Ultimate Spider-Man: Inheritance
Issue: #34
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inker: Art Thiebert
Colors: Transparency Digital

Peter Parker has found Eddie Brock, a childhood friend, who is now a student at Empire State University. Brock shows Peter an experiment that uses notes from a project both their fathers had been working on at the time of their deaths. They were calling it “the suit” – a substance that would coat a human body, diagnose the type and location of cancer in the body, and then cure it. “The suit” would tailor-make the cure for each patient, based on his or her DNA. Eddie reveals that his mentor on the project is Dr. Curt Conners.

Brock continues the story. Both Parker and Brock, Sr. had worked for Trask Industries. The management had found out what the two men were working on and tried to adapt it for military use. The partners’ notes and equipment were commandeered. A couple days after the last journal entry, both Peter’s and Eddie’s parents died in a plane crash. The protoplasmic sample Eddie is working with was something Brock and Parker Sr. had been working on outside the company. Eddie’s grandfather had kept the sample and passed it to his grandson. The sample used Ray Parker’s DNA as its base.

Peter returns to school, where he and Mary Jane have a close encounter, but avoid each other because of their recent break-up. Eddie comes to pick Peter up and also gives Gwen Stacy a ride. As MJ watches them drive away, Liz Allen chides her for still being interested in Peter. Liz asks what’s so special about him, and MJ chooses not to answer.

Peter, Eddie and Gwen chat about college life in the mall food court. Eddie receives a phone call from Dr. Conners. After he hangs up, the conversation turns to music (Eddie invites them to a reggae concert), and then to the deaths of Eddie’s and Peter’s parents. Later, Peter is watching another video, this time of his father pitching his idea of the “cancer suit”. The tape also shows a recording of Parker, Sr. talking about the legal problems he was having over the suit with the company he was working for. Peter decides he’s going to finish his father’s work. As Gwen and Eddie enjoy the concert, Peter dresses up as Spider-Man and breaks into Eddie’s lab. He ladles some of the experimental liquid into a jar, but accidentally spills some on his hand. The liquid immediately spreads down his arm and engulfs him. For a moment there is only a pile of dark goo on the lab floor; then an arm bursts out of it and a human form stands up out of it. In the final panel, we see a dark figure with Spider-Man’s mask eyes standing in the middle of a mist.

Submitted By: Seldes Katne