Blood, blame, and a spiral getting tighter
What an amazing, sensational, spectacular day it has been for Spider-Man and the fans! With the brand-new Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer finally out and already putting Peter Parker back in the spotlight ahead of the film’s release later this year, it feels especially fitting that this week’s Amazing Spider-Man review lands right in the middle of another Spidey moment built on pressure, fallout, and hard choices. The trailer promises a darker, lonelier road ahead for Peter on screen, and in a different but equally bruising way, Death Spiral is digging into that same idea on the page—pushing Spider-Man into a story where the punches hurt, but the emotional damage cuts even deeper.
Amazing Spider-Man #24 keeps Death Spiral moving with a stronger emotional punch than the previous chapter, giving us an issue that feels less like setup and more like the moment everything starts cutting deeper.
PROS:
What makes this chapter work is how hard it leans into the idea of family as both wound and weapon. Torment isn’t just killing people — he’s carving through emotional weak spots, and this issue makes that painfully clear through Eddie Brock. The reveal involving Carl Brock gives the story a much uglier and more personal edge, and it pushes Eddie even further into that dangerous space where grief, rage, and Carnage all start bleeding into one another.
That’s really the strength of this issue: Eddie doesn’t feel stable at all, and the book knows it. Even when Spider-Man and MJ Venom are trying to help, there’s this constant tension hanging over every scene because nobody — reader included — can fully trust where Eddie ends and Carnage begins. By the end of the issue, that question becomes the whole point.
I also liked the way Peter and MJ function here. They help keep the book grounded while the symbiote chaos gets more intense, and their scenes give the issue some much-needed clarity and momentum. Their banter is light, but never so light that it undercuts the danger. They feel like the people trying to hold the center while everyone else is one bad second away from completely losing it.
Torment continues to be a creepy wildcard. He doesn’t dominate the issue in a flashy way, but his presence is all over it. The repeated “Torment Rules” motif, the manipulation, the timing, the way he keeps dragging the fight toward psychological damage instead of just brute force — all of that makes him feel more disturbing than a standard monster-of-the-week villain.
And visually, this issue looks mean in the best way. The Carnage pages have real menace to them, especially when the story shifts into full red nightmare mode. There’s a weight to the facial expressions too, especially on Eddie. You can feel the exhaustion, confusion, grief, and fury fighting for control panel by panel. That final image is especially strong and sells the cliffhanger exactly the way it should.
CONS:
If I had one minor criticism, it’s that this chapter still feels like it’s building toward the truly massive payoff rather than fully delivering it just yet. But unlike some middle chapters that just stall for time, this one actually deepens the conflict and raises the emotional stakes enough to justify that.
Overall, Amazing Spider-Man #24 is a tense, character-driven chapter of Death Spiral that sharpens the story’s core theme: sometimes the worst symbiote horror isn’t the monster — it’s the pain the monster knows how to use.
Final Verdict: A+
A strong, darker installment that makes Death Spiral feel more personal, more dangerous, and a lot more tragic.
And by the time this chapter closes, Death Spiral leaves you with the same feeling that the newly released Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer seems to be chasing: Peter Parker never really gets the luxury of simple problems, only bigger scars, harder choices, and new storms waiting around the corner. With the film now officially building hype ahead of its release later this year, this comic lands at the perfect time too—because it reminds you that whether it’s on screen or on the page, Spider-Man works best when the action hits hard but the emotional weight hits harder.
