Parker’s in school now, and his teacher is assigning a project where the students must present an oral report in the guise of a superhero that they invent for themselves. Sound familiar? Everyone needs to explain their background stories, their powers, what they do, why they do it, and how many people they’ll accidentally kill while rescuing a group of people who they’ll accidentally kill later.

This is literally a rehash of Issue #14, which I already linked. So I’m rehashing it again symbolically. Ms. Teacher Lady drops the M-word (marzipan), which makes the class uncomfortable. But don’t worry, class, “mutant” is just a word! It has no power unless you give it power! Like [redacted] and [redacted] and “ninja turtles”.

Can it, Beavis and Butthead.

Parker looks nervous about the prospect. He travels down some hallways off the beaten path and thunks his head against the wall of the gym locker room. I don’t know what he’s worried about, he already did this! And then he fought Kraven the Hunter. And Octopussy.

“There he is – making his first public appearance in decades – it’s Captain America!!”

Fucking boo. Spider-Man watches the big screen at Times Square where there’s something about an announcement about a new superhero team he’s gonna cobble together. Something Avengers-y, probably. The crowd whoops it up just like they always do when Captain America is around. He really attracts the cream of the crop, doesn’t he? Yee-haw! Get ‘em Cap! Hoo-wee! Awooogah!

Tony Stark is there too, and they need a few words with him about this new superhero team! What do you have to say, Stark? “Well, what can I say? The time is right. And the time is right now.”

… well that’s a whole bowl of nothing. Spider-Man scurries around looking sad and weird, like maybe he’d like to be part of a dang ol’ Avengers-type team some day. Oh well!

There’s a tall building where the Fantastic Four are all hanging out. I wasn’t aware that they all lived together, that seems obnoxious. Human Torch is kicking the Thing’s butt at video games, and Mr. Fantastic is just kind of stretching around for no reason. The Invisible Woman is just standing there looking quite visible.

Oh snap! Someone call the superheroes!

The fun and games end when their Brink’s home security system goes haywire. The computer caught a spider! “This specimen was scaling the north side of the Baxter Building. The security systems engaged him successfully. This ion field immobilized him and he is trapped in stasis awaiting your next request, Mr. Richards.”

This “stasis” is merely a spotlight filled with bubbles. It’s kind of cute to see Spidey floating around in there, lookin’ all cute.

Mr. Fantastic asks if the kid tried to breach the building, and the computer is like “hell no”. Hmmm. OK, pull up any files on this kid. Hmmm. Hey, he has a S.H.I.E.L.D. file on him? And he’s only sixteen years old? Hmmm.

OK, let him go.

Immediately after getting pulled out of stasis, Spider-Man takes one look at the Thing and wets his pants. “AAGGH!!” he screams before splashing Thing’s face with warm, wet goo. The other Fantastic 3 take this in stride, probably because they find it kind of funny.

There’s quite of bit of this kind of exchange: “Everything is going to be ok.” – “NO!” – “You’re going to be fine, Peter.” – “NO!” – “Yes, you have a file, but don’t worry, we’re here to help.” – “Aauughh! NO!” – “You’ll be ok in a few minutes.” – “NO NO NO!”

And once Mr. Fantastic gets tired of this, he asks if there was any point to Spidey’s crawling around like a weird, invasive spider. “I need to talk to you. I need help,” Spider-Man finally says, posed on the wall like he’s going to get eaten by Mr. Fantastic’s lizard tongue any second now. But Reed Richards, ever the friendly, annoyingly calm young man, asks him politely if anything is the matter. Spider-Man gets bashful, starts stammering and insistin that it was stupid to come by and it’s a whole bunch of nothing and he needs to get home quickly so he can watch the People’s Court with Aunt May and do his trigonometry homework and other teenage stuff.

BUT THE FANTASTIC FRIENDLY FOUR INSISTS THAT HE SPILL IT ALREADY. Jesus Christ kid, they’re trying to play video games here! There’s no time for this level of shenanigans.

Sure, kid. Grab a brush and scrub Thing’s toilet. You’ll also need a chisel.

Look, sonny. They’re the Fantastic Four. What’s wrong, can’t you add? They all look sheepish and confused. Richards is obnoxiously patient. I would’ve grabbed Spider-Man, stretched my arms to the moon, and dropped him off by now.

“No, no, I wanted to know if there was room on your team,” Spider blubbers, pulling out a medallion with a big blue 5 on it, “Maybe I – I haven’t – I haven’t been doing that well on my own. And you guys–”

He spends many precious moments attempting to sell himself in front of these well-seasoned superheroes! Stuff like “I can do a science” and “I’m tired of wearing this mask”. He’s attempting to sell himself to these MASTERS OF THEIR TRADE! We’re talking EXPERTS IN THEIR FIELD! We’re talking, no, absolutely not you little scamp! You’ll just get in the way and you know it!

Mr. Fantastic tries to let him down easy. “Peter– um. We’re not really a team. We’re a family, you see. We’re not really looking to expand.

Uh huh. Ok. Ok. Sorry. Loud and clear. Sorry for wasting your time. Mr. Fantastic, was it? Thank you. Ok. Bye now, I guess. Maybe I’ll tie a rope around my neck and leap off the Empire State Building. Yes, good. Bye forever.

The Invisible Woman asks if he’s ok, and it’s… it’s, uh… it’s just, he’s finding this whole superhero thing really hard and maybe if he had some other guys to do a lot of the legwork then he could really coast, you know! Plus, the Fantastic Four look like they got it cushy and Spidey wants a piece of that action.

Here, look on the bright side… a few more years of puberty awaits! That’s fun, right?

