John Schwartzman/Columbia Pictures; Marvel; BroadwayHas Bono's Broadway disaster done what even Dr. Octopus couldn't?
Kill Spider-Man!
Well, yes and no. Spider-Man has been killed off, but Broadway bruiser, Turn out the Dark is, for once, not to blame for any bodily harm. The real killer, you see, is…
His publisher.
No, not J. Jonah Jameson. Marvel Comics—with a little help from the Green Goblin—announced it was squashing Spidey dead and it did. The character has been killed off, for reals.
In the Ultimate universe, anyway.
Yeah, there's always an out.
Joining a long list of superheroes such as Superman and Captain America who've been killed deader than dead, only to rise up again, Marvel offed the Peter Parker of The Ultimate Spider-Man, a sort of alternative universe version of the wisecracking webcrawler in the series' 160th issue.
The character's demise even brought tears to the eyes of writer Brian Michael Bendis, who wrote the fatal tale. Now that's sad.
So Spidey's dead. But not gone or forgotten or even going away, really. So get back in line for Turn Out the Dark, seek out spoilers for the Andrew Garfield reboot or hit up a comic book store for what Marvel promises will be "the start of one of the most ambitious stories you've ever read in comics."
Spider-Man lives. And possibly loves.