Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #69 – “Meet Me”! In the previous installment, Johnny “Human Torch” Storm needs to finish high school, so he enrolls in Peter Parker’s school! He quickly makes friends with 15-year-olds and lays low until a night in front of a beach bonfire, where he accidentally sets himself ablaze and is unhurt. Now he has some ‘splainin’ to do, and we’ll see right away just how that pans out for him.
Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #69 [January, 2005]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Meet Me”
Kids are running away from the Human Torch as he is engulfed in pesky flames. He tries to get Liz’s attention as she bolts, screaming. The only two who didn’t run away like a couple’a wusses were Parker and MJ. Johnny goes “oh golly oh dagnabbit” and asks the two of them to tell Liz that he didn’t mean to freak her out like that. Or anyone else for that matter. Then he flies away still flaming like the day he was born. Heh. Whut?
“What was that?” says MJ.
“I have no idea,” says Parker.
“Peter, why didn’t you do anything?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
The two stare bug-eyed in the sky, wondering if they just saw a mutant. Wondering if they should just go and fuck like a couple of teenagers. Probably the mutant thing is more likely.
At the Baxter Building, Johnny grumpily watches a four-screen TV setup. Sue comes in to say that she knows, through Reed, that he accidentally used his powers. “I’m not going back to high school, Sue,” Johnny says, hanging his head. “It’s done. I’m done.”
Sue uppercuts his crotch and throws him out a 56th story window. Then she tousles his hair. “What happened?” she asks. But he won’t say. If the only thing he did was make a fool out of himself in front of a high school sophomore, then Johnny is truly a Grade A dingus.
That’s a pretty good one, actually.
The next day at school, everyone stares at Liz and MJ as they walk through the halls, ready at a moment’s notice to pounce with their wise-crackin’. We don’t see much of Liz anymore at this point, so I’m guess she hanged herself with a belt in the chemistry lab.
After school, Parker and MJ find Johnny by his car. After learning that Liz left crying after lunch because the entire student body kept razzing her because of him, Johnny makes a face like “…”
“Uh, so… who are you?” asks MJ. “What are you,” Parker adds. And Johnny replies that he’s not allowed to say. He’s just some guy, you know? Some guy you can set on fire as a little parlor trick! “Are you, like, a mutant?” MJ asks, but Johnny insists that he needs to stay tight-lipped about everything.
MJ whispers to Parker wondering if the man they’re standing near is a good guy or a bad guy, but she must whisper like a bullhorn because Johnny insists he’s a good guy. He can just fly while on fire, is all. Nothing to it, really. How ‘bout that, by the way? Cool stuff, huh?
“Is she—is Liz ever going to want to talk to me?” Johnny asks, and he’s met with sheepish frowns. “Agh,” Johnny continues. “Any chance you can talk to her?”
Nope! Liz hates mutants! There was a whole thing about it 40 issues ago or something, I think, I barely remember. Johnny throws up his hands and cries that he ain’t a mutant!
But Liz thinks she might be… “She thought she lit you on fire,” says MJ. “She thought she did it. I think she knows now she didn’t. But—listen, like I said. She has issues.”
It’s not so bad. People with normal lives grow up to become emotionally and financially stable. That shit’s for nerds.
Johnny asks them, finally, to give Liz a message. It amounts, essentially, to “Say sorry and also I like her”. Also, he wants her to meet her at Andru Park at 5pm so they can talk. Sounds like a recipe for unwitnessed sexual harassment, but I’m not here to judge the Fire Guy.
He drives away, leaving MJ to tell Peter that there’s no way in fuck that Liz is going to meet him in Andru Park at 5pm.
And then MJ gets a brilliant idea. Parker should talk to Johnny! Yes! Go put on the costume and talk to him! “Give him a pep talk. He’s a cutie guy. He feels bad. You’ve so been there. It’ll make him feel better.”
