10 Most Disturbing Scenes In Marvel Comics' Ruins
1. Spider-Man Starting The Spider Plague
Peter Parker is supposed to be Spider-Man. He is supposed to be the definitive hero of the Marvel Universe, but in the Ruins universe, he is decidedly not that.
His story starts off similarly, Peter Parker is a science student working at the Daily Bugle to pay for his college tuition, when he makes a terrible mistake and is accidentally bitten by an irradiated spider. Instead of gaining superhuman abilities though, he becomes patient zero of the newly created Spider Plague.
The art here is truly gruesome. Scars line Peter's body, horribly disfiguring him. There is one panel in particular that has Peter, terrified, cowering on the street suffering towards his inevitable demise.
The Spider-Man we know and love has fought his whole career to fight against the "Spider Menace" label J Jonah Jameson has given him. But in this reality, he truly is the menace he is made out to be.
And it is with this ending that we finally see why Phil Sheldon has been so painstakingly researching this book. He was Parker's coworker at the Bugle and caught the virus before Peter knew it was contagious. Sheldon's contempt for Peter's foolishness is clear and in the final pages of Ruins, Sheldon uses his final thoughts to condemn the would be hero.