Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #26 – “Circles”! Green Goblin’s been rambling psychotically about circles for two issues now. Let’s make it three, shall we? In the previous installment, Harry Osborn is undergoing hypnosis therapy that involves a lot of gaslighty brainwashing. It’s the only way Norman can make his son love him. Sad!

We also see the entire Green Goblin/Spider-Man exchange from Marjorie Taylor Greene Goblin’s point of view. As his evil alter ego, Norman is plagued with terrifying and persistent voices in his head that simultaneously tell him to thwart Spider-Man, hug and kiss Spider-Man, some nonsense about circles, some biochemical engineering jargon, and recipes for apple crisp. Goblin kidnaps MJ, we already knew that, but then he drops her off the side of the skyscraper. Spider-Man catches her before she hits the East River, but she’s unconscious and/or dead and that was the cliffhanger of the millennium!

And Nick Fury was nowhere to be found. That’s going to piss Peter Park off, man.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #26 [November, 2002]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Circles”

THE TRISKELION! The Ultimates’ floating headquarters five miles outside New York City! Well, this comic series about goblins, robot octopuses, and web-slinging teenagers has lost me completely at this point. Floating headquarters?? Outrageous.

Nick Fury is somewhere to be found after all. The floating headquarters, that’s where. He’s safely away from danger and demanding updates on the Osborn crazy-man situation. This all takes place simultaneously with the events leading up to the Green Goblin dropping a girl off of a building; Spider-Man trying to talk some sense into the jerk, and the jerk saying stuff like “CIRCLES! LOVE POTION #9…UH, BIOCHEMISTRY! BIOCHEMISTRY! GUUUHHHH! … THREE-MINUTE ALARM! AHHH!! CIRCLES! BIOCHEMISTRY! BO DIDDLEY BO DIDDLEY!”

Fury is trying to arrange for a good old fashioned Lee Harvey Oswald snipe through the noggin’, but MJ is too much in the way to get a clean shot without the bullet ripping through her face as well. Too bad! Oh well, he dropped her over the side. I guess that solves that problem.

NO! SHOOT! SHOOT A BULLET! The Furious Nicholas “Furry” Fury needs this mofo dead now. So he sends a couple of helicopters to start opening fire right at His Gobliness. Just raining bullets on the rooftop of a crowded, urban area. Just accidentally murdering about 400 civilians, probably. The Goblin remainds unphased. A little more perturbed, though.

NO! Upside-down and in the rain!! You stupid kids…

On the sidewalk, Spider-Man is making sure his damsel in distress isn’t dead as a doornail. Mary? *slap* Mary? *slap slap* MARY?! *slap punch* CAN’T YA HEAR ME, MARY?! *slap kick punch slap strangle*

She wakes up. All “whuzzah wha, huh, where am I, what’s going on?? huuuurrrrrrr”, and Spider-Man’s just grateful that his sexpot didn’t die. Explosions are happening above them, and Spider-Man urges MJ to get the hell out of dodge ASAP, PDQ, and now! But she wants to stay with him? Why, so she can fight with him. So she can weigh him down while he swings around the city with unbridled glee? Go suck a lemon, sister.

“No, get into a cab and get out of here!” Spider-Man urges, “Go to my house. No, not my house. Go to– go to that abandoned warehouse at Cruz and 3rd!” lmao, go hide out in the comfort of my basement while my Aunt May makes you cookies. WAIT, NEVERMIND! Go squat in a fucking dirty, rat-infested dump instead.

A taxi driver stops by to gawk at Spidey. Taxi Man is instructed to get MJ as far from here as possible. “Done! You da man!” he says, before shoving her in the backseat and driving her to Papua New Guinea. MJ stares at Spider-Man with a look in her eye that suggests that she’d rather eat a plate of poop than be away from Peter Parker. Frankly, I’d take the poop.

Spidey grabs his head and freaks out about how close he came to losing MJ too. Meanwhile, the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopters continue to try to perforate Greeny. “Fury!! Come face me!!” he cries angrily, inconvenienced by being shot at. Also, Spider-Man punches him right in the face. Catharsis!

