Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #36 – “Today”! In the previous installment, Parker swings around town with rejuvenated energy! That black liquid suit has really transformed him into something harder, better, faster, stronger! But, just like every daft punk before him, he gets a big wake-up call by hubris. Ooohhhhh, the hubris! It’ll get you every time.

He finds the man who killed Uncle Ben and decides to go into Monster Mode with his slick new suit, scaring the fuck out of the guy AND Parker at the same time! I’d say the guy deserved it, but instead Parker scrambles to cut loose from the suit’s control over him and he lands unconscious in a graveyard after falling through some power lines. That happened to me once, and I hated it!

This is the aftermath of the suit hangover. Aunt May probably made cookies.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #36 [April, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Today”

Eddie Brock is chilling with verified minor Gwen Stacy in his dorm room. He gives her the same spiel, verbatim, he gave Parker back in Issue #33, To paraphrase: get over it! So you keep getting dumped by rude boys, big deal! High school is stupid! Does that help?

And it does. She calls him out on repeating this information. “What is tha, Eddie? Your schtick?” she smiles. “Maybe…” he smiles back.

JAILBAIT, BABY. He leans in for a kiss! She stops him immediately.

“I’m only fifteen, first of all.”

“I thought you wouldn’t care about that – girl like you.”

Ha! Typical. This is the part where he gets all pissy and butthurt because she’s not going to give it up. He even makes scowly faces and starts calling her a tease and making her feel bad. All she wanted to do was hang out. See a little reggae. Chill, ya know. Take it easy. Relax. Take a load off. Eat some pizza. Shoot up a HELL of a lot of heroin. You ruined it big time, Brock ol’ Boy. You fucking idiot. Rape someone your own age. OR, like, don’t! Sorry. Don’t do that at all.

She leaves, slamming the door. “They’re all the same…” he mumbles. “Never changes.” He clicks on his TV and catches coverage of Dark Spidey, dubbed “yet another Spider-Man copycat”, as he saved the day in Manhattan. “Or, as many believe, the original is back… with a new look and a bold, new attitude!”

Hey man… got any of that HELL of a lot of heroin left over?

Brock watches the footage of Dark Spidey hopping around and recognizes the protoplasm suit. “Oh my God!!” he yells, bolting from his dorm and toward the science research facility. “Can’t be… can’t be…”

IT COULD. He catches Peter Parker in the act! The kid is addicted to the black stuff. He needs a fix. He’s getting twitchy. He’s stealing more from the vault. Eddie Brock just stares at him, dumbfounded. That goes on for about two pages.

“What – what have you done?!!” Brock yells, putting on his INTIMIDATION face. Parker looks nervous and tries to explain himself, which would be hard to do since the first time around involved sneaky thievery. How about we just forget this whole thing ever–

“What are you doing here, Peter? How did you–?” Brock looks furious. Parker tries to tell him that this substance is dangerous. It’s uncontrollable. If it can be controlled, these two sniveling wimps aren’t capable of controlling it themselves. Brock doesn’t care about any of that; Peter Parker broke his trust, man! His trust. That is hard to mend! Have you ever tried to mend trust? It’s slippery, like Jell-O.

Parker wants to destroy the flask. Brock tries to grab it from Parker’s grubby little hands, but Parker does this little thing where he grabs Brock by the jacket and effortlessly lifts him in the air with one hand. Eddie Brock looks scared. Peter Parker looks scared. I look scared, too. I’m scared.

Brock puts the pieces together. “You – you’re Spider-Man, aren’t you?”

EEK! OOK! BZZZRTT!! “Eddie, we have to destroy this,” Parker responds, ignoring the question, holding up the flask with the disgusting black liquid. “I am going to take this and destroy it so we can…”

“YOU TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON OR I GO RIGHT TO THE $#%!@ POLICE!” he shrieks, likely in an uncanny Eric Cartman voice.

No, you absolutely cannot have any of my heroin.

