Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #64 – “Carnage (Part 5)”! In the previous installment, Gwen Stacy died. She died! She’s dead! The escaped Venom Monster killed her! Ha ha! What?!

So they have this to figure out! Everyone’s in a tizzy! What’s going to happen next, I tells ya?! Aaauugh!!

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #64 [October, 2004]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Carnage (Part 5)”

Spider-Man has had it with this red Venom Beast! *punch*

But yeah, we pick up right where we left off: Peter Parker giving Curt Connors the business until Venom Beast pops out of the bushes ready to choke some idiots. The idiots stare at it as it walks toward them.

Parker panics and asks Connors what the thing does to kill people. “I’ve- I don’t know-” Connors stammers. “The last time I saw it – it was the size of a gerbil. I – I don’t even know what we’re looking at.”

We all get to see what it is that they’re looking at. Right now! In real time! Venom Beast shapeshifts into a fluidy, tentacled Peter Parker. Just like the real Peter Parker, it utters “Beh… beh…” repeatedly. Then it turns back into its horrific regular visage and tries to splat Parker with a horrible, sharp-clawed appendage. “Beh!!”

Beh, indeed.

Parker cartwheels and flips out of the way of the attacks while Connors looks on in shock. “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Connors keeps saying, rather unhelpfully.

“Conners!” Parker yells, including an ‘e’ in the name that doesn’t actually exist. “Can you destroy this?” Connors just looks at him blankly. “Get back to your lab!” Parker yells. “Get in your car and back to your lab. I will meet you there with this thing and you better have a way to kill it!”

Duly noted, son. Perhaps there’s a letter opener on his desk that he can use to give the ne’er-do-well the ol’ stabby-stabby. Meet you there!

DURR!

Parker continues fighting the thing unsuccessfully. Punching its squishy glowing face and trying to put it in a half-nelson and giving it a wedgie even though it ain’t got no underpants. He bitches and moans in an internal monologue about how shitty Connors is and how he didn’t sign up for any of this while making a huge ruckus at 4am. One guy even leans out his window to tell the kid to shut the fuck up. But he’s Peter Parker. He will never shut the fuck up.

“This is what it has come to?” he thinks. “This is what Spider-Man has brought to the world? A thing! With my face on it! KILLING PEOPLE!!”

Power and responsibility and all that. Uncle Ben is spinning in his grave. Like a top! Can you imagine?? And—wait, what’s that? The Venom Beast suddenly stops fighting. It turns around and flees. Before Parker can say “hey, wait, don’t, I’ll suck your dick if you don’t leave me here” the Venom Beast crashes on top of a cop car, totaling it in front of a couple of coppers who just picked up some fresh donuts. Parker follows, but gets tossed into the windshield of another occupied car. He bounces around traffic for a bit, wasting time, while Venom Beast sucks the cops dry. Yeah baby.

Parker watches in horror while, before his very eyes, the Venom Beast turns these two pigs into white beef jerky. All while looking like a jacked, nude Peter Parker. Indecent is what it is, actually. I’m throwing up right now. Beh… beh…

Elsewhere, and by “elsewhere” I mean “at the lab”, Connors enters elsewhere and spots a glistening, shirtless Peter Parker waiting for him in the dark. “It’s done,” Parker glares alarmingly.

It turned into this insufferable dork with the acne and the miniscule penis.

Parker, who is probably an imposter, describes his fight with himself. “It looked like it constantly needed to rebuild its damaged DNA matrix by feeding off people. I think it needed me in particular because we share DNA. That’s why it was at my house. I don’t know if it knew why it was coming at me or not…”

He goes on to explain a realization. It wasn’t a damaged version of himself he was fighting. It was his father!

Connors looks at him like “Beh…?”

After a time, Parker regained composure and started fighting it again. It’s not really his dad! This was just some sort of bastardization whose ass he was about to kick! Rawr! So Parker continued to do just that. There’s a montage of him fighting the Beast, culminating to an uppercut to the teeth that knocks it down a fiery pit. It tries to grapple its way back up, but no success. It falls into fire. It’s dead.

Or is it…?!

We were supposed to be partners in crime! We were supposed to be bros! Now what? Who am I supposed to bro down with now?!

