Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #23 – “Responsible”! In the previous installment, Harry Osborn’s back in town and it’s hella sketchy! Daddy Osborn’s back, too! He’s alive! Everything’s fiiiiiiiiinnnee!! It’s not strange at all!

So Parker gets invited to the Osborn abode, where Harry acts shifty and weird while Parker gets extremely nervous and sweaty.

He’s right to be nervous. Don’t be sweaty, though, that’s gross. Norman Osborn’s been reviewing the footage of Spider-Man kicking the Octopus’ ass for days. Days and days. And he’s tired of this Spider-Man shit. It’s going to stop now, or his name ain’t the Green Goblin.

*turns into the Green Goblin*

See?

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #23 [August, 2002]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Responsible”

For the first time in 23 issues, I get a large recap page that not only tells me who the characters are, but I also get what amounts to a novel explaining everything in tiny print! It’s like “oh yeah, some of this shit happened so long ago that you have forgotten you were even reading Ultimate Spider-Man instead of, say, L. Ron Hubbard’s Mission: Earth.

Flipping around town in the dead of night like a stringy weasel, Spider-Man finds a sanctuary at the top of a random building. He rips off his mask, hyperventilates, wheezes, and sniffs. “Oh God! What am I going to do?”

Cut to 12 minutes ago, where Norman “Second-Rate Hulk” Osborn leers over Parker with hungry dominance.

“Dad, it’s here!!” Harry Osborn yells through the closed doors. “Be right there, Harry!” yells the Green Goblin back sweetly.

“Aw, poor Harry. Everyone around him has a little secret identity and he has no clue about any of it,” Goblin muses. Parker attempts to scooch back while Marjorie Goblin Green yammers about his ignorant son and his dumb, dead wife. So similar, except Harry’s mother deluded herself with scotch while Harry just needs intense rounds of hypnosis to keep him in a foggy haze! Heh heh! Cool that he’s telling Parker all this. He could just, like, not talk. Superheroes have an easier time thwarting their enemies if they know a lot. Unless they’re not smart, like Captain America, who failed 2nd grade so many times that they decided to just encase him in ice.

That sounds awesome, actually. I need to spend a little one-on-one time with Doctor Warren myself.

“A couple of hypnotic suggestions to go along with the memory repression… and I’m finally getting a son I wouldn’t mind taking out in public,” Green Goblin grins gleefully! He pokes himself with the needle, injecting some of that sweet, sweet goblin juice. “Excuse me…ugh– this is the worst part…” he warns Parker, writhing in pain a bit before crumpling behind his desk.

Parker is quiet and terrified, like a girl just talked to him. He inches over to the desk to take a look, and he finds Norman Osborn awake and sweaty on the floor returned to his normal lumpy human form.

Hate it when that happens! Don’t get old, son! Now where was I? Oh yes. My stupid doorknob of a son doesn’t know that you’re Spider-Man yet. It’s our little secret! “Our bond as men. Our first of many, Peter,” Osborn smiles while Parker silently gapes at the creep. Harry keeps yelling for his dad’s attention, but why would Norman Osborne pay attention to his son now? He never has in the past! Time to give Doctor Warren another call soon.

“From this day forward, now and forever, you belong to me,” Osborn coos at Petrified Parker, “You work for me. You do as I say. And for that you will be rewarded.”

Parker’s a lucky boy! He doesn’t have to fly all the way to one of Jeffrey Epstein’s private islands to be sex trafficked!

So listen to Uncle Norman and do everything he tells you to do, even if it doesn’t make any sense, even if he has to fellate his way through a circus of Norman’s lab lackeys. Because if Parker even hesitates for one nanosecond on any of Norman’s commands, Aunt May will be tortured and killed, MJ will be tortured and killed, Kong will sit on you, and other horrible stuff will happen. He’ll work toward canceling all of Parker’s favorite anime shows. He’ll buy every Xbox in the city so that he can’t have one! And then he might murder him too. Or maybe just beat him within an inch of his life.

