8 Strangest Alternate Versions Of Spider-Man

Ruins, a two-part miniseries written by Warren Ellis, is a kind of parody of Kurt Busiek's seminal work on Marvels - a great book which you definitely should read if you haven't already.

Instead of following the incredible and inspiring adventures of the Marvel universe's brightest heroes, Ruins instead dares to answer the question "What would it be like if superpowers were actually super awful?"

The story follows Phil Sheldon, a journalist for the Daily Bugle who decides to document some of the more unfortunate inhabitants of his universe. In his words, in this universe "everything that can go wrong will go wrong." He comes across monsters like The Hulk, who is now just a disgusting formation of tumours and Nick Fury - who eats people, along with his friend Captain America.

Peter Parker is probably the most unfortunate of the lot (which is really saying something). He contracts a rash from a spider bite which then spreads across his whole body, and eventually kills him - but not before visiting Phil Sheldon in person and infecting him, leading to his death at the end of the book. Speaking of depressing Spider-Man stories...