Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #62 – “Carnage (Part 3)”

* Part 3 of 6 of the Carnage storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #62 – “Carnage (Part 3)”! In the previous installment, Curt Connors sits down with Peter Parker and has a frank discussion about how he wants to use his super-powered spidery blood to advance his research in the field of genetics so that he can get a grant so that he can make money and stop eating Stouffer’s TV dinners every night in his white tank top undershirt. Parker eventually grants his blessing, and now Curt Connors is incubating some sort of monster in a tube. That will work out well for everyone and no one is going to get hurt or killed or traumatized or lacerated in the process. Definitely not all four at once, of course.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #62 [September, 2004]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Carnage (Part 3)”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #62

Professor of Science and Pseudoscience and Cryptozoology Ben Reilly enters the laboratory at Empire State University and is welcomed by a shock! The stasis tube is empty of creepy monsters. “Uh, what the–?” he says stupidly. He immediately calls Connors and asks him if he took the monster out of the tube for a little stroll around the park or something. “We’ve been robbed!” he yelps. Connors is panicking himself. Did anyone tell anyone anything about anything? They sincerely hope not!

Screams from the stairwell interrupt the phone conversation. Reilly finds a group of people staring down the stairs at a deceased security guard who looks like his face is melting off his… well, face. “AAAIIEEE!!” screams a woman or possibly Ned Flanders. Everyone standing around is like “who could have done something like this” while Reilly boggles and is now a murderer by association!

Meanwhile, at the Queens Center Mall food court, MJ spots Gwen hanging out by herself. “Oh, my God. It’s true. Gwen Stacy is at the mall. I thought I was hallucinatin’,” she says, pronouncing “hallucinating” like a bumpkin. Gwen makes fun of MJ’s fry cook clothing; MJ’s the newest hire at Big Easy Cajun, don’t ya know? “My dad left my mom, as you know, and so goes my allowance. So I got a job.” Good for you, girl. Learn the value of a dollar! Build that character! Get crushed with disillusionment by Corporate America!

Suddenly, this little conversation fails the Bechdel test when they start talking about smelly pants Peter Parker. Since it’s MJ’s break, they sit in the food court and talk all manner of how Parker is Spider-Man and that they both know that now.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #62

The way that you can see his miniscule package through his tight spandex speedo thing drives the ladies WILD!

MJ gets to talk about the stuff that worries her, and the stuff that traumatized her. Like that time she almost died (INSERT LINK TO THAT ISSUE HERE EVEN THOUGH I’LL NEVER FIND IT, SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST DEAL WITH NOT KNOWING WHAT SHE’S TALKING ABOUT). It didn’t occur to Gwen that she might almost die! That sucks wangs.

Then MJ and Gwen talk about how there’s been a certain tension between them ever since Gwen moved into the Parker household, but don’t you worry your pretty little red head about it. Gwen thinks Parker smells like zucchini, and Parker doesn’t like blondes. “He adores you, MJ. He doesn’t even look twice at me.” Gwen flashes a huge smile showing ten rows of white teeth. “He doesn’t even do that thing guys do where they check out my butt when I walk by… and I have such a great butt.”

Mmm-hmm. Well, that puts MJ about .005% more at ease. Gwen tells her to relax, she and Parker aren’t a thing, they never will be, and she might even be a lesbian. No fooling! Then they laugh and break the tension and MJ goes back to accidentally deep-frying her face.

Let’s turn to a creepy alley in the dead of night. A couple are walking by arguing about who is severely damaged and who is always so angry when they hear a rustling behind a dumpster. “What is that?” says the woman after she spots some strange blobby red humanoid thing (THAT ESCAPED FROM A TUBE, EEK).

“Is that a kid?” the woman says.

“It looks hurt,” says the man.

“Should we help it?”

“Uh, no.”

“No? We should help – hello?”

“We’ll call the cops.”

“Hello? Little boy? Are you hurt?”

Then the Stasis Tube Baby splats the dude’s face with its weird splatty hand.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #62

Oh no! Blood bukkake!

