Spider-Douchery #8--The Terrible Threat of the Living Brain

Spoiler: It's not a brain.  It's not alive.  It's hardly a threat.

But who didn't see any of that coming?

The comic starts with Peter Parker being an ass.  There's not even a single panel between the promo cover and him acting like a jackass in class.  Remember when everything in class had to stop and you couldn't even read or do homework and had to wait until attached dragged in something obviously haphazard and they didn't know how to operate just to give a lecture that was a thinly veiled offensive PSA or marketing ploy?  Well, that's happening as the teacher drags in the most top-heavy robot until MODOK is invented and Peter is bitching at everyone for being upset they can't even pretend to be learning something useful.

So Flash shoves Peter and tells him to shut up and if he doesn't like the weather up on his cross, he can get himself down.  Peter's glasses fall off and instead of using his super reflexes when no one is looking, he lets his glasses smash and starts screaming at Flash while he apologizes.  Liz tries to break up the fight, but it just results in Peter agreeing to a fight with Flash after school and no one watching noticing Peter can see just fine without his glasses.

I'd make a joke, but this was the maturity and intelligence level of my high school science classes on good days.

While the two keep threatening each other, the teacher introduces Professor Will Not Be Seen Again So His Name Isn't Important.  Yeah, my teachers were about as effective when it cam to stopping violence, too.

At this point I feel I should mention that the cover is as crowded as a any Avengers movie poster, but with a far worse layout.  Squished in among the promotions of Peter fighting Flash, Spider-Man fighting the Living Brain, and a desperate ploy to get readers by saying they threw the Human Torch in this boring mess, is the byline of 'A Tribute to Teenagers'.  If this is Marvel's idea of a tribute, either someone really cranky about backwards hats and kids on their lawn wrote this or teens were often at Akira levels of crazy and violent.

Anyway, Professor Plotpoint needs to waste more time to justify hogging the school's budget and not doing real work, so he decides to Howell the completely useless and boring aspects of the robot.  It has ball bearing for feet, so it can't move on carpet, rolls over wires and gets them stuck in the bearing and ruins them, and always veered to the left.  It has hands like a claw machine, so it takes at least two hundred times to pick up anything important.  Last, by not least, it's called the Living brain, because it has the ability to think like a real human brain, but with butter memory.  Now, I know AI computer research was a big thing, especially for the Department of Defense, back in the 60's, and the most I know about computers is a documentary on the history of video games and Tandy Whiz Kids videos, so to me, this just sounds like he's saying it's slightly better than a slide rule.

"Unfortunately it comes with Windows 10"

The teacher asks Peter to help Professor Who Cares What His Name Is, as Peter's the top science student.  The teacher doesn't notice Peter missing his Oh-So-Important glasses.  Then again, everyone here seems to have realized how unimportant they are to the issue and has stopped giving a shit.  Not only does Peter say that the professor told him how to work the Living Brain and no one calls him out on it or questions when the two develop psychic powers, but no one reacts when two thugs in earshot start contemplating using the machine for gambling...in a high school...during class. Meanwhile, all the kids--except Part Pooper Peter of course--decide the robot should predict who Spider-Man is.

Is this the plot, or has the writer taken as many hammers to the head as the guys?  It's not illegal to ask a computer to predict the winning horse.  They aren't rigging the system and the robot doesn't actually know the future.  This is the equivalent of asking Siri to pull up stock advice for you.  How are they the bad guys?

I'll admit what the kids are doing isn't illegal either.  It's just immensely dumb.  No matter how smart the robot is, it's never met Spider-Man.  All it knows, is that he's a guy in pajamas who makes jokes and webs.

I'm really hoping none of this is the actual plot, so let's see what the next few pages give us and hope this is mostly just bad padding.

And...sadly, it's the plot.  Peter types in all the useless information four kids can tell him to type into the robot, thankfully without emoticons of bad spelling.  Peter worries about the robot's prediction, only to be given a message in code that only he (and presumably the professor's) can read.

Why not program it to tell the kids to shut the fuck up?