It’s just panel after panel of Peter Parker looking scared out of his mind. Delicious.

Does that sound cool, buddy? He’ll break your bones and then break them again after they heal. And then break them again. He’ll do this for the next 160 years. Then he’ll kill you!

OK, good talk!

The thing that Harry said was here is a VHS tape of a Dateline special. Is it about Norman Osborn’s NYC sex trafficking ring? I wish! It’s actually an exposé on Norman Osborn’s mysterious disappearance following a mysterious laboratory blow-em-up and a mysterious fire and, you know, it was all very shrouded in mystery.

It begins with some real admirable Norman Osborn facts. A real innovator in the field of bioengineering! The announcement of Oz, Osborn’s experimental mutagen that…yes of course, created that awful Dr. Oz!…sent Wall Street in a tizzy.

And then a lab exploded and a lot of people died and the supply of Oz disappeared and Norman Osborn disappeared and this fucked up mystery caused a lot of Wall Street panic and then the World Trade Center collapsed and then Chernobyl melted down and then Hiroshima blew up and then the Elon Musk farted and here we are today.

No answers.

No nothing.

UNTIL TONIGHT! BA-DOO-BE-DA-BA-DOOOOO!!!

“Tonight for the first time anywhere Norman Osborn, alive and well, speaks. He has come out of hiding, out of self-made retirement, to speak about the fateful night that destroyed his life.”

Norman watches smugly. Harry watches with awed interest. Parker watches all sweaty and constipated.

The long and short of Norman’s side of it is this: the explosion of his facility was devastating to him. He concludes that his competitor, Justin Hammer, was directly responsible for the explosion and for the death of his wife. And now that Hammer is as dead as a Carradine after a wild evening in Thailand, Norman feels safe to come back out into society with his penis-stroking son of his.

He’s a good friend, Harry. Do you want to invite him to Little St. James?

So all those reports of Dr. Otto Octavius being involved with Hammer’s death? Norman hasn’t spoken to the squishy octopus man at all since the explosion, so he has no idea about his thoughts, motivations, daily flossing habits, or his frequent purchases from many websites of lewd offerings. However, he MUST HAVE come to the same conclusion as Osborn: Hammer was out to destroy their lives.

Without even so much as one word, Parker gets out of there. A fetid, sweaty mess. Again, this was all in the span of twelve minutes and now he probably feels like he’s pooping his stomach right out of his butt.

He slinks home mopey; has to tell Aunt May that his tummy hurts and spending time with his friend Harry was a real lousy-ass time. Aunt May apologizes for making him go in the first place. Parker apologizes for lying to her on Saturday night. She understands. She was a teenager once too. Granted, it was 500 years ago, but she still remembers some of it. Possibly.

He hugs her. She’s taken aback! 15-year-olds don’t hug their aunts! But hey, it’s nice to have her old Peter back. It almost makes up for his involvement in her husband getting murdered!

So, with that crumbling relationship all patched up with scotch tape for now, Parker retires to his untidy basement quarters and contemplates his grim future. As he sits at his desk with his face buried in his hands, MJ calls him up for a booty call. Yeah baby.

“What happened? What’s going on? What happened with Harry? Did you go over there? Was it all weird? Did he say anything about anything?” MJ fires away questions with that wide smile and the devilish glint in her eye.

Parker needs to talk in person, but it’s almost 11pm on a school night. He needs to tell the only person he can trust who also knows he’s Spider-Boy.

Too bad he’s interrupted by a knock on the cellar door. He thinks it’s Harry, but it’s not.

This town is just lousy with pretty blonde teenagers creeping around yards and peering into basements. Release the hounds.

Gwen Stacy is wearing a shirt that says “COLD!” even though she doesn’t look cold. If she was cold then she’d be wearing a shirt that’s longer than her underboob. “Wanna buy some girl scout cookies?” she asks Parker after he opens the doors, “No, then is it ok if I kill myself on your front lawn?”