The woman screams as Statis Tube Baby starts feeding on the guy or something. Then it thwaps the woman’s legs and drags her into the darkness of the alley while she screams things like “no” and “help”.

Soon, they become these desiccated melty-faced corpses and everyone lives happily ever after.

After the carnage is duly over, we get a full page shot of the Statis Baby’s final form! It looks like that time when Venom was being a jerk. That’s what the Stasis Baby looks like now. It looks simply horrifying. Damn you, Peter Parker’s blood! Damn you!

The next morning, the crime scene is flanked by gawkers while the police do the “NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG” spiel. Curt Connors is there among the crowd looking positively shocked and awed. The Dean of the college is complaining to the police that the media circus is bad for business while Connors tries to get her attention. “This is Doctor Curt Connors,” the Dean says to the police while Connors bites his lower lip, eyes popping. “He’s on staff. This is the building his lab is–”

“And where were you this evening, doctor?” the policewoman asks Connors, cutting the Dean off like a Rude Gus. Connors has an alibi and they move on. “What happened?” Connors asks as if he didn’t already know exactly what the fuck happened.

There’s a whole sequence of the Venom Beast swinging around the city on his web-like appendages while flashes of Parker’s own memories from his own eyeballs flicker across his mind. Parker looking at MJ. Parker holding her hand. All his friends, his family, his enemies, Dead Uncle Ben, pictures of Spider-Man, and every pornographic video he has ever watched after downloading them from KaZaA using his 56k modem connection.

With this information, he knows where to go home…

It’s late at night, though, of course, and Gwen forgot her house key. Aww shucks! She tries the basement doors in the back of the house, but they’re locked too. Then she hears rustling in the nearby bushes.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #62

Nothing to see here but us two ominous yellow lights!

It’s not Peter, dearie. Oh no no no, far from it. It’s Venom Beast and he wraps about six tendrils around the girl, choking her, pulling her in… then the beast’s face turns from this horrible visage to this image of a sad little boy.

The boy looks just like Peter Parker!

Then Venom Beast instantly lets Gwen go and scampers back into the bushes.

Final Thoughts

This was a good issue! You know why? Because Peter Parker wasn’t even in it! Ha! See you next time!


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Season 9, Episode 15 – “Das Bus”

The Simpsons, Season 9, Episode 15 - Das Bus

“Das Bus”

Original Air Date:
February 15, 1998
Directed by:
Pete Michels
Written by:
David X. Cohen

QUICK SYNOPSIS

While the kids become stranded on a desert island, Homer attempts to cash in on the Internet.

POINTLESS GUEST STAR(S)

James Earl Jones shows up as a voiceover to wrap up the episode with the worst ending any Simpsons episode has ever had. ALTHOUGH, I’ve never actually read Lord of the Flies and I read that this episode’s ending falls in line with how the book ended. Still though, it made me really mad when I was a puny little punk 10-year-old.

WHY THIS EPISODE SUCKS

I like “Das Bus”, but it’s a really stupid name for the episode. I would have named it something like “Blord of the Flies”, which is a dumb name but it’s a much better name than “Das Bus”. After all, it’s only marginally about a bus. Mostly, it’s about almost all of the named students at Springfield Elementary stuck in a grim Lord of the Flies scenario.

The A-plot of the children, as elementary school Model U.N. representatives going on a field trip, getting stuck on an island is so out-there as a concept in the first place that I can readily excuse any zaniness associated with it. Especially since the jokes were decent. Hey, as long as the out-there concepts are packed with actual good humor (think “Deep Space Homer”), anything can and should be excused! And to me, the ridiculousness of Otto getting swept out to sea (“Zeppelin ruuuuuuuuules…”) and caught by a foreign slaver ship is hilarious in the context of an episode grounded in its own reality rules. Therefore, I can excuse the fact that a remote, tropical island is less than a mile away from the Springfield Bridge. Wait a minute. Can I?

