Spider-Man Unlimited #12

Spider-Man Unlimited #12 (May 1996) sets an ominous tone right from its Steve Skroce and Bud LaRosa cover, where a battered Spider-Man scrambles through what appears to be a graveyard while the Jack O'Lantern — his flaming pumpkin-head blazing — and a menacing armored Green Goblin close in from behind. The tagline "Grave Matters!" and the story's provocative title, "Who Did Spider-Man Murder?", hint at some seriously dark territory ahead for the wall-crawler. With a packed creative team including writers and artists like Evan Skolnick, Steven Butler, and Paris Karounos, this oversized quarterly was clearly delivering something with real weight in 1996.