Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #43 – “Help”! In the previous installment, in a nutshell, Spider-Man tries to talk some sense into Geldoff and his desire to use his car-blow-up powers for less-than-good reasons. Geldoff hints more than once at blowing up Spider-Man, which he deftly manuevers around and changes the subject.

While stopping a robbery, Geldoff blows up the building and hurts a few civilians inside. Not cool.

The issue ends with three very lovely X-Men ladies showing up to talk to Geldoff. He’s an X-Man.

And we’re all like “no shit”.

So there you have it.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #43 [September, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Help”

Petey Parky is playing hooky. Doctor Science Professor asks why he isn’t in class right now. “The only one of you jokers who pays an ounce of attention and he skips the class? I saw him in the hallway, why isn’t he here?”

MJ perks up and tells the teacher that, and I quote, “he has a stomach thing” (aka boner). Stomach things ain’t gonna fly. Mr. Irate Science Teacher Kinda Guy is going to call Parker’s parents after school (lmao) to discuss his rampant delinquency!

A message from the principal over the intercom interrupts this happy scene. The school a few blocks away, PS 44, is getting attacked by mutants! Sources say that one of them is rubbing her butt all over the outside bricks, which is nasty. “Why don’t know exactly who or what is involved in the attack, but that school has been evacuated and police are on the scene. For safety purposes, I am ending the school day effective immediately. School is closed for the day.”

Pffft, well if the aim was safety, then closing school early was stupid. Get ready for a litany of crowd crush deaths as the whole student body attempts to pile toward the front door. The science class gets riotous; the teacher attempts to restore order. MJ looks worried, so she must know that Parker is at PS 44 as we speak…

Speaking of PS 44 as we speak, we turn our attention to PS 44 where mutants are “terrorizing” the school. “Mutants!!” Geldoff cries, bugeyed. “Where??!!” says Beautiful X-Woman #1 cheekily. The other two smile smugly.

Nope, I’m Cap’n Crunch! Shiver me timbers!

Because every woman is drawn the same in Ultimate Spider-Man, basically, I didn’t know that these three ladies were Jean Grey, Kitty Pryde, and Storm. Grey has a kickass red pixie cut. Nice. “Don’t mean to freak you out or anything,” claims Jean Grey to the thoroughly freaked out Geldoff, “but we wanted to talk to you.”

Something about the X-Men striving to bring men and mutants together in harmony and peace and all that other treehuggin’ horseshit. They want to discuss Geldoff’s future. Get your notes ready, sir. I hope you don’t have anything to say about blowing up cars for fun in there anywhere in front of these nice young ladies.

Geldoff is so stricken with panic that he faints.

So, with him out of the picture, the three turn to talk to Spider-Man. It’s cool to finally meet him in the flesh!

“Spider-Man, wow, it’s like an honor to meet you.”

“It is?”

“I’m a huge fan–”

“You are?”

“She has a poster of you on her wall.”

“You do?”

“Oh, we’re all fans.”

“They sell posters?”

Very smooth. They ask him where the other half of his costume is and WHY he’s sporting wood inappropriately through his khaki pants. Am I half-kidding there? Maybe not! “So, uh, this guy is a mutant? I thought so, but he was pretty, no offense, he seems pretty homa- homoasu- homophobic.”

Good choice of words. Not sure what that has to do with mutant intolerance exactly, unless all mutants are gay or something. Let me check my notes on that one later. Oh, Spider-Man shifts gears immediately. “Mutant phobic.”

Jean Grey starts using her telepathic powers to speak to the Spidery One without speaking, so to speak! She tells him it was cool of him to try to help him out, even if he wasn’t receptive to anything like logic or reason. “We at the X-Men try to handle things in a peaceful way,” she tells him. Compliments or no compliments, Spider-Man is getting really uncomfortable with Grey in his head like that. He tells her this, and she backs off a bit.

NO ONE GIVES ENOUGH CREDIT TO THE NICE GUYS.

While Spider-Man spends the next fourteen panels picturing Jean Grey naked, Geldoff starts coming to. He wakes up and sees the four others staring down at him. “You okay?” Grey asks telepathically. Geldoff freaks out again and thumps back to the floor unconscious.