I could have done without most of the B-plot. Homer starting his own Internet company was definitely a fresh story in early 1998, but we really don’t see anything come of this. Homer’s interaction with Comic Book Guy is the best part (“Can I have some money now?”), but the whole story otherwise seems like a vehicle for the Bill Gates gag. In short, very forgettable! But it least it gave me two things: 1) Homer was savvy enough to design and purchase ad space on… er, Star Trek: Voyager-themed pronographic websites, and 2) the phase “Maude, eh?” which my sister and I still say to each other all these years later.

The deus ex machina ending is terrible, but since the ending of Lord of the Flies is reportedly equally terrible, I can excuse it if it’s meant to be a self-aware stab at the source material. In fact, I’ll give it even more points for that! Eat shit, William Golding.

The Simpsons, Season 9, Episode 15 - Das Bus

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

To make the fishermen’s speech as accurate as possible, David X. Cohen called a friend who spoke Mandarin. When the Chinese actors came, the actors did not feel Mandarin was geographically appropriate, and it was changed to Cantonese, which is spoken more in China’s coastal regions and would be more appropriate for sailors and fishermen.
To put this in even more context, David X. Cohen is an enormous nerd who stuffs Futurama episodes with jokes about linear algebra and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. He’ll spend hours agonizing over the realism of a throwaway joke in an episode of a show about kids wanting to kill each other with spears on a deserted island.

The title is deliberate incorrect German; “bus” is a masculine noun in German.
Yeah. “Deliberate”. Okay.

According to the audio commentary, the episode originally just showed Otto being carried away by the current. The writers admitted that that would have actually been less cruel than the final version.
I think I’m gonna like it on this boat!

FINAL GRADE
B+


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JLA (Vol. 1), Issue #4 – “Invaders from Mars”

* Part 4 of 4 of the New World Order storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: JLA (Vol. 1), Issue #4 – “Invaders from Mars”! In the previous installment, the Hyperclan thinks the Justice League is dead when, in fact, exactly zero of them are actually dead. The most useful hero ends up being Batman even though he doesn’t have any super abilities except super-crying about his dead parents. In the end, the Hyperclan gets semi-thwarted. In the actual end, the Hyperclan hails seventy other members from out of secret invisible space orbital transmitters. The extended Hyperclan will level all of Earth’s major cities, including Tokyo, London, Pompeii, and Sim City.

The Justice League has aces up their sleeves though! Exactly what that is…? Er…

JLA (Vol. 1), Issue #4 [April, 1997]
Written by: Grant Morrison

JLA (Vol. 1), Issue #4

As members of the Hyperclan leer over Superman, the caped crusader wonders why the kryptonite hasn’t killed him yet. As loyal readers will recall, Superman is strapped to a gurney with an orb containing kryptonite hovering over his face. Superman can sense chaos in Earth’s midst. The invasion fleet of the Hyperclan is landing in, among other high-profile cities, Washington, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, London, and Fake-Ass Metropolis. The airwaves are jammed with cries for help! The public needs their Super Man!

The kryptonite, though. Oh, god damn this kryptonite! It feels like someone is pressing a hot iron against Superman’s dick. Wanna know how Superman gets out of his predicament? He mind-over-matters it. As in, he starts thinking “hey, there’s no kryptonite here at all!” and then it doesn’t feel like there is any kryptonite there at all! Then he busts out of his restraints looking positively feral and a little hungry.

Superman, realizing these Hyperclan douchebags are Martians, wonders why there are more Martians running around in the first place. J’onn was supposed to be the Last of the Martians. What gives?

He tries to light things on fire because fire is the weakness of Martians, apparently. They’re like Frankenstein’s Monster without the neck bolts. And now that Superman has escaped, the Hyperclan really needs to keep his heat vision away from the Flower of Wrath. I’ve only mentioned the Flower of Wrath once before, but it sounded so stupid that I didn’t bring it up ever again! I guess heat is bad for the flower, too. Let’s keep that flower nice and cool like Miles Davis (who wasn’t nice, as it turned out).

