Love Conquers All
It’s all about the Carnage, with Peter trapped in his psyche while Carnage is piloting his body in the real world in an effort to get some much-needed revenge against his last fling of a host: Torment. Yeah, remember Torment? Whose actual event this was supposed to be? He’s still around and doing random things. Before Spider-Carnage can land the killing blow on Torment, Venom/MJ, of all people, shows up to stop Peter from committing murder, and even they’re particularly amused by the situation at hand. In the melee, Spider-Carnage gets the upper hand in the fight, having MJ and Venom at his mercy while Torment scurries off to try and kill Peter and MJ’s aunts again. But before Carnage can really do some damage to his dear ol’ dad, who should show up to surprisingly save the day but Eddie Brock, who picks up a conveniently dropped Shocker gauntlet left behind in the earlier fight and uses it to weaken Carnage enough for Peter to fight back inside the mindscape. Using the power of hope—ultra-maxing to overwhelm the Carnage symbiote through sheer toxic positivity—Peter is able to free himself from Carnage (who simply can’t stand such unadulterated goodness).
But what about Torment and the old aunties? Well, Venom is on the case there, quickly cornering Torment before he can land the killing blow on sweet Aunt Anna. Venom proceeds to beat the unholy bejeesus out of the wannabe serial killer savant until we get the massive, earth-shattering reveal that Torment is actually…some dude. Yep, so it turns out Torment is just some regular, unhinged serial killer with an unfortunate ability to be “tormented” (geddit?) by familial “spirals” in his head, which is why he kills entire families in sequence. He taunts MJ and Venom, saying that he’ll be sure to come back and finish the job when he gets out of prison. But Venom (and MJ) aren’t particularly big on forgiveness at the moment and just proceed to throw Torment off the roof. Of course, when Spidey and Flash Thompson arrive on the scene, there are questions to be asked, but Venom and MJ just brush it off by saying the bad guy “fell.”
There’s a few epilogues here that deal with the immediate aftermath. Peter and MJ are discussing the situation on call. Both their aunts are shaken up by everything that happened, but otherwise unharmed. Turns out, there’s been a long gap since they spoke since MJ wasn’t answering Peter’s calls or messages. She did however speak to Flash at length about her feelings, so there’s that to think about. Meanwhile, Eddie Brock has been sent to prison (again) for “reasons” and Dylan is out on the streets alone (again), though MJ doesn’t seem to particularly care about either of them at this point. While Peter tries to get MJ to talk about what happened with Torment in the end, and she bluntly cuts him off with “let’s leave it at the good guys won for now” there’s still other things brewing. Carnage is still at large, apparently skulking about in the sewers and regaining his strength. Meanwhile, the final cliffhanger for the issue closes on Peter’s cousin – who he saved from Torment/Carnage a few issues back – pondering over what he heard and saw in the fight. He knows Spidey is his relative, and now he wants to find out if he’s got something special in him too…but like in a totally evil vibe sort of way.
Anywhere But Here
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but it’s become exceedingly obvious with this finale in particular that Joe Kelly really wanted to wrap this up as neatly and quickly as possible so he could go back to writing his own Amazing Spider-Man stories. I genuinely think that maybe Soule should’ve written this finale, but this is the hand we’ve been dealt, and it’s a particularly mild one. While the Spider-Carnage shock-value transformation was done exactly for that purpose—shock value—there was a bit more that could’ve potentially been done with the temporary concept than just Carnage autopiloting Peter’s body around while making lame Carnage humor jokes that feel more Spider-Man-lite but with a more murderous nature.
Since this is a Spidey-centric issue, with the primary conceit being Peter physically and mentally overcoming Carnage’s grip on his body and mind, to have it wrapped up so quickly and just so lazily in the span of half an issue just felt like a complete waste of potential. I feel like the Death Spiral issue preceding this one set up a more compelling angle for the Carnage/Spidey merging in its last two pages than it ever does here in this book’s entire runtime, with Peter honestly having changed or suffered the least (at least at the time of this event’s conclusion) from everything that’s happened. I’ve honestly seen him more shaken up by less, but here we get a generic progression of events by Kelly that just feels like he’s not trying, or worse—that he threw his script into Gen AI to give him the most milquetoast outcome imaginable: Peter grapples against the raw chaos of Carnage in his head, Peter/Carnage fights a bigger threat, Peter/Carnage gets beaten down by a concerned ally, and Peter takes back control of his body through the power of positivity and hope.
That last bit in particular is also especially egregious because we already had Ben Reilly do this exact same thing when he was bonded to Carnage back in the ‘90s, and it was done far better and with emotional consequence than this “Peter’s sooooooo inherently good, Carnage can’t possibly corrupt him.” Alternatively, Carnage has already previously shaken off a far more potent version of this “weaponized goodness” back during the finale of Maximum Carnage. But these are comics, and the powers that be decide who gets to be overpowered when, where, and how, so them’s the breaks. I just wish Peter, who is normally quite well written by Kelly, was given something with more substance to do in this situation where he’s literally compelled to murderous urges at his most vulnerable. Maybe if the Spider-Carnage transformation had lasted for a few more issues (one or two more), during which Carnage really did break down Peter more and more and compel him to do horrific actions that would actually haunt him for good, or if Peter had actually hurt or killed someone as Spider-Carnage, it would’ve resonated more than this by-the-numbers approach.
