2013: Massacre in Manhattan

Superior Spider-Man #4:

A villain named Massacre manages to somehow escape Arkham Ravencroft Asylum. This villain is evidently a mass murderer of some kind, and if he has any super powers I'm not sure what they are. The intro describes him as a mass murderer with no empathy. I guess this sets him apart from all those other more empathic mass murderers.

He kills eight people at the asylum in his escape. The first, graphically depicted, is a security guard.

Security guard: epic fail!

Another of the eight dead at the asylum is this woman, Ashley Kafka, who had been a supporting character in the Spider-man cast.

This time... it's personal.

Later, Massacre is holding the patrons of a burger joint hostage, because how else is a mass murderer going to get a happy meal?

Right away we know this will not end well.

One of them tries to alert the authorities, causing Massacre to utilize his superpower of mass murder.

Don't worry, true believer, you are intangible.

I guess these days even Spider-Man needs to have that edgy mortality cred. One of the modern trends exhibited here, and in many modern superhero comics, is to portray the deaths of innocents in graphic detail.

Can I finish my @#$@% fries now?

Another current trend on display here is the fact that the carnage cannot be prevented by our hero. More often in modern Marvel comics the hero finds out about villainy after the fact, is horrified, then delivers a smack-down upon the perpetrator. What is unusual in this particular comic book series is that Spider-Man's uncharacteristic lack of drive in hunting down the villain is actually a major part of the plot's conflict.

Body count: approximately 15

Superior Spider-Man #4

Writer: Dan Slott

Artist: Giuseppe Camuncoli