

(ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN/MARVEL COMICS)

Marvel Comics officially announces this morning that in Bendis’s Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #160 (dropping tomorrow), Peter Parker will meet the “ultimate” Grim Reaper.

(Emphasis, of course, on the word “Ultimate” — Spidey lives on in the Amazing Spider-Man and elsewhere.)

Parker’s fatal battle, Marvel says, “sets the stage for the upcoming debut of an all-new Spider-Man.”

Many fanboys had been chattering about the arc of the teasingly titled “Death of Spider-Man,” as Bendis teams again with artist Mark Bagley. Now, it’s time for Mary Jane to shed a tear, if not time for, too, the creative story-spinners themselves.

“I won’t lie to you, it’s embarrassing to say this out loud : Tears were rolling down my face,” Bendis told the Associated Press. “I was very emotional in writing it.

“This is a character that I have stayed with the entire time, that I have been almost solely responsible for. It represents such a great deal of my life.”

So which villain has the honor of sending the webslinger to the Great Web in the Sky? Bendis also told the AP that Parker’s killer will be ... [SPOILER ALERT after the jump]

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(Panel from ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #16-)

“He will pass heroically, but he will die at the hands of the Green Goblin,” Bendis said.

Ultimate Spider-Man No.-1 made its debut in 2000 and quickly became a top seller. some months notching sales figures higher than Amazing Spider-Man.

“We’re going to see how quickly it changes everything,” Marvel EiC Axel Alonso said of Spidey’s demise in the Marvel statement. “Readers are in for something very new…and surprising because everything that happens in Ultimate Spider-Man #160 and Ultimate Comics Fallout sets the stage for even bigger stories.”