Primaid is the white and blue woman who thinks they can still beat the Justice League, but Armek is the muscle-y robot guy who doesn’t agree. This is because Armek is actually Martian Manhunter, who used his superpower of… mimicry?… to deceive! “Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize this city you’ve unearthed?” he says with sassy crossed arms. “Z’onn Z’orr, the most infamous name in Martian history…”

Primaid calls Martian Manhunter a traitor. He owns it.

JLA (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Look in a mirror, lady. No really, look in a mirror. Your eyes look bloodshot!

Meanwhile, in the Gobi Desert, the real Armek is talking to ZüM about the nerve of some of these Martians doing rude identity thievery. He’ll kill him! He was going to kill him anyway, but now he’ll double kill him!

Superman has the worst hair in the universe as he challenges Protex to a fair fight. No heat vision. No brass knuckles. Just fisticuffs at dawn. Protex’s eyes shine with maniacal redness! “YOU can be as fair as you like, Superman… I’LL stick to my own rules!”

JLA (Vol. 1), Issue #4

lol

I’m like, okay, then use the fucking heat vision. But Superman is instead taken aback like an old priggy prude and gets enveloped by Protex’s new form: some sort of blobby white thing.

“We Martians have complete control over our molecular structures,” Protex explains to Superman, who is helpless against this newest development. Protex penetrates Superman’s blood vessels! He enters his brain! He cooks and cleans and sews! “Now to finish what we started millennia ago,” says Primaid as they cause a mysterious fissure in the earth.

Martian Manhunter clocks Primaid in the mug. He makes fun of the pale Martians. She makes fun of the green Martians. It’s a real racist good time. Martian Manhunter pulls a simple switch and deactivates the Flower of Wrath (it literally has a screen that says “FLOWER OF WRATH: DEACTIVATED”) Primaid gets killed, I think, before Protex swoops down over Martian Manhunter and gives him a big, long, boring soliloquy.

“Where are your friends now?…” Protex asks before he pops Martian Manhunter’s head off like a cork.

“Where we always were!” says Wonder Woman as she, the Flash, Aquaman, and Green Lantern strike poses. Big ol’ titties on this lady.

The Flash surrounds Armek with fiery candles and Green Lantern drops a projection of a 16-ton weight on his head.

Aquaman gives ZüM a big migraine by fucking with his brain’s basal ganglia. He can do that, you know.

JLA (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Talk dirty to me, Wonder Lady.

Primaid is still alive, but Wonder Woman wraps her up in rope and they look like they’re humping each other for a bit.

Protex says a LOT of words about the primitiveness of Earthlings and how it’s the Right Thing To Do to take over Earth for the good of the Earth, and other Earth-related nonsense.

“You want the Earth so much Protex – IT’S ALL YOURS!” Superman says as he throws Protex down the fissure created after the Flower of Wrath was deactivated.

That is as stupid as it sounds. You’re right.

Then they start beating each other up in the fissure. That’s also stupid. “They fear you and they hate you and you don’t even have the guts to admit you despise them in return!” Protex tells Superman, referring to the dumb losers of Earth. “You know in your heart they’re INFERIOR!”

Superman punches Protex further into the ground. “They believe in me, and in my heart I believe in them.”

Now that everyone has neutralized their respective fight partners, the Justice League, including Batman, reconvenes. “We can’t waste time,” Batman says, ever the downer. “The invasion fleet has already arrived on Earth and Martian mind control has been overridden by terror.”

They look around the Hyperclan base for equipment to use. There are cameras hooked up that were meant to broadcast their executions to the entire world, maybe they can use those to put on a puppet show? Superman flicks on the camera.

JLA (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Looking a little drunk there, Superman.

“I know it’s difficult right now, but try not to panic,” he tells his captive audience as dozens of UFOs are literally destroying cities. “You must fight against the invaders. We’re on our way but we can’t reach everyone in time. It’s up to you to defend one another. They’re afraid of fire! Use fire against them! Stand firm. Right now, courage is all that can light this darkness.”