I'd blame this on bad writing, even for the times, but I think the artist s to blame too.  I've seen a total of three panels with backgrounds so far, and by backgrounds, I mean the lines for the doorway or floor were included.  Maybe the two guys aren't even in the room.  Maybe they're just really dumb telepaths seeing this robot be introduced while they're really far away and that's why they decide they might as well steal the robot and sell it overseas.  Maybe they have the power of destroying scenery, because in one panel Peter and Flash are fighting and in the next Peter has no shirt and is wearing boxing gloves.  It doesn't look like they went to the gym, it looks like he took his shirt off in class.

Ah, the good ol' days when teachers encouraged students to beat the tear out of each other

So they go at it, Flash giving Peter all the time he needs for an inner monologue about how he hates Flash and can beat the living crap out of him in a just a few seconds and how he has super -reflexes and blablabla.  For a guy who spends all of his free time inventing and fighting crime, he really needs a hobby.  He finally sucker punches Flash, whom everyone thinks is just playing with Peter and letting him get a few wussy blows in.

Meanwhile those two criminals are told they have to be actual criminals so they start trying to steal the Living Brain so they can sell it.  They paid as professor No One Cares comes in and finds them in an attempt to be useful to the story.  One of the criminals backs into thee robots control panel and hits the 'Swing Arms Like a Helicopter's button and they both get walloped.  And here I thought the professor was just there for  exposition.  He cut this BS out of thee story.  Well done, man.  Too bad you're still  useless.

And indeed you were.  Going back to the fight, someone interrupts it by yelling that the Living Brain is out of control.  Is it Professor Some Guy?  No, he's gone from the story.  Some student who was never shown to witness the entire event bursts through the gym double doors (which look a lot like double doors seen in a restaurant) and starts yelling.  Flash is distracted by something relevant while Peter take the oputunity to punch the daylights out of him, and gets a round of complaints for cheating.  Peter carries Flash...to a crappier background?  He just picks up Flash while commenting about needing to stop the robot.

"Oh no!  we forgot to invent safety equipment!"

And now he's magically dressed as Spider-Man, Flash is gone, and he's running up some stairs (to?  from?  around?) to presumably get to the robot.  I guess they used up their exposition budget in the first few pages.

Now that we've finally, FINALLY, gotten to the plot, or at least imitation plot made of plot byproducts and gibberish run-off, things...the action...well, it doesn't exactly pick up.  It more loses integrates monologuing with him moving around instead of a panel for each (or one for moving and two for monologue).

What passes for action and plot is just the equivalent of the toddler running into the mall robot and everyone getting mad at the machine.  The Living Brain scoots own the hallway at a leisurely pace, still swinging it's arms.  Everyone runs around, claiming it's  mad and out if control.  Spider-Man tries to jump on it, but gets thrown off.  He tries to stop it with a big web, but it breaks free.  He makes a U-turn, so does the robot.

So let me get this straight.  It was told to learn while watching a bunch of teenagers obsessed with fighting and Spider-Man, gets abandoned for the love of violence, then gets pushed and knocked around.  So it must  be the robot's fault it feels teens and Spider-Man are threats.

Robots are always so literal when told to get the door

Spider-Man acting like that idiot in D&D that complains the monster fights back or has a feat and uses it to outstsmart his one move is interrupts by some kids who can't get out because they have only tried one exit.  No, don't open the windows or plus  the fire alarm, just crowd dangerously around a door or a dead-end.  This padding is her not once, but twice.  Wasn't this a tribute to teens?  Is that yet another plot crammed in here somewhere, or is it just crammed into the cover by the artist?

After the first time rescuing idiots, Spider-Man turns around and sees the robot gone.  He must be out setting a trap, Spidey thinks.

Or maybe he got bored and left.  Why is it always all about you?

It's still going to be all about him as the Living Brian knocks down a door right on top of Spider-Man (I guess his Spider-Sense wasn't something else they couldn't be bothered to fit into this story). He tries to hog the scene and keep the tension up by saying that it must be trying to kill him when it rolls over the door and underestimated him as it rolls away.  He completely ignored how the robot is immediately followed by the two wannabe thugs running over the door as well.  Perhaps the robot was trying to get away from people it remembered had manhandle it and wanted to sell it?  Nah, it must be out to get Spider-Man and nothing else.