So Parker tells the whole story, right up to the end where he had to steal clothes out of the dumpster to shield everyone’s eyes from his abhorrent nakedness. Brock looks like he’s sadly pooping out a toaster, but then Parker legitimately apologizes for 1) breaking the gelatin-like trust, 2) stealing this stuff twice, and 3) did he mention breaking the trust yet? Sorry about that too.

Peter Parker then spends an entire page – an ENTIRE PAGE – talking about how he’s seen stuff like this ruin lives and families first-hand. How the horrible crap he’s come up against as Spider-Man has really fucked him up. How arrogant he was to think that he could handle and control this unknown substance. It has to be destroyed. Okay? Pretty please?

Eddie Brock’s expression softens. “Peter – this is all I have left of my father. It’s all I have left.”

Parker talks a lot more! “Look at me – I had the thing for an hour and look what happened. I almost killed a man with my bare hands. It’s a cancer. It’s a virus.” There’s a lot more then just that, but he’s getting repetitive. Another good point was that there are some men, some bad men, some very very bad men, who will do ANYTHING to get their hands on something like this. Pokers under the fingernails. Dick and ball torture. Reruns of That ‘80s Show. Remember that? Horrible!

Brock still doesn’t agree to any of this, but he has conceded to the reality that he won’t be able to stop Parker from destroying it. Man, is he scowling. First the 15-year-old girl wouldn’t fuck him and now this? What a day.

Since Parker still isn’t assured that Brock is at all okay – why should he be? – he tells him that this Spider-Man thing is a secret to everyone he knows. Aunt May. Gwen. The Mayor. Everyone but MJ, but she doesn’t count. Brock’s eyes light up at this revelation. “That’s right,” Parker says. “That’s how much it means to me that you believe me.”

This is what did it. Brock lightens up. He’s impressed with the kid in many ways. He even smiles a tad, but then immediately slaps his forehead. He walks away growling. “I gotta – I gotta ingest this.”

Sounds good. You do that. You ingest. You digest. Any sort of -gest you need to do.

I can’t believe that worked! All for me! All for me!

Brock walks away, and Parker immediately flies over to an industrial plant and drops the flask down a smokestack. Good riddance! Now for some Funyuns!

He flies home and doesn’t even take a shower after changing out of his garbage clothes, which he should have done because he bumps into Gwen in the living room. Aunt May is at a parent-teacher conference, which means the two of them are alone and some good ol’-fashioned hanky panky might be in the cards soon!

“Where were you?” she asks him.

“At the Bugle.”

“Sure you weren’t stalking your ex-girlfriend?”

“Come on…”

“You talk to your buddy Eddie?”

“Did he call?”

“Don’t know. Did you talk to him?”

“No.”

“No?”

“What?”

“Between me and you – your little boyhood pal’s a dirtbag.”

“What’d he do?”

So Gwen recounts the “what’d he do” part of what he did, and “he got like a guy” when she wouldn’t let him touch her fun bits. Parker tries to defend him, just a little bit, probably in a feeble attempt of “NOT ALL MEN”, but Gwen insists that this guy ain’t no good. A real rotten egg. A real piece of shit rapist murderer anime-loving asshole.

Flashback to 43 minutes ago, where Brock wants to ingest. He walks through the halls bug-eyed, like when Eminem tries to look tough. He looks like that. He scowls AGAIN, does an about-face and checks on his locker. “He did it,” he mutters, staring into the empty compartment. “Little jerk took it.”

He walks over to another locker to grab a jar of putrid black potion, a separate sample. Smiling, he opens up the jar and sticks his hand in…

Final Thoughts

Whoa mama! This is the part where Eric Foreman turns into a Bad Boy! Look out, Spidey, you’re gonna get entangled within the venomous wrath of Venom Brock! He’s going to give you the atomic wedgie of your life.

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #35 – “Legacy”! In the previous installment, Peter Parker learns a lot more about what kind of research his dad was doing. Mostly it was for curing cancer, but in the wrong hands it could be used as a weapon. Too bad their company owned all intellectual property rights to their research and creations. Not a damn thing anyone can do about that! And then a plane crashed, and the rest is history!