The only spot of marginal interest that crops though is with Venom’s antics in this book. MJ/Venom have more “lethal protector” energy going on here than they’ve had in the entire story so far, but once again they’re so quickly overwhelmed by Carnage that it’s almost laughable. However, for the most part, we do get some marginally compelling writing where its MJ who ends Torment’s “reign of terror” by putting him down for good. I like the potential this has since MJ questions whether it was her or the symbiote who made that ultimate decision, but I’ve been burned too many times so far to invest too much into a story beat that might never come. Additionally, Eddie Brock being the hail mary that gives Peter and MJ the opportunity to save themselves and their loved ones respectively at the final hour is also poetic in a way, though I’m unsure about the whole sending him to prison and Dylan back on the streets bit will translating into the next chapter in their story. What I couldn’t get behind is a wildly flippant and out of character “yo mama” joke from Eddie once the tension died, which just felt so cringe-inducingly forced. Also Flash Thompson is around too, mainly to still continue the simmering romantic tension going on between him and MJ.
Finally, Torment. Yep, Torment is dead baby – still as confusing in his goals and utterly cliched in the method to his madness as he was after the start of this event. And despite all the theories and Marvel feeding fan sentiment about who he might be, it does turn out that Torment was just another guy, a boring guy that too spouting off high school level taunts as he gets flung off a building. Now of course, I’m sure there is some merit in having Torment be his own thing rather than a pre-established character, and knowing this history of comics he’s sure to show up again despite his “death” at the time, there’s still a lot to be said when the big bad your event was centered around feels sidelined this much in his own finale only to be taken out in quite a violent, albeit incredibly mundane way. It kind of bookends just how off the rails this event went, and just how disinterest Joe Kelly was in wrapping things up, especially when you consider how the final epilogue has more to do with setting up more Amazing Spider-Man related family drama with Peter’s secret new evil cousin than it does with anything particularly tying back to Death Spiral in any actual meaningful way.
Spiraling Splash Pages
There’s more than a few artists working on this book, mainly splitting the bulk of the book between two teams: the lion’s share of which is handled by Amazing Spider-Man stalwarts Ed McGuiness and Marcio Menyz on lines and colors respectively. Meanwhile the final few pages of the epilogue with mostly Venom and MJ taking centre stage fall in the hands of Venom mainstays Carlos Gomez and Erick Arciniega. And or course, Francesco Manna gets to also work his magic on one final page of the epilogue as well. So a pretty stacked arthouse for this Death Spiral finale, all things considered.
I’ve mentioned before that while I don’t feel McGuiness’ art is the best fit for an event that’s as grim and gritty as this, I will never question his impeccable abilities to show off action in superhero comics. And since he gets to do the most with Spider-Carnage in this book, he really does swing for the fences with the portrayal – creating a character design that’s visually creepy and really plays up the spider like predatory aspects in cool ways. I love how McGuiness draws Spider-Carnage in constant, lethal motion, using the symbiote to create webbing with literal moving spiders at the end that cut and bite with ferocity. It’s such a cool little touch to an already cool design. I’m not particularly enamoured by how he draws Venom though, making them look a bit too goofy for my liking by overexaggerating his bulk in weirdly over-stylized dimensions, even by Mcguinness’ usual standards. For the most part, his segments have a LOT of kinetic energy going for them, with non-stop pacing and action drawn beautifully for the kind of story they’re going for, especially in the segments where Peter is mentally fighting Carnage. Although I genuinely can’t help but recoil internally at the big “the power of goodness compels you” page that just looks far too hilarious, even with all the great color work that Menyz puts into this book. Spider-Jesus much?
Gomez closes the book with some chunky and vicious Venom visuals, letting MJ and Venom run wild on Torment in the most vicious they’ve looked in ages. I love how aggressive Venom looks throughout these few pages, with Gomez really amping up the raw aggression leading up to Torment’s demise. Torment himself is show bruised and battered more than he’s ever been, yet still showing off the blood crazed madness in his eyes. And while the talking heads segments after that epic moment are a little ho-hum in comparison, Gomez and Arciniega’s line and color work do a passable enough job carrying that as well. Meanwhile, the final page of the book with Manna’s art is passable as well, giving a nice shady vibe to Peter’s cousin and his future machinations.
An Event that Spun Out of Control
Amazing Spider-Man #27 marks the end of the Death Spiral saga in the most middle of the road way it can, which just amplifies the greatest issue this event had: utterly wasted potential. There’s a lot that can be said about the event as a whole and how things played out with stakes being superficial at best, meaningful deaths being thrown by the wayside far too quickly, and genuine tension being conveniently resolved far too effortlessly. I honestly believe that this event should’ve been structured and paced far more effectively than it was, with the slow dragging pace at the start and the utterly breakneck speed at the end which left no room for anything to really breathe and directly contributed to a finale that goes for the easiest way out imaginable in a story that should’ve taken more risks and left everyone involved in far darker places than they started.
Pivoting back and forth from Torment to Carnage as the main headlining villain could’ve had more value if Carnage’s influence was given more weight and malice here like it was in a few solitary issues. Instead, we get a sidelined villain, some mild sprinkles of potentially interesting conflict on the Venom front and just the usual “back to the swing of things” for everyone else, but especially Peter. I know the next few issues of Venom and Amazing Spider-Man are promising “fallout” from this event, and there’s even a Torment focused “origin” issue promised a couple weeks from now. But again, all of that “potential” does little salvage a finale that should’ve been given far more attention than it actually was.
Final Verdict: Amazing Spider-Man #27 is a disappointingly mediocre finale to the Death Spiral saga that goes with the safest possible route imaginable while utterly sidelining its titular villain in favor of bland, lazy feel-good storytelling, barring maybe one potentially interesting character highlight for our three leading heroes.