The dumb people of Earth get out their BIC lighters and make angry, determined faces. As cities burn down, Superman salutes the camera. “The Justice League of America won’t let you down!”

“They’re surrendering!” cries Green Lantern as death, destruction, and devastation makes waves across Earth. “We did it!”

In the aftermath, Martian Manhunter explains that he knew these buttfuckers were all Martians after he saw Z’onn Z’orr. He apologizes for endangering the Justice League, all of humanity, and a couple of gophers due to personal feelings. Superman is quick to forgive because he’s not very smart. “I’m more concerned about what we do now.”

“Martians are shapechangers, Superman,” Martian Mansplainer says. “We’re familiar with a wide range of mind control techniques. There are… methods. Punishments. You may not approve, but I must be the final arbiter.”

What Martian Manhunter suggests is waterboarding them with battery acid and then tickling their feet with a giant feather. I don’t see whether or not Superman approves of the giant feather.

Meanwhile, all the special, idyllic ecosystems that the Hyperclan created in impossible places, such as the Sahara Desert, are dying and withering away. As expected. Let this be a lesson! “Humankind has to be allowed to climb to its own destiny,” says Superman with such poignant gravity.

In the following weeks, the League created a new base on the moon. It’s about 560 stories tall and looks like a complete eyesore. It’s made out of only the strongest adamantium and mudhoney and no one can penetrate it, not even Superman! That’s right, they’re keeping him out!

I wish, at least.

EPILOGUE: “Bob Grey’s had another bad night. To tell the truth, he hasn’t really felt right since they let him out of the hospital, right after the Justice League stopped that alien invasion. He feels like he’s been lobotomized with a corkscrew. And then there’s the dreams… Bob won’t ever know that exactly 69 other people in countries all around the world are having the same strange dream night after night.”

Final Thoughts

Curious! It’s always a good sign when dozens of people share the same dream every night. It always bodes well for future events. I guess we’ll see if it matters at all in Issue #5! If I ever even get to it! You never know…


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The Martian by Andy Weir

The Book Bonfire Disclaimer: There will be spoilers. If you’re even remotely interested in this book and you haven’t read it, or if you’ll be mad if you accidentally read any possible spoilers about it, I’m going to chalk it up to “not my fucking problem”. You have been warned. Also, this is a feature about reading. You came here to read about books, so pictures in these posts will be scarce. Be an adult.

The Martian

Welcome back to the Book Bonfire, you Book Bonfirephiliacs! Today we tackle The Martian by Andy Weir, a gripping tale of heroism and survival on the big red rock we call *accidentally drops all notes into a sewer* … uhm… … MATT DAMON!

Note: I never watched the movie. I don’t know the first thing about this story. I just know that MATT DAMON!

Based on all the Internet crabapples, this is a book that you’ll either love or you’ll hate. If you like hard science fiction with dad jokes and very little attention to the mental and emotional breakdown that comes from being dangerously isolated on Mars for over a year, then you’ll love this book! I loved this book! If you like the exact opposite of everything I said, you’ll hate this book! I didn’t hate this book!

Now that we have that out of the way, I can see why the hard science aspect of the story can be off-putting to even the most stalwart of science fiction fans (the ones who like space operas and aliens with bumpy heads). I’ve read many hard science textbooks for college and that shit is dry as a bone, son. Based on my experience reading old white men’s words on stoichiometry, I can say with FANATIC PLEASURE that Weir makes it as interesting as possible. This is accomplished by writing his main character, Mark Watney, as an instantly relatable everyman. When I read the first ten pages I was starting to expect that Mark was going to be the only character in the whole novel. AU CONTRAIRE! A crazy cast of characters awaits. The NASA guy. The other NASA guy. The NASA lady. A rich mix of interchangeable nerds. They all exist as a plot forwarding catalyst. Here’s a thing that will save Mark! Oh, it won’t work! Here’s another thing that will save Mark, I hope it works! Rrrrrrggghhhh, edge of the seat suspense!