Mr. Fantastic doesn’t find this easy to say, but he admits to the kid that they’re nearly broke. He’s running out of patents to sell to make that good, good scratch. And he doesn’t want to hit up Tony Stark for money anymore, especially since he caught him on the toilet a few weeks ago and he doesn’t want to make things any more awkward than they already are! So, in short, they can’t even afford to pay him anything…

“I’m so sorry I bothered you,” Spidey says, writhing and squirming uncomfortably in his, I can only assume, uncomfortably hot latex suit, “I’m– I’m pretty embarrassed.”

Before Spider-Man gets the hell out of dodge, Mr. Fantastic tells him that he was a big fan of his dad’s. He was a really cool inventor. Totally boss. He read a lot of his work on, you know, “nanotechnologically enhanced nipples” and “robot cum”. If he was around and not dead, he would be very proud of his son. But he’s dead. He doesn’t exist at all. Extinguished. Doesn’t even remember him anymore. Can’t even have memories. He’s nothing. Ha ha ha!

You can see it in Spider’s mask (but not really) that he finds this touching, but he is silent and leaves them all be. He doesn’t get very far before the Human Torch catches up with him to offer some final words of advice. “It’s normal,” he tells him, “The stuff you’re going through. It’s normal.”

Spider-Man doesn’t find this encouraging. In fact, he finds it a little insulting! This ball of fire is trying to tell this red-suited boy climbing on the side of a skyscraper that “this is normal”. Pah! Huff! Moo!

“See, Reed wouldn’t admit this – but we’re all in therapy,” Torchy says. That’s kind of rough, I guess. Especially if you’re broke and you don’t have any insurance because you don’t have any real jobs. Not even something. Not even a cashier job at Target. Some of them go four times a week! That’s hundreds of dollars per person! What the fuck? That’s irresponsible as shit. Not good role models at all!

Pro-choice is the way to go, man.

Look, buckaroo. You accidentally got these powers and you’re deciding to do something altruistic with them. Good instead of evil. That’s some BIG shit! It’s bigger shit than the Thing’s big shit! At the end of the day, you’re doing good. Don’t beat yourself up and all that. You’re still young. You’ll learn. Maybe. Sorry about your dead dad, though. Your uncle’s dead too? Geez. Well, bye!

Touching.

At school the next morning, Kenny “Kong” Kennywitz (or is it McFarlane? I always forget!) is giving his superhero presentation. He’s wearing a black leather trench coat over a Jimbo Jones skull t-shirt. He holds a Super Soaker over his head. “Because if anybody got up in my stuff – and messed with my family – I wouldn’t need no super powers. I would just get all up in their business. And that’s why I think Frank Castle, the Punisher, is the biggest, baddest–”

The teacher is face-palming. She asks this dumbass to sit down. Gwen Stacy calls his presentation “retarded”.

It’s 2002 and everyone got away with calling everyone gay. It was post-9/11 America.

Gwen calls Kong “homicidal”, which he interprets incorrectly. The teacher agrees with Gwen, and tells Kong that he did the assignment wrong. Also, the Punisher is not a good role model at all. Stick with the broke, therapy-needing Fantastic Four for that.

Get a room, you two! Go to the broom closet and bone each other in the mouth. It’s Peter Parker’s turn to embarrass himself now! Go ahead, Parker. The class is listening, sweetheart.

Parker looks like he’s taking the world’s saddest dump. He frowns at his report at his desk while MJ frowns at Parker from her desk. The teacher frowns at Parker. It’s Frown Town, baby.

He shuffles his skimpy little wispy teenage self to the front of the classroom and starts talkin’ jive about Uncle Ben and his great power = great responsibility chestnut. I guess it means a whole lot to him. I don’t know why! If Uncle Ben was so wise then how come he’s dead??

Parker imagines a very realistic group of Avengers. Hulk looks angry, craggy, and sinewy. Iron Man is literally obese. Captain America needs a shave. Then he images Doctor Strange using his magicks on Final Fantasy beasts like the most erotic fantasy book cover that has ever been drawn. Nick Fury. Black Widow. Fantastic Four. Pillsbury Doughboy. Screech Powers. Peppermint Patty. The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the X-Men and the Golden Girls! He talks about what it means to be a hero. Those who fight for what’s good and just and moral. Mutants who band together to fight for their cause. Those who just try to live everyday lives with dignity and without harming others. And how the choices they make in life can define them if they’re noble… or if they’re not.

Sounds like a lot of hippie bullshit! Peter Parker finds himself searching for a hero to admire, or even for a concrete definition of what a hero should be, when he obviously needs to embolden himself through his own choices rather than emulate those who have already made the choices that shaped them. Because it won’t be the same anyway! Therapy, remember? Hardship? This is Marvel we’re talking about here. Everyone is flawed beyond hope!

So he admires the guy – his father – who told Uncle Ben to tell him those words. Because having a dead dad is the easy way out of this assignment! Next!

Everyone looks at Parker like he just fucked a pineapple in front of all of them.

Hey, uh, Kong, why don’t you back up there and continue your weird mafia fetish fantasies for us?

“Very nice job Peter. Any opinions? Or do we just want to let it sit for a minute?

Final Thoughts

THOUGHT-PROVOKING! I like the part where the Fantastic Four were digging the nails into their palms trying to hold back their urge to drop-kick the kid right out of the window. The nerve of this guy trying to horn in on the Fantastic Four action, trying to bring down the average.

This was my very first special issue so I don’t know exactly how they work, or if they even all work the same way, but it served to showcase the efforts of over two dozen different artists. That’s pretty cool. I hope the Annuals serve the same purpose, because I haven’t run into any Annuals yet and I don’t know at this time how they differ.

Fun stuff! Goodbye for now, Spider-Man! Time to read 4,000 adventures of Archie!