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Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Death of Spider-Man Fallout #[nn]
This collected edition gathers the six-issue limited series that served as the bridge between the death of Ultimate Peter Parker and the full second relaunch of the Ultimate Marvel line — making it the vessel for one of the most consequential character introductions of 21st-century superhero comics: the first appearance of Miles Morales, an Afro-Latino teenager who takes up the Spider-Man mantle in issue #4 of the underlying series. Miles would go on to headline his own ongoing title, cross over into the main Marvel Universe after Secret Wars, star in the Academy Award-winning animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and become one of Marvel's most culturally resonant characters of the modern era. Beyond that single debut, the anthology also functions as a wide-angle autopsy of a fictional world in mourning, showing how Peter Parker's death rippled through allies, enemies, and civilians alike while simultaneously planting seeds for the relaunched Ultimate Comics: Ultimates, Ultimate Comics: X-Men, and the Miles Morales-led Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man. The series also sparked a genuine, broadly covered public conversation about race and representation in mainstream superhero publishing — a creative decision that generated significant debate and earned both praise and fierce criticism well before the first issue even shipped.
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The series was written collaboratively by Brian Michael Bendis — the architect of the Ultimate Spider-Man line since its 2000 launch — alongside Jonathan Hickman and Nick Spencer, with those three writers deliberately chosen because each was simultaneously taking over one of the three new Ultimate relaunch titles the miniseries was designed to feed into. The anthology structure brought in an unusually large rotating roster of pencillers: Mark Bagley returned for the grief-focused Spider-Man chapters, while Sara Pichelli — making what Grokipedia describes as her Marvel debut on a major story — drew the pivotal Miles Morales reveal in issue #4 and co-designed Miles's distinctive black-and-red costume. Bendis has discussed in interviews that his conception of Miles was shaped by his own family life and by actor Donald Glover's now-famous appearance in Spider-Man pajamas during the season-two premiere of Community — an episode that had itself been a response to an online campaign to cast Glover as Spider-Man; Marvel's then-editor-in-chief Axel Alonso also contributed directly to the character's conception and denied that the introduction was driven by anything other than genuine creative intent. The six bi-weekly issues shipped between July and August 2011, barely weeks after the June 2011 'Death of Spider-Man' storyline concluded, and were subsequently collected in both hardcover (ISBN 978-0-7851-5912-4) and paperback (ISBN 978-0-7851-5913-1) editions under the title used in this catalog entry.
Trivia · 8 facts
- The collection reprints Ultimate Comics Fallout #1–6 (July–August 2011), written by Brian Michael Bendis, Jonathan Hickman, and Nick Spencer, with art by Mark Bagley, Sara Pichelli, Salvador Larroca, Clayton Crain, Gabriel Hardman, Steve Kurth, Eric Nguyen, Carlo Pagulayan, Luke Ross, Billy Tan, and others.
- Ultimate Fallout #4 (August 3, 2011) contains the first appearance of Miles Morales — an Afro-Latino teenager who becomes the second Spider-Man of the Ultimate Universe (Earth-1610) — written by Bendis and drawn by Sara Pichelli.
- Miles Morales was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli, with significant input from Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso; Bendis cited Donald Glover's appearance in Spider-Man pajamas on Community as a key visual and conceptual inspiration.
- The series marks the starting point of the second full relaunch of Ultimate Marvel, with each of the three co-writers (Bendis, Hickman, Spencer) simultaneously shepherding the new flagship titles: Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man, Ultimate Comics: Ultimates, and Ultimate Comics: X-Men respectively.
- Narratively, the collection covers: Peter Parker's funeral (at which Tony Stark finances the service and Captain America confesses to Aunt May that the fatal gunshot was meant for him); J. Jonah Jameson grappling with knowledge of Peter's secret identity; Kitty Pryde and the Human Torch going into hiding; and Reed Richards revealed alive in the N-Zone.
- Miles Morales's debut scene in issue #4 shows him fighting the villain Kangaroo before unmasking on a rooftop, with New York bystanders telling him it is 'in bad taste' to wear the costume — a self-aware commentary on the controversy surrounding Peter Parker's replacement.
- The release of Miles Morales's identity was reported by USA Today on August 2, 2011, generating international mainstream-media coverage and a wide-ranging public debate about race and representation; Stan Lee publicly approved the creation.
- Miles Morales subsequently starred in the Academy Award-winning animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and its sequels, voiced by Shameik Moore, cementing his status as a character whose introduction in these pages had enduring cross-media impact.