“You can’t kill me, Mars! I will drill a hole in your rocky surface and fuck you silly!”
– Mark Watney

Watney spends the entire book completely unfazed about being stuck on a planet with a death clock slowly ticking down. He reminds me of Deadpool, making jokes while almost dying. Except Deadpool can’t die. Perhaps Watney forgets this aspect of his humanness! While some readers were put off by his impossibly upbeat attitude, I found it charming and likeable. And usually I don’t find that kind of thing anything other than obnoxious, so Weir did a good job here. Hell, Watney was keeping the rest of his crew upbeat during the most trying of times. He’s just that kind of guy, you know? I could suspend my disbelief that, even on Mars, this cat kept his cheerful attitude. Better than succumbing to off-world depression, am I right? We’ve all been there.

I don’t know how accurate all the science is, but it seems plausible enough to me and I’m some sort of real-life smarty man engineer! There’s a lot (and I mean a lot) of descriptive nonsense about converting CO₂ to C + O₂ and then isolating H₂ and combining H₂ and O₂ to make H₂O, for one thing. There’s a lot of other chemical malarkey going on besides this, but I can dig it. Watney also spends an awful long time talking about growing potatoes on Mars using his own feces, which must be accurate. I’ve grown potatoes in my toilet and it works! Watney also fixes a lot of shit by taking apart shit and hammering the pieces onto other shit. I’m not mechanic, but this sounds like a hard thing to do on Mars. Watney’s a genius, though. He works for NASA!

“Watney’s the name, and botany’s the game! LOL!”
– Mark Watney

Most of the book follows the same formula of “let’s help Watney get back to Earth” from NASA personnel, and “I’m gonna try to not fuck up and die” from Watney, and I don’t find a thing wrong with it. Even though you know Watney’s going to stay alive through it all, it’s still satisfyingly suspenseful. Plus, those final pages where Hermes intercepts the MAV? I was so anxious that I shat all over my marital bed!

So that’s about it! Let’s move onto some hard-hitting discussion questions!

BOOK BONFIRE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!

To what extent does Mark’s log serve as his companion? Do you think it’s implicit in the
narrative that maintaining a log keeps him sane?
Yes, so Mark Watney’s side of the story is told through his log entries. He primarily uses it to talk the reader through his staying-alive process and little else. As a plot device it does the job, but one needs must suspend his or her disbelief that Watney never uses the log as therapy to deal with the unimaginable isolation, loneliness, and fear of the very real possibility of death. Instead he makes jokes about titties and writes at length about potatoes.

“I’m living in My Own Private Idaho!”
– Mark Watney

I found a good explanation for this. Watney eventually realizes that he may really survive the whole ordeal, and that his personal log may be read by thousands. He mentions cleaning up some of the rougher edges of the log, which he may have already done for the reader. Perhaps he decided to remove all the entries where he whines hopelessly about being unfathomably cold, tripping on moon rocks, and watching so much Dukes of Hazzard that he wants to commit suicide all over the place.

Of course, it’s more likely that Andy Weir had no idea how to write that type of characterization. So it was all potatoes. And shut up, I know they aren’t moon rocks.

There’s no mention of Mark having a romantic relationship on Earth. Does that make it easier or harder to endure his isolation? How would the story be different if he had a partner back home?
I thought about this a lot. I have no idea what Watney actually looks like, but I would guess based on his ability to not immediately stuff his fucking face with all the available rations that he’s probably some noodle-armed 105-lb nerd. Did they ever mention his physical characteristics at all? I don’t remember. But I picture this very happy, very content, hopeless virgin with high self-esteem in his late-20s/early-30s who devoted his life to botany and fixing shit. He still lives with his parents, who live 20 minutes away from Cape Canaveral, and enjoys eating his mom’s cooking. He had a girlfriend once probably in 4th grade who chased him around the playground during recess for about two weeks before she got bored.

