The Amazing Spider-Man #26 feels like the issue where “Death Spiral” stops merely escalating and starts locking into place. Joe Kelly and the creative team deliver a chapter that is tense, ugly, emotional, and surprisingly focused, turning what could have been another chaos-heavy symbiote brawl into something sharper: a story about guilt, responsibility, and the terrifying cost of letting monsters define the people around them. This is not a breather issue, but it is a more purposeful one. Instead of just throwing carnage at the reader, it uses the violence to push Peter into harder moral corners, and that makes the whole thing land with more weight.
PROS:
One of the strongest things about this issue is how clearly it understands Peter Parker. Even while he is getting battered, outmaneuvered, and emotionally stretched to the limit, Peter never stops being Peter. His inner narration is full of fear, guilt, and exhaustion, but he keeps moving anyway. That is what gives the issue its pulse. He is not winning because he has the upper hand. He is surviving because that is what Spider-Man does when everything around him gets worse. The script gives him jokes, but not as empty punchlines. The humor feels like a coping mechanism, a shield, a way of buying himself one more second to think. In an arc this dark, that balance matters.
The Torment-Carnage dynamic continues to be one of the most unsettling parts of “Death Spiral.” There is something deeply nasty about the way this story merges serial-killer psychology, symbiote body horror, and warped intimacy. Torment is not just another monster-of-the-week threat. He feels invasive, obsessive, and methodical in a way that makes him different from Carnage’s usual brand of chaos. Carnage is madness, but Torment brings structure to that madness. That is what makes the pair so dangerous here. The violence is not random. It is ritualized. It has a logic to it, which is always more disturbing than pure destruction.
Visually, this issue goes hard. The action scenes have real speed and snap, especially in the way Spider-Man is thrown, twisted, and forced to improvise against enemies who seem built to overwhelm him. The pages have that kinetic, high-impact feeling you want from a Spider-Man comic, but there is also a real ugliness underneath it all that suits the story. The symbiote work looks vicious, unstable, and wrong in the best way. Torment and Carnage do not just look cool; they look like bad ideas made flesh. The contrast between Peter’s bright visual iconography and the jagged, predatory violence around him helps the whole issue feel even more desperate.
Where the issue really becomes interesting, though, is in the Eddie Brock material. Eddie is not framed here as a simple victim, nor is he allowed an easy absolution. His conversation from the hospital bed adds a bitter emotional layer to the issue because it refuses to pretend that remorse automatically fixes harm. He wants to explain himself, maybe even redeem himself, but the story is honest enough to show that some damage does not disappear just because someone finally understands what they have done. That exchange gives the issue one of its strongest emotional beats. It is painful, messy, and unresolved in exactly the right way.
Mary Jane as Venom also continues to be one of the arc’s most compelling elements. She brings urgency and force to the book, but more importantly, she gives the story another emotional register beyond Peter’s desperation. The issue understands that this arc works best when the horror stays personal. These are not just monsters colliding in a vacuum. These are relationships being dragged through blood, grief, and impossible choices. MJ helps keep that human core intact even as the story gets louder and more violent.
The final pages do a great job of making the next chapter feel inevitable. They do not just tease more fighting. They sharpen the emotional stakes and widen the threat in a way that makes the cliffhanger hit harder. By the time the issue closes, it is clear that “Death Spiral” is no longer just about surviving Carnage and Torment. It is about whether Peter can hold onto clarity and responsibility in a story designed to drown him in guilt, noise, and blood. That is what makes this chapter work. It is brutal, but it is not empty.
CONS:
I was really digging the chemistry Eddie had with Carnage! I was attached!!! Gone too soon.
FINAL GRADE: A
Overall, The Amazing Spider-Man #26 is a strong, relentless installment that keeps “Death Spiral” moving with real menace. It delivers the action and horror you would expect from a Spider-Man/Carnage-heavy chapter, but it also earns its darkness by rooting everything in Peter’s conscience and the wreckage surrounding Eddie, MJ, and the people caught in the middle. It is not a comfortable issue, and it is not supposed to be. It is a chapter about pressure, about spirals closing in, and about the thin line between responsibility and collapse. As a bridge to what comes next, it works very well. As a Spider-Man comic, it reminds you that the heroism of Peter Parker is often found not in triumph, but in the refusal to stop.
English (US) · 