The week Luke and Devin deal with finding out that Peter’s dad had a friend with a dirtbag son named Eddie Brock who has a sentient goo and then Iron Man is a blue boy because a monkey bit his mom.
Issues Covered:
- Ultimate Spider-Man Vol 1 #33-39
- Ultimate Iron Man #1-5
- Ultimate Iron Man II #1-5
Check out the show notes and images after the jump!
Ultimate Spider-Man #33-39
Writer – Brian Michael Bendis, Pencils – Mark Bagley, Inks – Art Thibert and Rodney Ramos, Colors – Transparency Digital, Letters – Chris Eliopoulos
After getting dumped by Mary Jane, Peter is taking things pretty rough. After accidentally smashing his phone he stumbles into a hidden storage closet with his dad’s stuff and sneaks out with a tape and sees his family spending time with Aunt May and Uncle Ben along with the Brocks, another family of researchers and their older son, Eddie Brock Jr. Aunt May came in while he watched the tape and is reminded of them existing and finds out that Eddie also lost his parents in the same crash so he reaches out to Eddie and they decide to meet up and Eddie is currently a student at Empire State University.
Eddie got a soul patch, a roommate, and is studying bioengineering. Peter reveals he found some of his father’s research and Eddie has been working on it as well. They talk, Peter mentions he broke up and Eddie tells him girls in high school won’t matter in 5 years and to just live. Peter gives Eddie a copy of the video and then Eddie brings him to the lab at the Reed Richards Science Center, where he has a black vial he refers to as their Inheritance – a bottle of goo meant to be the cure for cancer.
Eddie has been working on it with Doctor Curt Connors and they pulled out that it was meant to be tailored to each patient genetically and would help to direct the body to fight things like cancer as well as enhancing natural abilities but they ended up running out of money so they went to work for Trask Industries who tried to take it away from them legally. And then when they went to meet with a lawyer, they died in the plane crash after and nobody is entirely sure what happened to Trask after.
Eddie’s grandpa kept the sample frozen and then they’ve been looking at it but Doctor Connors things it won’t work and Peter wonders whose DNA was used and he finds out it was his father’s.
The next day at school Gwen and Peter almost bump into MJ but Gwen stops him from talking to her and then Eddie shows up with his car and the three head off and Mary Jane is worried and is missing Peter.
While they hang out at the mall Curt Connors calls in about bringing in Peter to the lab and Eddie invites them, mostly Gwen to hang out and listen to reggae. Peter is worried though and has to leave and starts digging into the files and finds his dad saying to never trust suits so he suits up as Spider-man and prepares to steal a sample but a bit of it touches him and spreads over his body, forming to his suit.
When a group of kidnappers try to steal a pop star, the new symbiote Spider-man goes after, finding he can rip open cars, take bullets, produce webs with the symbiotes and stops the limo they are in from hitting a bus. When the police tell him to stand down he runs off.
Next he goes to face the Shocker and is easily able to take the blast but this time it was in front of the news who tries to exonerate him.
When he chases after someone who robbed a grocery store though he starts to imagine it was the person who killed uncle Ben and venoms out, and almost kills him but he stops and starts fighting the suit, falls onto electric cables and then ends up nude in front of his family’s grave.
Gwen and Eddie go back to his dorm and he tries to give her the same shtick and then kiss her and she points out she is a minor and that he misled her and she leaves. He turns on the tv and sees the symbiote Spider-Man and goes to check on his sample and finds Peter there taking the sample. Peter tries to explain how dangerous it is and when Eddie tries to threaten him, Peter accidentally reveals he has powers and so Peter tells him what happened, truthfully. Peter explains he doesn’t want to let this fall into the wrong hands and Eddie says it’s the last thing there is of his father and he Peter says he still plans to destroy it and that he regrets how things happened and that he trusts Eddie with his secrets. Eddie seems fine and Peter tosses it into an industrial fire and when he comes home to talks to Gwen, she tells him Eddie was a dirtbag who didn’t respect her. Gwen tells him flat out he is a bad guy and then we flash back and Eddie reveals because he’s not a horrible scientist, he kept a second sample.
Peter wakes up from a dream when he Venom’d out and goes to talk to MJ and asks if she misses him and she says she does but she wasn’t sure what was up. He explains he regrets what happened, says he loves her and leaves.