“This actually really sucks hard and I wish I could just have the courage to die.”
– Mark Watney

Mark Watney has no romantic relationship on Earth. Ironically, this makes it easier for him to endure his isolation because no one loves him anyway. The story would be different if he had a partner back home because he would miss him/her and would spend less time posting ASCII boobs to NASA Mission Control. Maybe.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Great book! Would read again someday! A good novel to embrace your geekiness. Everyone who hated it probably didn’t understand all the technical mumbo-jumbo about using encased plutonium pellets to heat up bathwater or fixing spacesuits with duct tape. Only the most intelligent of brain geniuses can parse such Mensa concepts.


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Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #61 – “Carnage (Part 2)”

* Part 2 of 6 of the Carnage storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #61 – “Carnage (Part 2)”! In the previous installment, Spidey gets into a scuffle during a hostage situation at the local Brooklyn Museum of Commemorative Belt Buckles and Spurs and gets injured enough to need medical attention. Dr. Curt Connors is not a medical doctor, but he plays one in Ultimate Spider Man and he stitches the kid up. Curt Connors is having his own mutant-related problems, and Parker’s blood just might be the key…

I expect a whole issue of blood-letting. Issue #61 will be like a snuff film. Get the kids out of the room!

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #61 [September, 2004]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Carnage (Part 2)”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #61

“Doctor Curt Connors, Eddie’s [Brock] college professor, in an attempt to regrow a missing limb using lizard DNA strands, accidentally turned himself into a lizard creature. Spider-Man saved Connors and in return, Connors offered Peter Parker his trust and friendship.”

I don’t remember ANY of that happening, but I also have dementia at 37 years old. And 6th stage fingernail cancer.

Peter Parker is going to be late for school because his hormonal teenage rumpus is sleeping in past 7:30am. Aunt May is about to slap him with a yardstick until she sees he’s sweating buckets in his bed. “Dnnn’feel well…” Peter moans while May feels his clammy forehead with her equally clammy hand. A fever! How exciting for a comic book storyline! “Guess all the supervillains will have to make do without me today…” Parker thinks as he lies in his bed dying. “Least there’s no big drama brewing…”

Speaking of big drama brewing, there’s some big drama brewing down at the ol’ university. It appears that Doctor Curt “Hypotenuse Fucker” Connors checked into the lab the previous night and never checked out. Burning the candle at both ends, eh? Heh heh heh, that’s our Connors!

Doctor Ben Reilly, another dude in a lab coat, discovered Connors asleep at a desk. Reilly looks around at the computers and microscopes that are just strewn about everywhere and decides to poke his eyes into the nearest microscope that happens to have a sample of Parker’s blood just flowing around. “Wow…” he says in a hushed whisper.

Connors suddenly wakes up going “XPTBXTPVEKBLUB”. He realizes where he is and clutches his head like he has the largest hangover this side of the Mississippi. “What- what was on the slide I was looking at?” Reilly asks. Here’s Connors’ answer: “No!!” It’s not a yes-or-no question, Dr. Stupid.

Reilly is astonished by the behavior of the blood, but Connors just keeps going “It’s nothing! It’s nothing!” and asks Reilly to swear that he’ll just drop it for now until Connors gets his head on straight. Reilly arches an eyebrow with suspicion, but honors Connors’ all-night marathoner.

Parker is on the couch watching bikini girls strut around on TV. He doesn’t get much time to flog his boner before the telephone rings. It’s Curt Connors, and he needs to meet and talk with Parker post-haste. He tells him he’s sick, and Connors returns with “YEAH BUT I NEED YOU NOW, SON” and asks if he can come over there. The last thing Parker wants is this smelly man over his house, so Parker, with his 108° fever, agrees to meet with Connors at a neutral location

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #61

Quit coughing on my mocha latte, kid.

Parker is inches from death as he talks to Connors at the coffee shop about the blood. Parker immediately looks nervous and miffed, but Connors assures the kid that he hasn’t done anything with it. He just looked at it under the microscope is all. And he tasted a little bit of it, that’s it. Now he wants to bite your neck! Ha ha ha! Just kidding! *cleans Parker’s neck with a napkin*

“Am I okay?” Parker asks.

