Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #51 – “Shadow Puppets”! In the previous installment, a mysterious, villainous woman dressed as a black cat skulks a Chrysler building in order to (successfully) steal… something that looks like the Rosetta stone? Spider-Man fails to thwart her. He’s bummed.

Peter Parker considers hanging up the ol’ Spider-Man jockstrap, which MJ approves. They both profess their love with one another, but then MJ’s alcoholic dad shows up to go “you little ssshitss can’t, uh, aren’t gonna… you little sshhittsss can’t see eashotehr anymrt zzzzzzzz”, which is a real buzzkill.

A news report shows Spider-Man as an “accomplice” to the thieving black cat lady. More bad news for America’s Frowniest Teenager.

Let’s rejoin the action!

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #51 [February, 2004]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Shadow Puppets”

Spider-Man looks like he’s sticking his package right into Black Cat’s face. This one is certainly not for the kids.

In the office where the Rosetta Stone-type tablet was stolen, a goateed man named Mr. Moore gets slightly berated by a slick, smooth Mr. Dini, Fisk’s righthand man. They finish watching the news clip of Spider-Man and Black Cat cavorting around the rooftops. Moore is asked where the tablet went, and his answer is “uh, sir, as you can see from the video, uhh…”

“You understand our disappointment,” Dini says to a boggling Moore. “A promise has been broken.”

“Uh, you see, you’re putting me in an awkward position here, Mr. Dini.”

“Awkward for whom?”

“See–”

“The tablet means nothing to us unless all the pieces are–”

“See, that’s what puts me in an awkward position. I mean, I came to you. I said I could get this tablet piece you’re missing. You put out the word that you’re looking for this—this ancient text thing—And I said I know people who could not only locate this rare antiquity, but they could get it here, to the city–”

Sounds to me like Mr. Moore is doing a little too much jibber-jabbering and not enough tablet-having! What Moore was hoping for was to develop a relationship with the Kingpin by making this tablet offer, you know?

Well, Mr. Wilson “Kingpin Was a Funny Movie” Fisk is very very very disappointed that the promise was broken, as was already said, you old chatterbox broad you. Moore stands by his point that HE FOUND IT AND HAD IT AND NOW IT’S MISSING. He FOUND it and HAD it, goddamnit! And some kid in his jammies steals it? Not his fucking problem, hoss.

There’s a lot of this kind of back-and-forth. Moore insinuates that Kingpin’s people stole it. I mean, no one knows about it except him, Fisk and Dini. What else could have happened? Huh? Hmm? Eh? Wuh?

But why would Fisk steal something they were going to get for free anyway? Hmm? Eh? Buh?

Cork it, Colonel Sanders.

Dini doesn’t want to hear any more of it. Get the tablet tonight or you’ll be slurping soup through your butthole in intensive care.

“Call this number,” Dini says, handing him a piece of paper. “No one will answer. Leave a message. Someone will call you back and name a place and time and tell you how much to bring. When you meet this person, don’t give names. Don’t speak about anything other than the task at hand. Loose lips and all that…”

Moore stares sadly at the piece of paper. He doesn’t understand what the hell is happening right now. He wants out. He wants out and he’s pooping his pants and why can’t things return to normal and oh god the poop…

“You came to Mr. Fisk with a promise.” Mr. Dini stares at Moore like he’s about to hate-kiss him. “I think you best follow through with that promise. As I’m sure you have heard, he doesn’t take well to disappointment.”

Eep! Arp! Ook! Moore pushes back again now, demands to know what’s so dang special about this tablet. He is met with a scowl for an answer. And then when asked if he knows anything about Spider-Man, Dini says he’s the most dangerous man on the face of the earth.

“Danger” is his middle name! One of his middle names, at least. The other one is “Agnes”.

In school, as you can see, Parker is behaving rather dangerously. His teacher gets right up in his sleeping face and startles him so badly he falls backwards in his chair. Detention! Cancel your Saturday plans of (EVERYONE SAY IT WITH ME, NOW) jeeeerrking offffff!!