Well, these women seem to find this one big smiley joke. So here’s the deal: if they don’t move his ass, the police are going to come arrest him for blowing up car-shaped vehicles. Then they can let Professor “No Legs” Xavier take care of it when they cart his ass back to the mutant school. After insinuating that Geldoff may not actually be a mutant, successfully bewildering the bejesus out of Spider-Man, the three of them call the professor through Jean Grey’s psychic hotline.

An apparition of Xavier pops up in the sky. He agrees that they can let Professor “No Legs” Xavier, i.e. himself, take care of it when they cart his ass back to the mutant school. Technically it’s kidnapping, but what isn’t kidnapping these days??

Here’s the part where the Kitty Pryde invites Spider-Man to come back with them to their school! Storm thinks it’s not the best idea, and Grey stares daggers at her, but Pryde points out that they’re going to have to dump the Geldoff body back in Queens when they’re done anyway. “So come meet the Professor, he’s awesome.”

Spidey says yes. As long as he’s back by six so that he can eat Aunt May’s famous boiled spinach paste tacos without getting yelled at for being late for dinner.

Meanwhile, at the high school, parents are appearing in droves to pick up their kids following the weird mutant attack announcement. MJ overhears two girls discussing a Spider-Man sighting at the other school, which MJ demands more information about. “Yeah, they say Spider-Man swung in and the cops came and it got crazy and the mutant was blowing stuff up and then they made everyone go home.” It doesn’t sound like much more new information, but it’s better than nothing I always say.

After MJ’s mom all but tackles her daughter to the ground, thanking the good Lord Savior Jesus that she’s ok, May ambles around looking for her awful nephew. MJ tries to cover for Parker, but Gwen Stacy is all like “WE HAVEN’T SEEN HIM IN HOURS, MA’AM. HE COULD BE LITERALLY ANYWHERE, DEAD IN A DITCH SOMEWHERE MOST LIKELY. BOYS TODAY, AM I RIGHT? WANNA MAKE MUFFINS?”

So yeah, while Aunt May is pissed that Parker’s not around, Spider-Man is enjoying a ride in a private jet with sexy X-Ladies.

Nothing throws your opponent off quite like stripping down to your dick and balls and commencing with the tackling and the pinning and the teabagging.

Pryde wants to know more about how and why Spider-Man decided to come fight this Geldoff guy in half a costume. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he responds sheepishly. Geldoff starts regaining consciousness again.

Pryde continues to be in awe of Spider-Man, a superhero without mutant powers. Just bitten by a radioactive spider is all. We can talk about it more over dinner sometime, and–

“Sacoola shtara kinito!!” yells Geldoff a split-second after Grey senses his awakedness. The group tries to calm him down with warm smiles and batting eyelashes. “We’re your friends!!” Pryde jubilates effusively.

“Stay away!!” he screams, revving up his blue energy balls in his hands. “STAY AWAY!!!”

BOOM. Explosion in the jet. Geldoff is going to 9/11 this thing.

These dang newfangled 2003 phones.

Elsewhere, Aunt May calls up Ben Ulrich of the Daily Bugle to check if her awful nephew is at work right now. She gets transferred around about half a dozen times. This isn’t very exciting. Let’s move on.

The jet spirals out of control. Spider THWIPS a gobby pile of web jizz onto Geldoff’s mouth to stop him from screaming while the jet breaks off into pieces. Storm flies out into the air and attempts to create a wind tunnel to keep the plane in the air. Why, exactly, I don’t know, since it’s a flaming wreck right now anyway. Might as well plummet safely into the ground at 1,200 mph.

The issues ends with the following predicament: The plane falls out of the control in one direction. Spider-Man falls out of the plane and flies out of control in the other direction. Storm looks at both and wonders what the fuck she’s going to do.

And if it were me, I’d let the little spider plop to the ground.

Final Thoughts

Adding X-Men into the mix breathed some fresh air into this admittedly dull plot! I was kind of hoping Spider-Man would get to meet Professor Xavier, but planes blow up all the time. I’m sure he won’t be offended.