As Parker learns more and more, he gets more and more upset that his father’s work was wrested right out of his hands! Aiming to pick up where his dad left off, Parker swings and webs his way to the Reed Richards Science Center to steal a bit of the black liquid being kept in the lab. Like a massive, reckless dingus, he plops some of it on his hand. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Long story short, it has encased him in a “suit” and it looks like he has now turned into Bad Spider-Man!

And now he’s going to spend his days smoking cigarettes and listening to The Who while Aunt May cries on the couch.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #35 [March, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Legacy”

A celebrity who looks uncannily like Jessica Simpson moves through a crowd, waving and smiling before entering her limousine. “Okay, get me the @#$!! out of this vomitorium you call a city,” she says to her driver, closing the door. Three men in masked green suits have taken out the driver and are about to taze her assistant. She’s next! And the limo drives off.

The woman screams all “AAIIEEE!!! AAIIEEE!!!” about it. One of them is on the phone with a Mr. Mattola, presumably her agent, and threatens to cut off certain pieces of her body to be sent to him. This woman has made 12 million dollars in record sales, so their ransom demands will seem very fair! They await the money in a giant sack with a dollar sign on it by the oak tree where that little girl reads Beezus and Ramona books every afternoon.

IN SWOOPS THE GOOD GUY! Purple Spider-Man lands atop the limo and tears the roof wide open with his bare hands. Well, not bare. They are gloved, technically! “Wow, a limo! Is it prom season already?” Good to see that the new Spider-Man hasn’t lost his clever edge.

Our “hero” punches the driver right through the side window and takes over the wheel. Another guy shoots a bullet right through the same shoulder where Parker took a bullet in Issue #29, but this time the special self-healing suit immediately assesses the situation and returns his shoulder to normal. “Wow, huh?” he says to the woman. “I’m glad you saw that too, because I don’t think anybody’d believe me.”

He shoots a dark webs at the dudes, and I can’t tell exactly what happens to them but smoldering is involved. The woman continues screaming. The men are screaming. “YOU KIDS SETTLE DOWN BACK THERE OR I AM GOING TO PULL THIS CAR RIGHT OVER!” Now Purple Spider-Man is screaming. There’s an abundance of screaming. He gets tired of the woman screaming and splats her mouth with dark web spooge. We can keep that one for posterity.

Coming soon to an X-rated theater near you.

Purple Spider-Man is driving around the city like a maniac, and it’s unclear what he’s trying to do with the car. I think he’s trying to help the woman? Maybe I should keep reading, but I like speculating out loud so that you can read some extra words. Maybe he’ll drive onto a helicopter and fly to Myanmar.

I suppose the webs aren’t actually burning anyone. There goes my theory, which I never actually theorized out loud or even in my head, that it’s just loads of hot tar.

A speeding bus crosses the intersection in front of Dark Spidey. “Oh, my God…” he whispers, obviously uninterested in hurting children. So that’s good. He uses the unconscious driver’s face to slam on the brakes, and it’s successful! URT! That’s the sound of the final lurch before the car stops. I like that.

URT!

Dozens of people are silently watching, faces masks of horror, as Dark Spidey exits the limo and dusts off his hands. “Ma’am,” he says gentlemanly, opening the door and extending his hand. He helps her out of the car. “Just for the record, everyone…” he says, leaping away. “…we’re just friends.”

Uh oh, it’s the coppers! “Hands in the air, freak!!” yells a particularly bastardy one, aiming his gun. Dark Spidey is rather incredulous. He did good! In front of everyone, he did good! God, is there no end to the authorities being bitches about everything? I mean, Jesus…

He says “fuck ya’ll” to the po-po and leaps/swings away. As he heads back from whence he came, he jubilates over this new, kickass suit. At first he was like, oh dags, this thing doesn’t rip like his old suit? That’s the business! Especially since, ahem, certain areas might have ripped eventually. “…and I would’ve ended up on the news with my bits and pieces tiled-out like one of those bimbettes on the Howard Stern show.”

But now he can take a bullet?? URT! “My dad was a genius!! A genius!!”