After class, Parker moans about not being able to sleep well the previous night. Too much anxiety. Too bad MJ’s not a shoulder to cry bitter tears upon anymore, because her dad put the kibosh on that, boy, did he ever. He’s getting ready to put her into private school where they wear plaid skirts and get hit with rulers by sexually repressed nuns. Parker gets salty, then they fight a little in front of everyone in the hallway. MJ starts crying and runs off. Gwen is in the background soaking all of it in…

After school, Parker frowns at his work computer. Robbie “Robbie” Robinson approaches with a fat stack of papers — personal ads — for him to log into the server, which sounds like a lot of work to me. Sounds like a lot of busy work. Sounds like—hey, what’s this? This one envelope has more money than he’s ever seen in his life! Who’s sending this in? The pope?

“Spider Spider. I was intrigued by our last meeting. Were you? Life is too short. We should explore this. Meet me one roof over from last. ‘The Cat.’”

Parker stares like someone gingerly placed a honeydew melon into his anus.

Elsewhere, a trenchcoated Mr. Moore enters an empty bar. Deep in the shadows, in the back of the bar, is his contact. It’s a woman. She holds out a hand. “I already know what the job is. Did you bring the money?”

Hey, you’re not Jennifer Garner!

A-BUH-BUH-BUH-BUHH. “Well, uh, how are you going to find them? This Spider-Man and this other girl?”

Shut it, nerd. Not for you to care about. You already done fucked up, so you’re out of the picture right now. “We’re done for today,” she says, sliding the bulging envelope of money toward herself. Moore is bold enough to tell this woman that she’s very attractive and asks for her name.

She actually answers him for some reason and tells him to get out before she pepper sprays his eyes into the eighth circle of Hell. He obliges and probably gets killed somewhere, idk. Hopefully. He looks like he deserves to get his brains splattered all over the sidewalk.

Peter Parker lays forlornly on his bed. It’s about 10:30pm, and he decides to give MJ a ring on her LANDLINE. Idiot. Her father picks up and Parker hangs up. Get a cellphone. Hey, you guys live next door, get some string and a couple of cups.

Parker now has visions of Black Cat looking all buxom and sultry in her leather suit. He gets this odd gleam in his eye. Time to meet up with this sexy piece and see if he can get his dick a little wet, youknowwhatimsayin? “What I should do is meet her and tell her that stealing is wrong,” he says to himself, smiling like some kind of smitten nine-year-old. “Meeting her just to talk is ok.”

Next thing you know, Spider-Man is swinging all around the city looking for pussy. He wonders if this is just a trap. Some kind of sick joke. And…

He finds her sitting on the edge of a building on top of a blanket with wine and cheese. “Oh hey…” she looks up, smiling. “You came.”

Oh, he came all right.

Came suspiciously. He wants to know what’s going on and what she wants. She wants to just talk. “I don’t meet that many interesting guys,” she claims.

“You robbed a guy’s office.”

“Not a nice guy’s office.”

“And then beat the snot out of me…”

“Knee jerk reaction.”

“And now you want to go on like what. A date with me? Up here?”

“I brought wine. Which was actually really hard to get all the way up here.”

Cat’s gettin’ his tongue!

She removes her mask and flashes her a winning smile. “Hi.”

…

“Well, I guess I can stay for a minute,” Spider-Man says finally. He takes off his own mask… from his chin to his nose. They clink glasses, but shit is already cut short by his tingly Spidey Sense. Through the air, toward them, flies a sai. You know a sai, right? Raphael uses them! You know Raphael, right? You had fucking better.

Spidey pulls Black Cat down on top of him just in time. They’re basically scissoring each other now.

Elektra shows up to ruin the party.

Final Thoughts

Why anyone may have any interest, romantic or otherwise, in stinky Peter Parker is beyond my understanding. I hope Elektra pounds Black Cat into a kitty coma and then flicks Spider-Man into the middle of a lake.