The Death of Spider-Man begins in the issues of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man and Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates in February.

Marvel is really touting this story as a major game changer for the Ultimate Marvel Universe. Having Spider-Man dead will certainly cause some changes, but will we have this same old story as we’ve had so many times before when heroes die? You know the story: wannabe heroes come out of the woodwork to try and fill the shoes of the fallen hero often even taking his identity. If that’s what the fallout of Spidey’s death, well, that’ll just be boring.

At any rate Marvel has released an image of the variant cover art for issue 157 of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man set for release in April. This is the final issue of the story arc. This variant art was done by Ed McGuiness, who’s currently back on the Hulk series. Check out the cover art below and share your thoughts.

Since it’s been a couple of weeks since the last major comic book character was threatened with getting killed off, Marvel announced today that the next major storyline for their Ultimate Universe, which will be called Death of Spider-Man.

Starting in February 2011 with Ultimate Spider-Man #153, writer Brian Michael Bendis will join forces with Mark Millar to tell what Bendis calls “a storyline unlike any other” and which Marvels touts “forever changes the Ultimate Comics Universe.” Ultimate Spider-Man #153 serves as a prologue for the storyline which will officially start in Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates #1.

Millar stressed that this new Ultimate story event “is going to be big.”

Ultimate Comics Avengers 2 #1
Writer: Mark Millar
Penciler: Leinil Francis Yu
Inker: Gerry Alanguilan
Colorist: Laura Martin
Marvel Comics
Price: $3.99
Release date: April 28, 2010

And we have a new winner for most unwieldy title ever. Not that it has anything to do with the quality of the book, but Marvel should really drop the “Comics” part from their Ultimate titles. I’m just saying. Anyway, let’s talk about the actual issue — Ultimate Comics Avengers 2 #1.

Nick Fury continues to assemble his team of black ops super-heroes, and this issue he goes after the Punisher. We see him do his thing in brutal fashion, until Fury is able to trick the Punisher and arrest him. The Punisher is then offered a choice, join the Avengers, or go to jail, and I think we all know what Punisher’s answer is, (otherwise, we’d have a pretty boring series).

I’m kind of surprised Mark Millar hasn’t written more stories featuring the Punisher before. He seems like the perfect character for Millar’s style of over the top violence, and Millar makes good use of him here. This is a Punisher who is the best at what he does, and what he does is shoot the crap out of a ton of people. The first eight pages of this issue are an orgy of violence, and are filled with classic Punisher action. It’s a Millar-written story, so it’s not surprising that the action is well done.