Now it’s onto the next task.

I GOT LOST ON THE WAY TO LASER TAG.

This new guy keeps the cops at bay with his soundwave-blasting guns. It doesn’t last long. It’s implied that Spidey has stopped this guy before, but I don’t remember that! Maybe it was 30 issues ago! Who cares, he’s going to stop him again and he’s scared pantsless about it. The guy, not Spidey. Also, his pants stay on.

Mr. Sound Engineer blasts his waves toward Spidey, who just absorbs them without even budging. “That was – That was actually quite relaxing. Thanks.”

“Oh no…” the dude says, understanding the immediate consequences. Spidey kicks him into a cop car. “Is everyone in one piece,” Spidey asks the crowd, who remains gaping and silent. “Everyone okay? Yes? No? Maybe? Sort of?”

He leaps away. “All righty then…”

A newswoman on the scene sings praises to our dark hero, and compliments his saucy new look! Yowza!

And now, onto the next task.

TAKE THAT, COIN LAUNDRY. QUARTERS FOR LAUNDRY ONLY, HUH? NOW IT’S BULLETS FOR LAUNDRY ONLY, HA HA HA HA!!

This dumbshit is stealing quarters and wounds a man in the process. A family man. A real dad-like individual. He’s bleeding all over the floor while his wife and child cry like “wah”.

Don’t worry! Dark Not-a-Jerk-YET-But-Wait Spidey is on the move! He chases the guy (who is pissing his tender pants, by the way) down the alley. The perpetrator ducks into an abandoned building loaded with old shelves and tipped-over barrels. As he hides, gun a-ready, Dark Spidey skulks around looking for the poor bastard.

In short, he surprises him from the wall, where he’s clinging spiderily, and pounces! He takes one good look at the guy and starts having flashbacks. Memories. Recollections.

“You…”

Reminiscences. Souvenirs. Retrospections.

“You killed my Uncle Ben.”

VENGEANCES! JUSTICES! RETALIATIONS!

“Dude,” the guy sputters, “I- I- I- I swear to God, I known that guy was your uncle…”

Apologies. Bargainings. Pants poopings.

Shit gets kind of real here for a second, so send the kids off to bed for this one. Preferably without their dinners!

No! Please let me go, you ravishing, handsome beast from the deepest corners of the eighth pit of Hell.

“YOU DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE!! YOU DON’T DESERVE YOUR LIFE!! YOU KILLED MY UNCLE BEN!!!”

I don’t have to tell you how scared this guy is. Dark Spider wraps his bulging hands around the guy’s throat. “I WANT TO HEAR YOU SCREAM!!!”

Ok, how’s this: aahhh. uh… aaiiieee. *cough* arrooooo…

Then, suddenly, as if melting off his face, the suit exposes Parker’s terrified eyes and twisted mouth. He’s all like “GUH”.

“AAGGHH!! What’s happening to me? Get this off of me!!” He tries to tear more of the suit off, but the smoky blackness continues trying to envelope his body. Meanwhile, the dude looks like he just had seven heart attacks and fourteen bowel movements.

Looking like a mess, Parker leaps away trying to regain control of himself. His thoughts are scattered. He apologizes to Dead Uncle Ben about flying off the handle like that. His head is swimming with visions of his dad, MJ, getting bit by the spider, Uncle Ben, J. Jonah Jameson, a crying Aunt May, Doc Ock, Gwen, Harry Osborn, the Kingpin, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the guy from The Sopranos with the thing, and Beavis. “It’s feeding on me. It’s eating me alive. What have I done?”

He fumbles around in the storm, plummets through power lines, and crashes in a fireball in front of his father’s, mother’s, and Uncle Ben’s shared tombstone.

All his bits and pieces are tiled-out.

URT!

Final Thoughts

Well that was exciting, wasn’t it, boys and girls?! I was hoping for at least another 400 issues of Purple Spider-Man, but I instead I got a full-page spread of an almost-naked 15-year-old in a graveyard. I suppose that’s… almost the same thing.