right now. See you in the funny papers, Spider-Fan.