So Parker yells in Connors’ face while the latter tries to apologize for his silly shenanigans. “YOU!! KILLED!! GWEN!!” Parker screams, revving up for the punch that will push Connors’ teeth back through his skull so hard that they’ll land in Paraguay. But then… he stops himself and starts sobbing while Connors looks thankful that he wasn’t just disemboweled though his mouth.

The next morning, Connors arrives at the 11th precinct to confess to the murders of 1) Gwen, and 2) whoever else.

Parker is up at 7:42am sitting and frowning shirtlessly on the foldout bed. MJ pads up in ladybug slippers and asks if he’s ok. After a shaky exchange, Parker tells MJ that he’s done being Spider-Man. For real this time. It’s a real racket, and he just wants to do his physics homework and jack off like a normal teenager, is that so much to ask?

The police are at the lab questioning the Dean, who insists that the professors have been free to perform their own experiments without admin oversight. Ben Reilly shows up all “whuzzat!” when they tell him that Connors has been taken into custody for the *flips pages* murder… of… *flips pages* Phil Hartman? Whoops, wrong file.

Anyway, they’re closing down the lab for good. Find a new job, Reilly. The Dean seriously tells him this. Don’t professors teach? Isn’t that a thing that professors have to do since they’re, you know, professors?

Ah well. Reilly asks if he can go in and grab his stuff, which he is allowed to do.

So what does this slick fucker do? He pops open the refrigeration unit and takes the tube full of Peter Parker’s blood.

You know, like an asshole.

Final Thoughts

OK, fine, perhaps Curt Connors’ intentions were good, albeit misguided. But what about this Ben Reilly guy? Speaking of which, why are there so many Bens in Spider-Man? Ben Reilly. Ben Urich. Uncle Ben. It’s a conspiracy of Bens! Let’s get to the bottom of this first, then if we have time, maybe we’ll work on the Venom Beast problem.

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #63 – “Carnage (Part 4)”! In the previous installment, Peter Parker doesn’t even show up! This issue is about the Venom Stasis Baby growing up and escaping its stasis tube in order to wreak havoc on the fair citizens of Queens by, like, sucking the life right out of them.

Since it was born of Parker’s blood, the Venom Beast contains Parker’s memories. When it attacks Gwen Stacy, it shows Parker’s face for a quick moment, then recoils and retreats back into the bushes.

INTRIGUING. Let’s get on with it.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #63 [October, 2004]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Carnage (Part 4)”

Aunt May returns home at the dead of night with groceries, including the stereotypical baguette sticking right out of the bag. The house is dark and empty…

Aunt May happens to look out the window. She happens to see someone collapsed on the ground. She happens to see that this person is the desiccated pseudo-corpse of one Gwen Stacy, attacked by Venom Beast and with all the life sucked out of her body. I’ll post a picture of it in a couple of paragraphs. It’s haunting as the dickens! “Not again…” May says with a tear running down her cheek. I’m not sure what the “Not again…” is referring to, because this is the first desiccated corpse she’s seen since Uncle B—ooooohhhhhhhhhhhh!

Did I clear enough room yet for the picture? No?

How about now?

Now?

Ugh, ok, well how about now?

No? Not yet.

OK, I’ll wait.

*hums a jaunty tune*

OK, here it is:

Looking good today, Gwen! What’s that, new eyeliner?

Meanwhile, Parker is at work checking out tomorrow’s front page headline: “SPIDER-MAN PUNISHES PUNISHER”, which causes Parker to smile. J. Jonah Jeffery Jack John-John Jameson did say he was going to start seeing the whole Spider-Man thing with a fresh angle, and he certainly has lately. Parker pumps his fist in the air! This calls for a celebration! Time for a Snickers from the vending machine!

Not so fast, pisspants. Aunt May just called to say that Gwen died. Get home immediately! Or, at least, write a news article about it!

Parker is so distraught that he webs his way home in his street clothes. Slacks, hard shoes, belt, stripey button-down, and a red tie. He looks positively professional swooping around town. Like a crime-fighting Dwight Schrute.

He finds the police already surrounding the house. I wouldn’t have let Parker through the yellow tape, but they let Parker through the yellow tape. Gwen’s body is covered by a sheet. There’s a frenzy of questions and discourse from the detectives; at some point one realizes that this is Captain “Dead” Stacy’s kid. There were no witnesses or anything of the sort. May is getting hammered with questions like “and you just let her live here?” when she notices a frowny frown of a nephew standing next to her. The detective starts questioning him now, like “And where were YOU, son? Uh huh? Uh huh? A likely story!”

