The Amazing Spider-Man: Peter Parker dies in final issue, released Wednesday

MARVEL COMICS        The final issue of Marvel Comics' The Amazing Spider-Man was published Wednesday. Peter Parker, the man behind the mask for 50 years, dies in a battle with his nemesis, Doctor Octopus.

Josh Tapper 
Star Reporter 

Peter Parker, the ungainly New York City high school student who parlayed a radioactive spider bite into a heroic, though often tragic and unheralded, career as the web-slinging superhero Spider-Man, died Wednesday after his mind was mysteriously transplanted into the body of his terminally ill arch-nemesis Doctor Octopus.

Parker’s death was confirmed in the 700th and final issue of Marvel Comics’ The Amazing Spider-Man, which will be discontinued after 50 years of publication. His age was unknown.

While details surrounding Parker’s death remain murky, the issue, published Wednesday, details a series-ending battle in which Doctor Octopus defeats Spider-Man, assuming his form while his own body withers away with Parker trapped inside. In early January, the series will relaunch as Superior Spider-Man, with Doctor Octopus — also known as Otto Octavius — taking over as Spidey.

Parker may not have possessed Superman’s brawn or Batman’s steely guile, but his inferiority complex and quirky neurosis endeared him over the years to a legion of similarly awkward teenagers and adults. He became a cultural touchstone for underdogs worldwide, always staying true to his Uncle Ben’s axiom: “With great power comes great responsibility.”

“Peter Parker’s philosophy was so pure and so simple that even a child could grasp it,” remembered Chris Butcher, manager of Toronto-based comic store The Beguiling. “The stronger you are and the more influence you have, the greater your responsibility to be good to people. That idea has influenced generations of children . . . Peter Parker always led by example.”

In his final moments, Parker gallantly transferred memories of a lifetime spent crime-stopping and world-saving to Doctor Octopus’s mind, a move series writers say will likely compel the villain to recast himself as a hero.

“Spider-Man doesn’t always win,” Dan Slott, who has written for The Amazing Spider-Mansince 2008, told the Los Angeles Times. “He’s us. We do our best, but sometimes we fall short. What makes him heroic is that he stays on the right path. There’s a victory in this story for Peter if you’re willing to see it.”

Though Parker ably learned to harness his superhuman strength, wall-crawling abilities and precognitive “spider sense,” his career as Spider-Man was marked by a never-ending succession of battles with megalomaniacal bad guys and scorn from a public unaccustomed to his sometimes destructive tactics — even as he repeatedly saved the day.

Yet, his do-gooder exploits were at times overshadowed by personal tragedy: the deaths of his parents; the murder of his beloved uncle; the death of his wife Mary Jane Watson, who was reincarnated only to see her marriage annulled four years ago after Spider-Man struck a deal with the villain Mephisto.

Comic fans became aware of Parker’s imminent death in mid-December after news leaked online, and his loss has since unhinged a diehard fan base loyal to a character essentially unchanged since 1962. Slott has said he received death threats related to Parker’s demise.

“There is no such thing as a ‘funny death threat,’” Slott wrote in a Dec. 16 Facebook post. “If you think, because of something happening to a fictional character, that you need to type out a death threat and send it to someone: You. Need. Help.”

Even with Parker gone, some in the industry are reluctant to bury him for good.

“These kinds of things have happened before and they will happen again,” Butcher said. “There’s nothing that can happen in comics that can’t be undone the next week.”