That night as the radio talks about the Hulk attack which means this should be before Ultimates Part 2 the Janitor finds Eddie covered in the symbiote and it eats him. Eddie struggles to control it but then he realizes it is eating him and goes on to attack and eat two security guards.
At school Peter’s spider-sense is going off and he sees Venom out trying to live on his memories and he goes to meet it and Eddie attacks him as the suit is controlling him. Peter tries to reach out to Eddie knowing the suit is attacking him so he goes to run and Venom starts chasing him. They fall onto electric wires again and when Peter tries to pull him out it tries to bond to him and it needs him to stabilize but Peter refuses. The police show up and shoot Venom who then steps on the electric wire and in a large blast, nothing is left but dust and Peter goes home to watch the video of his father talking about what he hoped the suit could be.
Peter goes to follow Nick Fury to talk to him and gets his powers neutralized so they can talk. He asks to have his powers taken away and Fury says no and wants to know what happened.
Fury figures out this was what he got reports on and Peter says he thinks he died and Fury is less sure Venom is dead.
Peter still wants to be cured and Fury tells him he will work with the Ultimates – which – this has to be before the second half of Ultimates.
Peter asks what happened to his father and Fury does know and tells him to watch some rap videos with sexy women and tells him to make an appointment next time.
He heads to Eddie’s apartment and finds that Eddie left the apartment and took his possessions. His roommate explains that Eddie was a loser and a liar and Peter heads to the lab next and turns off the security. He finds Doctor Connors there who put everything together and thanks him for saving his life and keeping it secret and he will do the same thing.
Connors explains the symbiote and all the files were taken and Curt asks if it is a sign that they shouldn’t be doing what they are doing, messing with humanity. And he apologizes that his father has a legacy.
And then Peter tries to find Eddie but to no avail.
Ultimate Iron Man #1-5
Writer – Orson Scott Card, Pencils – Andy Kubert, Inks – Danny Miki, Batt and Jesse Delperdang, Colors – Richard Isanove, Dave McCaig and Laura Martin, Letters – Chris Eliopoulos
Years ago Howard Stark introduced Dr. Maria Cerrera to Stark Defense Corps and a new blue armor he invented made of living bacteria able to not only catch impact but also eat metal but it can’t stop bullets and starts to eat flesh after a while, but you can wash it off. He invited Maria to offer her a job to make regenerating skin.
Meanwhile his wife Loni Stark is getting lunch with Zebediah Stane and are planning evil things. She plans to divorce Howard and give half the stock to Zebediah and they’ll steal the company.
Time passes and Howard is now married to Maria and doesn’t care about the takeover. Maria goes in to check on the test monkey which breaks through her bio suit and infects her with a virus, she also finds out she is pregnant and so she ends up in a hospital, Howard signs over the company stock, and the monkey that bit Maria has new nerve tissue growing meaning it’s brain is too big, Maria is going through the same thing, but Maria with her super brain knows it will mean her’s babies entire body will be his brain and he will always be in pain.
Howard is driven now and is still working to perfect the biotech armor when Stane comes in and then Stane taking over finds out that Maria died and they are trying to deliver the baby.
Howard leaves to take his son who is not crying but is in pain and so he covers his baby with the blue armor and he names him Antonio after Maria’s little brother who died. He then steals his baby. Also Stane finds out that Howard never patented the armor and he has no access to the files, the employees were actually contractors working for Stark directly and so he has nothing and also his new wife is already cheating on him, and he caused the stock prices to fall and he’s really angry.
Howard and Si Ma, a research assistant, leave behind Nero, the other researcher who tested the bio armor, who is captured and they use a brain drain machine, the Lid, on him and drop his off at Stark’s new base in Genoa, Italy. He’s left mentally broken and so they start a new life on the run.
Four years later Tony is still being tracked. Stane sends people to steal Tony, Nero is the only one who notices, tries to stop them, is murdered and Tony is brought to the Lid. They clear off the nanites and try using it on him but it doesn’t work. Howard and a SWAT team come in and save Tony but not before part of his foot was cut off but it is already healing and Howard calls Tony his little Iron Man.
Stane is sent to prison where Loni and her son Obadiah go to visit him and she plans to divorce him and take half of what he owns.