“I’m sorry to do this,” the detective continues, “but I have to ask you these questions. What was your relationship to her?”

“Uh, what?”

“Were you friends? More than friends?”

“Friends only.”

“Uh-huh.”

The questions start leaning toward the “the boy fucking did it” camp, which Aunt May finds offensive. “Peter didn’t do anything to her. Look at her. How could he have done that to her?”

The Success Kid meme kid is looking worse for wear these days.

This is when Captain Jeanne De Wolfe jumps in. She just came from the case of the security guard who appeared to have died the same way. The security guard over at Empire State University where scary experiments are happening! This might be the work of a mutant!

Parker just stares all glassy-eyed and then gets permission to go inside. He rips open his backpack and stares at the Spider-Man costume all nestled in there cozy-like. More frowning happens. He’d be a millionaire if he got paid in frown-bucks.

Later, Parker and MJ “enjoy” a pizza at MJ’s house while May yells over the phone at some rando who knows Gwen’s mom. She’s out for the moment sucking dicks on the corner of 17th and Chesterfield. “If you do talk to her,” May says over the phone, “could you tell her that her daughter Gwen – The daughter she abandoned in what will go down in history as one of the single most selfish acts in the history of man – could you tell her that her daughter is dead!”

Then she calls the person on the other end of the line an IDIOT!! and slams the phone down. Then she apologizes to the youngins sitting there eating their shitty Domino’s cardboard pizza with the government cheese melted on top and walks out of the kitchen.

Bad news, Peter Parker, ol’ buckaroo. You’re not sleeping in the same bed as your girlfriend tonight. He’s set up at the foldout bed in the living room. “I wish you could just sleep with me in my room,” MJ grumbles as she gives Parker a pillow.

“Do you know who did this?” she asks.

“No.”

“I mean–”

“If I did–”

“No, I mean, was this because of, you know – is it Spider-Man related?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

“Are you mad at me?”

Oh Jesus, here we go… anyway…

She made fun of my fast food outfit and I clocked her in the mug.

“I don’t think I was a good friend to her at all,” Parker mumbles. MJ rolls her eyes. Then they hug it out and it’s all very touching and lovely and hey look there’s a quarter on the floor.

Now alone, Parker gathers his thoughts that aren’t about naked girls (and there aren’t many of them). She imagines MJ getting tackled by Wolverine. Then he imagines Doc Ock, and Kraven the Hunter, the Wolverine as a vampire, then Venom, then… wait a minute! De Wolfe mentioned the college. Parker then imagines Curt Connors the Ragin’ Lizard Man and perks up!

Speak of the devil, Parker catches Connors out the window of MJ’s house. He’s staring at the Parker household, which is still yellow-taped up. Well, sir, I’ll tell you what Parker does next. He runs out of the house and then… well, no, I can just show you.

Respect your elders, you little shithead.

Parker doesn’t stop there. He grabs Connors by the front of his coat and starts slapping him silly. “You killed her, you animal!! You killed a girl!! What did you do to yourself this time? You come back for me??”

The only thing Connors can think to say is “Aaggh!!”

Then he begs Parker to stop with the pummeling and the ruckus! He has no idea what Parker is even talking about! And when asked why he’s in Queens in the middle of the night, Connors gets nervous and shifty. “There was an accident at the lab,” he says, ready for another fist to the face.

Connors explains the disappearance of the experimental Venom Baby. Parker’s DNA spliced with Venom Juice. Connors knew that Parker’s dad was working on cellular regeneration, so they took a sample and–

“SHUT UP!” Parker screams. This fucking guy, Parker gives him permission to run simple experiments and this is what happens? Using the kid’s blood all willy-nilly and recklessly! And now people are dead! Auuuughhh!! This is the pits, man! THE PITS!!

And Parker keeps yelling at Curt Connors until he’s interrupted by the rustling sound of a fucking Venom Beast climbing out the bushes. So that’s the end of that issue! See you next time!

Final Thoughts

Seriously, though, I’m astonished. Is Gwen actually dead? She looks pretty damn dead. Unless something happens at the end of the story once Venom Beast is killed and the CURSE IS REVERSED, I’m thinking here that Gwen is actually dead! Everyone else who died is dead!

She outlived her usefulness in the comic series, obviously. RIP RIP RIP RIP RIP bye gwen