Spider Jerusalem, the God-King of Journalists, is presented after residing on the Mountain for five years, a tranquil and relatively unspoiled retreat, unmolested except for the odd murder attempt, where he has had time to grow his hair long and devote all attention to exploring new drug experiences.
To avoid a lawsuit, Jerusalem returns to the City, where he finds work at his old workplace, The Word, as a newspaper journalist, loses all his hair in an incident with the shower unit, and manages to stop a major riot.
Spider exposes the fraudulent activities conducted by nearly all of the "religious leaders" within the convention, until he eventually becomes violently enraged to the point where he jumps onto tables and tears down a few displays, while constantly yelling the truth to those in attendance.
He resumes his drug binges of mythic proportions and arouses the ire of various presidential candidates, including Gary Callahan, or "The Smiler" who orchestrates the assassination of someone Spider has grown to love.
Senator Tarleton Sweeney pays a visit to the City, where he attempts to hold a press conference and release a placating statement regarding the recent accusations against him for his alleged funding of covert pornographic films.
Driven to the edge of suicide by the thought that no one takes him seriously (in addition to viewing three horrible TV adaptations of his life and work), Spider ingests a massive amount of drugs and experiences two very twisted hallucinations.
Issue #31 is drawn by several artists in addition to series co-creator Darick Robertson, the list is as follows: Lea Hernandez, Kieron Dwyer, Bryan Hitch, Frank Quitely, and Eduardo Risso.
The last page of this issue lists all the guest artists and the titles of their individually drawn story segments underneath a picture of Spider passed out on his bathroom floor, while his cat urinates on his head.
Spider aimlessly wanders through the streets of the City, while contemplating what to do regarding the D-notice placed on his article by the White House, until he notices the demolition of a dilapidated building filled with squatters with the use of two tanks driven by the CPD.
Spider refers to this as a "D-notice for people" and the incident prompts him to come up with the idea to release his article about the Dante Street police riot onto a text-only feedsite known as The Hole.
They both test fire a pair of "MARR special-issue nerve-breaker" guns (using a replicated series of Channon's ex-boyfriend for target practice) and then return to the street where they're immediately confronted by a mysterious black car and the same person that had been following them earlier.
As they're leaving, Spider appears at the end of the issue and says, "They love my ass", as he picks up a dead pigeon (killed by Yelena throwing a breadcrumb at the back of its head) and shoves it into his mouth.
He takes them for a walk through the City to find another crazy person who witnessed the deviant sexual activity performed by Alan Schact, a representative of "The Smiler" who helped him get elected through illicit means.
Upon his revival in Yelana's father's house, a doctor diagnoses him with a degenerative brain disease due to neurological degradation from multiple exposure to information pollen.
They resolve to write a piece linking the mayor of the City to the disaster and crash a bar, assailing the patrons and staff against Fred Christ, who is hiding in a back room.
After they expose a massacre by a National Guard detachment resembling the one that occurred at Kent State University, the media and the rest of the government finally begins to stand up against Callahan.
In the penultimate issue of the five-year series, gonzo journalist extraordinaire Spider Jerusalem and the disgraced American president Gary Callahan have their final confrontation very close to the area where the Dante Street police riots took place.