Ten years later Tony is finally allowed to go to school where he ends up making a nano swarm to attack some inner city kids who are harassing him- but that isn’t his actual school. He goes back to his fancy school, the Bretonne Academy where he sees Rhodey being picked on for being the only black kid there when they call him Quota. He attacks them with his swarm and then challenges them to smash his head into a wall first and then he gets to do the same to them – and when he gets out okay, the bullies run off but Rhodey is angry because he will be a bigger target and it is really poorly written. The two go to KFC and Tony wins over Rhodey with racist tropes in a weird way.
When they get home they find Loni Stane there who Tony knows about and he tells her to wait for his dad. When Howard gets home he is offered his stock back if he will get Obadiah into the fancy school. Howard tries to tell Tony off for it and for being rude and Howard says to never show emotions which doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Tony meanwhile is working on a suit of armor and when he asks about the genius school, Howard says he wants Tony to be a secret.
The next day Tony shows Rhodey his armor in the furnace room when the bullies show up and Rhodey is able to zap them but not before the bullies team up and toss Tony into the furnace. Rhodey meanwhile starts to learn how to harness the armor and Nifara, another student, sends them running and helps Tony out of the fire. Rhodey asks them to call Howard and to get Tony food, and Tony gets the armor from Rhodey.
The bullies says that they were hired by someone claiming to by Tony’s dad trying to teach him a lesson. When Howard gets there, the main burns are done and Howard withdraws Tony from the school and knows they’d have trouble with a lawsuit since two witnesses are black which – like, there’s a way to write this but I feel like Orson Scott Card never believes black people are normally falsely accused.
Howard worrying about them, also gets them enrolled into the secret school at The Baxter Building, which is where Obadiah also is. When they all get into the elevator, Obadiah steals a hair which everyone fucking notices. Howard is using it to train people to work for him. Meanwhile Obadiah leads two kids onto the roof to see if their flying tech will work and he is really just pushing both of them off the roof to their death.
Meanwhile Tony made a prototype armor capable of flying.
Time passes, Rhodey starts developing War Machine, a mechanical gauntlet because sure.
Tony starts developing the armor and it turns out Rhodey and Nifara have be developing the War Machine suit which Tony will get and Rhodey will get Iron Man and Howard isn’t happy about it.
Then at Sing Sing, Zebediah is busted out by hit men who then murder him, claiming to be sent by Howard Stark.
At a party, Tony steals his first drink of alcohol when Howard is told Zebediah was killed and is called it to consult but he knows too much about the murder without being supposed to know anything and along with a single hair that is evidence.
Tony shows up for a business meeting for stock work because his dad gave him a lot of permissions. Howard asks Si Ma to look after Tony who is now drinking a lot and it’s supposed to be really hurting his brain but he decides to prove them wrong and suits up when he heard a ferry got hijacked. Tony gets on board and knocks out some of the people but when he tries to dump the bombs they are exploded with all of the people saved and he survived but the armor got ruptured.
Ultimate Iron Man II #1-5
Writer – Orson Scott Card, Pencils – Pasqual Ferry, Colors – Dean White, Letters – VC’s Cory Petit
The government calls on Stark to turn over info because they think he sent in a robot. Meanwhile Tony is recovering and Si Ma turns over the fact that Mark Scott, CEO of Whiplash LCC hired them because they were going to destroy the Stark building so he could *checks notes* stop producing windmills and make weapons again.
In Texas Mark meets with Dolores, a little person, who hired him to destroy Howard Stark who still needs to do that.
The government sends agents who are just bald men to secure a Iron Man robot so Tony asks them to scare Obadiah while he checks with Rhodey. Tony gets them to explain they want to use the robot to destroy a terrorist camp and Tony accepts. When Tony catches up with his dad though, his dad is upset because he thinks they keep giving all their secrets away.
Rhodey decides he wants to go with him so they both pretend to suit up in their suits and the government agents accept that they will just have to take both robots and they’ll need to take care of them – unaware again, that Tony and Rhodey are inside them.
Obadiah meanwhile goes to complain to Dr. Molehevick claiming the agents threatened him.
The agents give the Iron Man guns and then fly them to their target and drop the off, presumably altering the camp with the helicopter. The approach and kill some terrorists wantonly until they find a kid with a suicide vest and end up finding out the kid’s father being forced to send the kid to blow up but they save him. Tony saves his dad, reveals he is human and then they find a bomb that blows off Tony’s arm and part of the suit. The soldiers then attack the remaining base and find out that the soldiers don’t even try to look for them when they hide.
