Ultimate Spider-Man #154

The "Death of Spider-Man: Prelude" banner makes this 2011 issue of Ultimate Spider-Man feel genuinely momentous, and Steve McNiven and Dexter Vines deliver a cover that earns every bit of that weight. Spider-Man lunges forward in the center of a swirling green-and-blue energy maelstrom, flanked by a glowing, skull-faced figure crackling with blue flame above and a fierce white-haired Black Cat in a sleek black suit below, chains whipping through the chaos around them all. It's a striking snapshot of high-stakes tension from a creative team — Bendis writing, with Pichelli, Lafuente, and Casagrande on art duties — that was doing some of the most compelling work in the Ultimate line.