In Ultimate Spider-Man issue 160, illustrated by Mark Bagley and debuting in stores Wednesday, Peter Parker dies at the end of a vicious battle between himself and the Green Goblin, who targeted Spidey for death after escaping from S.H.I.E.L.D. custody.
With the help of Iceman and the Human Torch, he makes his last stand in Queens, saving Aunt May and Gwen Stacy before dying in Mary Jane Watson's arms.
"Listen, I sat there typing this thing with tears in my eyes like a big baby!" Bendis says. "I went upstairs to my wife, and I go, 'I am so embarrassed. I think I've literally been crying for 45 minutes.' I've had real things happen in my life I didn't cry about, and yet I'm crying about this.
"I became very proud of it, and that's not an adjective I often put on myself."
As for the Green Goblin, his fate is seemingly held in the final panel of the issue — or is it? "I am completely leaving that up to interpretation," Bendis says. "There's a lot of finality to the issue, so I'm going to leave that one open."
For those wondering, the Spider-Man created by Stan Lee in the regular-continuity Marvel Universe is still alive and well — at least for now. But with Ultimate Spidey, Bendis and Bagley were there at the beginning, when Ultimate Spider-Man premiered in 2000 during the birth of the Ultimate Comics Universe along with Marl Millar's The Ultimates.
Bendis had kicked around the idea of killing him for years. As the Ultimate Universe progressed, he saw ways to do things that hadn't been seen before or explore brand-new relationships.
"We had talked about what Spider-Man meant and what it could mean and what kind of new stories you could tell," Bendis says. "If he died saving Aunt May like he couldn't save Uncle Ben, then you really had something."
"It occurred to me that if Peter passed away in a meaningful way, he could be the Uncle Ben character to a new Spider-Man, which then continues it to be a real Spider-Man story. Then it became more than just, 'Oh my God, you killed him!'"
While he tends to labor over every panel and every word on every comic he writes, this was one of the hardest issues he's ever penned because it was more than just a book for him
"This character represents more of me than almost any other character I write, including ones I've invented whole cloth," Bendis says. "This is a character I'm very connected to both professionally and personally, and I've shown more of myself in this character than I've shown in other places."
"Why I've killed him? That's another thing for another therapy session, but this could not be more important to me. To screw it up would be a complete failure on my part on numerous levels."
While this does mean a definite end to Peter Parker's life in the Ultimate Universe, he'll continue to impact lives. Next month's Ultimate Comics Fallout miniseries — the first issue of which is by Bendis and Bagley — continues the story, as fellow heroes and New York City at large deal with his death. That and other events will lead to the debut of an all-new Spider-Man.
"Not only has he passed away, he did it very publicly, he did it with his mask off," Bendis says. "A lot is revealed about the character to the public they didn't know about."
No comic-book death goes unnoticed, so Bendis knows he'll hear about it — positively, negatively, and everything in between — on his Twitter feed in the next few days.
"Initially, there will be people who are very emotional about it or very upset at me. I may have to unplug on Wednesday. I may go for a long bike ride," he says, laughing.
"I hope people will stick around to see why we've done this, and I think they will because it is so bold."