The next day Si Ma meets with the agents tell them they’re unhappy, and that she has records of everything they did including some plans they found to bomb Manhattan and DC with a surprisingly small amount of plutonium.
Obadiah goes to meet Howard Stark and threatens to kill him with bombs so he is led away but then Obadiah ends up using tech he has to make the guards programmed to kill Howard Stark when they can because he’s working for Dolores. Dolores told him that Howard killed his father but Obadiah doesn’t believe him and Dolores getting controlled sells out Whiplash and then is programmed to forget that he got mind controlled and what he said.
That night the guard was controlled comes in, shoots another guard playing chess with Howard and is killed but not before shooting Howard leaving him in serious condition.
Tony gets angry and thinks it might be tied to the plans he found for the bomb. Tony looks into things and finds out about the control drug from the warden and then meets with the agents who inform them that the government wants one of the robots thinking it is intelligent. Iron Man goes to threaten Obadiah in bed for drugging the guard and planting the hair and Obadiah gives up Dolores who was the one who wanted the robot.
The government explains that Dolores is an arms dealer who didn’t like Howard or Zebediah refusing to sell him weapons so the government plans to stop Dolores using Obadiah as bait.
When Obadiah is supposed to meet Dolores though, Whiplash comes instead and tells him to go to his car but it is blocked from them listening and inside Obadiah is still working with Dolores and he says Tony Stark pilots Iron Man which is actually what Tony expected. Dolores doesn’t believe it and then Tony Stark goes and offers Iron Man in exchange for the name of whoever has the nuke that wants to destroy New York City and they plan to meet on a plane so nobody can escape.
Tony ends up working with another student, Abe Zimmer to make a loose artificial intelligence for the Iron Man suit hoping to fool Dolores long enough to get the nuke.
Whiplash and Obadiah go to the airport to attend the meeting as well so Tony goes on the plane and tosses out Whiplash’s whip and frees Obadiah who got gagged for being annoying. Dolores shows up and isn’t happy that the robot is acting differently and they take off while Abe accompanies the Iron Man suit to be checked on.
Tony gets the address of the bomb and it is defused but they don’t have the terrorists so Tony realizes he still needs to find another nuke and then realizes they are stuck on the plane and Dolores who left, has it set up to crash with second nuke.
Rhodey meanwhile goes in to save Abe and the Iron Man suit.
So with the bomb set and Tony, Obadiah and Whiplash unable to communicate with the outside world they try to figure out why.
Rhodey meanwhile wires $200,000 into the scientists account to make Dolores suspicious of why he survived. They also aren’t sure why everything has been so simple to stop.
Rhodey finds Dolores got killed.
Tony hacks into the plane with his nanobots and makes some radio signal devices and gets the plane lower so Obadiah and Whiplash can jump out while Tony stays on to pilot long enough to stop the bomb and blow up the plane but he is caught in the blast but the signals work.
Si Ma then goes to check on Howard who thinks it was a sales pitch. Some guards come in to transfer Howard back to prison but Si Ma sees they never got the orders and works to take them on so they can escape.
Tony and Howard celebrate surviving but realizes that Loni Stark was behind everything.
Howard, Obadiah and Nifara go to track her down before a missile destroys their helicopter injuring Rhodey in his War Machine suit. Tony goes to fly him off to the hospital while he calls in troops to help. Obadiah meanwhile is accidentally pushed off a cliff where Iron Man flies back to save him and Obadiah is captured by the soldiers and Si Ma is actually taking Rhodey to the hospital.
A trio of helicopters then come in to attack the front while Tony realizes he is supposed to sneak in.
Obadiah is reunited with his mom who doesn’t entirely care about her son, always knew Tony was in the suit, and Tony starts chasing after. She releases poison gas and starts to leave Obadiah behind as a rock slide starts.
Loni meanwhile captured Howard and Nifara and she kills Nifara and starts killing her guards till it is just her and Howard. She rants about how she can’t rely on any men except for Tony and she wants power. Tony comes in, she shoots Howard and says she’ll save him if he gets out of the suit. Meanwhile Si Ma checks in and finds out that nobody knew she had the secret base.
Tony gets out of the suit, is shot in the head and she thinks Tony is dead but instead she beats the shit out of her and then Obadiah shoots his mom because he was betrayed by her and that’s the end.