Ultimate Spider-Man were probably the best Peter Parker comics published in the past decade (and maybe more). That's the same time period during which Superior Spider-Man happened, to be fair. But it's also because Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley put together an entertaining, engaging teen melodrama like the good old days. The creative pairing who produced most of the 100+ issues of Ultimate Spider-Man a feat greater even than Stan Lee and John Romita Jr's Amazing Spidey run also managed to do something the main book could never do: kill the kid off for good. The alternate Ultimate Universe meant anything was up for grabs. So they did the unthinkable, and in the middle of the Catacylsm crossover event in the Ultimate books, they had Spider-Man go against the combined forces of a resurrected Green Goblin and Sinister Six. In the end, he dies protecting his family, as they attack him at home he tells Aunt May as she cradles him, he couldn't save Uncle Ben but he saved her.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