Parker is super salty and sour and bitter about this, but MJ insists. What should he say to him if he even decides to do this? “What’s up, man? With great power comes great responsibility. Check this out! *webs*”
So, as it were, Johnny is in the park and it’s already 5:17pm. But then Spidey does show up to give Johnny the ol’ talk. He scares the bejeezus out of him, actually, by perching on the play structure above him. “Is everything okay? With you?” he asks. Johnny is rendered speechless. But Spidey keeps on talking.
“I-I have like a… sense—and I can tell when, um, someone has powers. And I was swinging by and I—my sense, um, went off,” he stammers. Johnny smiles at this wonderful news! Spidey is the man! He’s a huge fan, and, um, the press is super mean and unfair all the time! Who wants a hug??
Yo man, got a cigarette to go with that light?
So anyway, dude, are you okay? And Johnny scowls. He asked a girl to meet him here at the park and she blew him off. This keeps happening; Johnny ain’t got no pussy since this whole Human Torch thing started! Oh yeah, he was supposed to keep it a secret, but what the heck. This is Spider-Man he’s talking to! So he lights his hand on fire as a demonstration. “Human Torch,” he introduces himself. Spidey is agog and aghast!
Anyway, Johnny is keeping this all a secret because of Spider-Man. Bad PR from the get-go. He and the other Fantastic Three want a clean slate to spooge good press upon. But, seriously man, no pussy! No pussy! He asks if Spider-Man is having similar problems with girls, and admits that his only friend right now seems to be his sister Sue.
Spidey is agog all over again! The Sue Storm? She’s a genius! “Is she why you’re Fire Boy?” Spidey asks, but Johnny insists that he’s really, really, really not allowed to talk about any of it.
Suddenly, a BOOM in the distance interrupts their little chat. Smoke rises from somewhere downtown. Spider-Man web-slings his way out of there. “I’ll see you later,” he says, but Johnny wants a piece of the action too! He gets all Flamed Up and follows Spidey. “Reed’s going to kill me for this, but whattaya gonna do…?”
In no time, Spidey is saving a woman from a burning building. She’s a babysitter, and the baby is still in the building roasting alive like a brisket! Spidey did his part, now it’s Johnny-Boy’s turn. Can he control the fire? Who knows! Johnny has never really been in this position before! And… oh wait… um… let’s see… uh… wait… wait… okay, maybe he can control the fire a little teensy bit. Just enough for Spidey to jump through a window and save the baby.
Shit! Shit! Hold on! Where’s my wallet??
A crowd has gathered, and they all stare up into the sky in awe as the incandescent Human Torch soars into the heavens and sets off what appears to be a very large firework, impressing his audience! Then he flies away. Another job well done by the two mightiest superheroes the world has ever seen since Robin and, uh, Barnacle Boy.
Spidey finds Johnny back in the park. “That was so awesome!!” Johnny exclaims. They actually saved people! This is better than black tar heroin, and trust me, he’s tried it!
Spidey notices that Johnny is wearing a costume of sorts: a a heat- and flame-resistant impact suit. Reed made it for him out of Kevlar and poop.
“Hey, listen, what you did was amazing,” says Spidey.
“I didn’t know I could do that. I’ve never done that before.”
“Really?”
“This is all kinda new. I don’t know. It felt great… doing that. Helping those people. That felt great.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Broken record shit from this guy over here. Anyway, the fuzz have shown up to the park, time to split. Johnny thinks that they’ll be thanked, but Spidey knows the police will blame the fire on them. Time to skedaddle for serious.
Spidey later tells Johnny that the police suck and everyone’s going to think you’re a bad guy even if you do good guy stuff. That’s just the game. “Half the people are happy to see us, the others are scared out of their minds because, well—really, I think half the world just wants to be scared of whatever they can find… and the scared people, they just seem louder than the happy ones. That’s life.”
Great to meet ya! They exchange pleasantries and shake some hands. Spidey promises to see Johnny once they finally go public, and that’s it. That’s the end of the issue. How warm and fuzzy, huh?
Final Thoughts
Gee, that Johnny Storm is such a nice lad. Too bad he tried to lure a girl to the park in order to statutory rape her.
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