Ultimatum #4

The fourth chapter of this five-part Marvel event finds Spider-Man at the center of a tense, storm-charged cover — gripped from behind by a commanding Doctor Strange while a menacing, grey-skinned brute looms to the right and a battered Daredevil crouches in the foreground. David Finch's pencils and Danny Miki's inks deliver a brooding intensity that suits a series called Ultimatum, with every figure radiating the sense that things have gone very, very wrong. With the penultimate issue's title — "A Time to Die" — promising no shortage of stakes, this is exactly the kind of 2009 Marvel comics drama that keeps readers counting down the days to the finale.