Spider-Man sees the next bunch of kids and the writer finally just throws up his hands and goes 'fuck it, I'm done!'. ...And so does the robot.   Spider-Man leaps in front of the robot and and then lands on top of it and the thing turns around and heads for the stairs as he spends an entire page monologuing about how he needs to reach the control panel.

The robot tries to end the comic ASAP by holding onto Spider-Man and charging towards the stairs.  But he gets and idea!  He shoots some web!  So much for a learning robot.

Spider-Man saves the day I guess, by sticking webbing to the ceiling and the two swinging like a pendulum for a two panels and then deactivates or reprograms the Living Brain because it just decided to stop.  All that and all he had to do was wait until it got bored or it's batteries ran out.  Was Spider-Man really needed except to open doors?  Was anyone?

Pictured: Not the ceiling

Speaking of boring, Mr. Not Necessary To The Plot shows up in front of a crowd of students who should have evacuated already, see the too-dumb-to-be-criminals and exclaims this is all they'r fault and someone should get them.   Really?  Your'e expecting a bunch of high schoolers who couldn't figure out how to get out of high school to solve your problems?

How much learning could your robot be programmed to do if you're that stupid?

It turns out this doesn't matter either.  After Peter punched Flash the second time, everyone dumped his unconscious body in the locker room.  I'd be surprised if they hadn't all spent the last dozen pages running towards the robot and forgetting how doors worked. I'm just surprised any of them are alive at all.  Flash decides screw all this, gets dressed, and prepares to leave.  Right as he bends over to tie his shoe, the two guys rush through the door, crash over him and knock themselves unconscious.  Who spilled Tom & Jerry all over my Spider-Man?

Our story ends with Peter doing something surprisingly intelligent for once. He points out these idiots have never seen Flash and Spider-Man in the same place before!  He must be Spider-Man!  He denies it and calls us stupid for thinking that, just like Spider-Man would if someone asked this kind of dumb question.  He must be Spider-Man! I'll admit, that's a pretty good prank.

Peter got a wonder, awful idea

There's and epilogue about Peter throwing away the coded message and pretending he lost it because he can only be bothered to think of something smart every five issues.

Did I say the end of the comic?  No, I said the end of the story.  This issue is jam-packed with nonsense and idiots.

The next story starts out with Spider-Man deciding to be a dick.  No, really.  Here's the first panel.

And he only gets worse from here.

Everyone gushes over the Human Torch's new car, and Spider-Man is mad about it.  The Human Torch shows off at his own party, and Spider-Man calls him cheap and decides to one up him.

Spidey creates a bat out of webbing and sends it flying into the house all the way from the back door.  I have no idea how that works and I'm pretty sure the answer is that it's carried on waves of pure spite. The Human Torch tries to keep the bat from his guests--y'know, like a nice person would--only to get covered in webbing.  Spider-Man then barges into the party and makes fun of him and gloats.

This is the same reaction after Slott wrote Spider-Man for a few years

His reception isn't the praise he expected, but he doesn't even pay attention.  He just starts insulting the host, which leads to them fighting.  At least Spider-Man is polite enough to fight away from the rest of the party.

Maybe you can try a smear campaign and claim attempted murder

They fight, and somehow Spider-Man can now glide on his webs, a power he'll never use again because he's a whiny douchebag.  The Human Torch starts winning the fight and Spider-Man decides to surrender by calling it a draw when the Fantastic Four show up  They offer to help, but Spider-Man starts fighting them, too.  So they all beat him up, except for Sue who is useless, so she hits on Spider-Man, only for him to complain.  She then tells the boys to play nice, and they refuse.  The Human Torch goes back to his party and Spider-Man runs off to pout.

Moral of the story: don't be Sue

At this point, I'm siding with Jameson, who is strangely absent from this whole comic.

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