A woman after Parker’s heart, this one. I just noticed that Peter Parker is wearing a Cartman shirt! That’s worth a screengrab.

You can’t be here, Gwen! Respect my authoritah!

“I’ll call you back,” Park tells MJ against her wishes. She stares at her phone wide-eyed and bewildered.

“Sorry I ruined your phone sex,” Gwen tells him with her back turned, enticing him with her ass. Parker’s wearing boxers. This is not a good time to be 15.

Parker runs up to his Aunt May’s room in a panicky haze.

“Yes, you’re allowed to use the phone, but it’s after ten so–”
“No, I got a– I got a problem.”
“What’s up?”
“There’s– there’s a girl in my basement.”
“A real one?”

Burn!

It had better not be MJ, kiddo, or Aunt May will hang you from the rafters by your own dick. But, no, there’s a girl in his basement who he doesn’t want there. So cool it, old lady. It’s this weird new girl who he barely knows and she apparently ran away from home and she seems suicidal and her ass looks GREAT but he’s not in the mood to really have fun with that right now and it’s been a long fucking day so oh my god can you just intervene?

Aunt May’s a good sport. Even though it’s pushing midnight, she makes eggs for Gwen. Shortly, Captain Stacy shows up at the door. He and May give each other the ol’ “fuck me” eyes before he expresses his gratitude for her briefly taking care of Gwen in these odd circumstances.

And that’s that. Everything is wrapped up in a nice little package with a pretty bow and–

Oh yeah, MJ. Uhhhh…well, Parker is completely honest with her the next day at school. Kid has really grown up in the last 20 issues! I’m proud of my homeboy here.

Yeah, well, there was a little bit of hanky and a little bit of panky to be had.

MJ is still unsettled. Why, of all places, did Gwen show up at his house? And he didn’t bother to call back once Aunt May got involved? What’s up with that shit?

“Listen, I need to tell you something more important than any of this,” Parker says, not reassuring MJ whatsoever, and then he’s about to go into his whole anxiety about how and why he filled his pants with diarrhea while at the Osborn house…and then Gwen pops in from behind to give Parker a giant hug.

“Hey, it’s my own personal superhero,” she gushes, leaping onto his back while MJ recoils. Gwen and Parker chat it up while MJ stands awkward beside the two of them. Gwen thanks Parker effusively and profusely! “Hold on to this one, MJ. Solid gold,” she says, grinning like a baboon. MJ returns her own half-hearted smile.

Gwen leaves. Parker tries to get MJ’s attention again, but the intercom summons Parker to Classroom 222! It’s always something! And Classroom 222 smells.

“I’ll see you after class. I’m not grounded anymore. And I need to tell you something.”

And he bolts. MJ lookin’ butthurt.

Classroom 222 contains Dr. Bradley, the psychiatrist who spoke to the student body after the Green Goblin attack, and she wants to follow-up with him about the Osborns’ return to New York City. She heard he was over at their place last night! From who? Ohhhh, doesn’t matter…anyway, “did Norman Osborn reveal his new abilities to you?” she asks.

For the 50th time in this issue, Parker gets nervous as hell. “Did he threaten you? Did he tell you that he is aware that you are Spider-Man?” Dr. Bradley asks pointedly.

The jig is up. More people know about his secret identity than Parker originally thought. And Dr. Bradley clearly isn’t who she says he is.

“I want to know what’s going on?” Parker yells, thrashing like a spaz.
“Do you want to take it from here, sir?” Dr. Bradley says to someone…or something…else in the room. Something invisible. In front of Parker’s eyes, the room swirls as another entity present in the room makes him or herself known.

“Get outta town…” Parker breathes to himself.

Final Thoughts

What a cliffhanger! Is it Gary Busey? Jermaine Jackson? Rupert Grint? Tila Tequila? Andy Rooney? Wild Bill Hickok?

WE’LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE, WON’T WE?

…

Kirsten Dunst? James Franco?