Ha, speaking of a plate of poop…

The sudden appearance of the Spidered One causes S.H.I.E.L.D. to hold their fire. Goblin’s itching for a fight with Spider-Man! He can taste the victory! Like so many plates of–

Listen, you don’t want to mess with Spider-Man. He’ll do cartwheels all over town while mocking your many insecurities.

CRACK! “You really are a card-carrying, whacked-out-of-your-mind lunatic!!” Spider yells while knocking the MAGA hat right off of the Goblin’s head. SMACK! More blows reigned like it was fuckin’ Festivus. “I won’t let you hurt anyone anymore!!” SMACK! SMACK! Etc.

“Quartermain, what’s going on?” Fury asks his advisor at Floating Building Command Central.
“He’s beating the crap out of him!”

So he is. Fury smiles in a manner that says “oh good, I don’t have to work as hard”.

Goblin is bleeding orange fluid out of his nose as Spider-Man continues to fist up his face. Goblin gets tired of this and wraps his hands around Spidey’s two-inch diameter neck. “kkuukkzz” Spider-Man is known to utter. And then he’s flung halfway across town.

Nugh nugh nugh yourself, creep.

Perfect, the Goblin is alone again! OPEN FIRE! Bullets bullets bullets bullets, bullets that don’t work, bullets bullets…

GOBLIN IS GETTING UPSET!

The Flung Spider shoots a web back over the bridge from whence the fight was happening, he loses control, and smacks into the bridge tower. By now, Green Goblin is bounding his way back to his penthouse, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopters are following suit. Damnit! What about meeee?? Now Spider-Man decides he needs to beat him there so that Harry doesn’t get killed or molested or cooked a shitty TV dinner or something.

That shouldn’t be too difficult. The Green Goblin is starting to lose steam, see. Gettin’ all sweaty and tired. Looking like shit, even more so than before. And he really looked like shit. Green is not his color. “Guhhh…the Oz is wearing off…burning…” he clutches his chest. Guhhh indeed.

Greeny hobbles his way to his lab to grab another syringe full of that sweet, sweet serum. Why, just this morning he melted rocks with a spoon and filled about twenty syringes! He’s all set. He… just… needs… to…reach…

Guhhh.

…one.

Foaming at the mouth with orange saliva, looking at the syringe he picked out with hungry, red eyes, he’s about to stick the thing in his neck when SONNY BOY enters the lab. All like “Daaaaaddd, you silly goose you.”

Actually, this goblin scares the bejesus out of him. “Wh– what have you done with my father?” he stammers, looking positively frightened like your standard Peter Parker.

That’s some real nice limboing, son.

Harry’s eyes roll back in his head, positively orgasmic with fear, and collapses on the floor. Norman takes this opportunity to stick himself and re-up his goblin dope. “More! Mmmmore!!” he pants, like Elon Musk injecting his balls with fentanyl. He sticks another syringe in his neck and really starts going Super Saiyan. I think I’m using the right term. Getting all big and mean, right? If what I’m super sayin’ is wrong, please feel free to not tell me ever.

“I hope you don’t think I’m going to let you drive home like that,” pipes in a voice off-panel. Now who could that be? Jessica Jones? The Flash? Jeff Buckley?

SPIDER-MAN??? Bleh.

Spidey assumes a menacing, stringy pose and tells Norman that’s going to beat him up. And he kinda does at first. WRAMM! CHOKK! Good fist-hitting-jaw sounds. Let me try some! PIFFT! GURRB! HORK! MOO!

But then Goblin Man grabs Spidey’s leg and throws the kid through a window, shredding his costume. Looks like MJ’s going to have to pull out that sewing machine again. Face exposed, Parker starts crying. Or maybe it’s just water? Or maybe it’s tears!

Goblin grabs him by the head and starts squeezing his neck again. Harry wakes up and sees his father’s crazed double-boosted form!

Norman looks way more horny. In that, he has larger horns now.

Final Thoughts

This goblin stuff is cray-cray. Parker’s going to have to do something drastic, like put some Ex-Lax in Norman’s coffee so that he poops himself and then kills himself out of shame, maybe.

CIRCLES!