“What?” Connors replies.

“Am I-?”

“What?”

“Am I dying?”

What? Ha! No, it’s not like that. It’s not like you have 6th stage fingernail cancer or anything. No no no, this is good news! Parker’s DNA sequences are superhuman! “How did you get your powers again?” Connors whispers. Parker isn’t really in the mood to get into that right now, so Connors moves on and shows some readouts of a normal DNA strand vs. Parker’s DNA strand. The proteins are like mega-proteins! Giga-proteins! “This is an amazing scientific find,” Connors smiles. It could be a breakthrough in genetics!

Parker starts to get a little nervous, but figures he can trust Connors on this subject. After all, Parker had wanted to look into how the spider bite has altered his DNA. “And, to be honest, part of me was scared about what I would find.”

HERE COMES THE BOMBSHELL! Connors wants to run experiments! *jazz hands*

Parker gives Connors the ol’ “go fuck yourself” face.

…on the blood sample, of course. He’s not looking to probe the kid’s butthole or anything. Connors talks about how researching his DNA could lead to breakthroughs in curing diseases and the like. Plus, it might even help him cure his own Lizard DNA problem. So, c’mon kid. Make with the blessing.

“How would you explain to people where you got the DNA from?”

“Lab accident,” says Connors. “Happens all the time.”

So he requests Parker’s permission and offers a split down the middle on all money, rewards, recognition, and accolades. “And this could take years, Peter, years and years. You might very well be one of my students at the university by the time anything comes of anything. But, we have to try. It’s almost our responsibility.”

There’s the magic R-word. Parker offers up a wan, sickly smile and grants Connors permission.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #61

Get one of those superhero catheters. Captain America never leaves home without one!

Two months later, Parker is spry and beating up rogue thugs again with his puny little fists. He’s in the subway station. One of the guys is the Punisher, whom Spidey thwarts by snatching those guns out of his hands. But the other guy is someone unknown in a purple suit, and he tried to rob a bank or something and that’s why Punisher is trying to murder the doofus. Spidey’s not going to let this crazy asshole gun down people in public. Yada yada yada.

“Hey, can we call a time-out,” Spider-Man says to Punisher. “I really have to go to the bathroom.”

Punisher just looks at him with gritted teeth. Then, in a surge of adrenaline that can only be obtained by a teenager in dire need of a toilet, Spidey kicks the Punisher right in the ribs and sends him flying across the room. He’s all thwipped in the face and is duly rendered incapacitated, verily. The purple-suited bank robber thanks Spidey and offers him $20,000 to help swing him out of the subway station. Parker meets him halfway and webs him all up at the entrance for the cops to find. “Hey, I almost did that one right. Coulda used that money, though… oh well.”

Parker had sustained a laceration on his back during the fight, so he visits Connors to get stitched up again. Everyone’s cool, Parker’s in good shape, Connors got a grant for the year, things are coming up Milhouse! Good thing nothing at all nefarious is going to happen very, very soon!

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #61

Erotic!

Parker wants to see Connors’ research so far, but Connors gets shifty and deflects. It’s all good, bro. He’ll come by another time! Bye, friendo! *jumps out of window, falls to his death*

Connors gets a little frowny face on him before he keycards his way into the lab. Ben Reilly is there watching a tank.

“Hey,” says Connors.

“Hey…” responds Reilly.

“I gotta get outta here.”

“Thought you were already gone.”

“Got distracted. How’s it going?”

Here’s how it’s going: the two are incubating some terrifying-looking X-Files Flukeman creature in a tube full of green liquid. And they do an extreme closeup of the thing and it shows the same DNA sequence patterns as Parker’s! Who woulda thunk it?!

And here I am sitting on my ass reading comic books. Why don’t I ever get to incubate some sort of monster in a lab? Really makes me wonder why I’m even living this life right now.

Final Thoughts

Now I’ve depressed myself. I’m going to go eat an entire family-size bag of mozzarella cheese and watch Designing Women.


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