In this review of The Amazing Spider-Man #10, Spider-Man decides it’s time for a new era.
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #10
Written by Joe Kelly
Artist: Michael Dowling
Main Cover: John Romita Jr.
Variant Covers: Dike Ruan, Paulo Siqueira, J. Scott Campbell
Page Count: 22 pages
Release Date: August 20, 2025
This review contains spoilers
As he thinks about games he used to play in his childhood and how weird they were, Spider-Man fights the aftershocks alongside Captain Kintsugi. Though he stops them, he uses far too much force. Peter is approached by Tombstone, but refuses to discuss Spider-Man and knocks out one of his henchmen before continuing to head to work, where his boss leaves him in charge.
On the way home, he is attacked by the Shocker, who is there to punish him for not working with Tombstone, but Felicia jumps in to fight against him. The Shocker manages to subdue her, but Spider-Man arrives just in time to save her and defeat him. He begins to use excessive force even after the Shocker is stopped and Felicia has to stop him.
Spider-Man throws a beaten and bruised Shocker through Tombstone’s window, and Tombstone receives the message that a new era of Spider-Man has begun. Spider-Man lands on a roof and is confronted by Peter Parker, who says he knows he’s not Spider-Man. In return, Spider-Man says that he knows he’s not Peter Parker.
Analysis:
The art in this issue has its positives and negatives. We lose a lot of detail in both the backgrounds and character expressions ,and sometimes characters feel as though they’re fading into the background, but it gets more than made up for in the creativity of each panel.
The fight between Spider-Man and the aftershocks jumps beyond the borders of each panel. We rarely see a character from the same angle, even if they’re standing still, making each moment feel fresh and new. There are even moments where the lack of detail feels intentional, as though we’ll figure out the mystery too fast if we get too close.
These moments don’t quite appear enough to make every instance without detail feel important, but there are definitely times when it works well.
This issue sets up the mystery from the last issue with far more time and care. This time around, everything feels much more cohesive. It feels less like they’re putting in too much work to intentionally confuse the reader, and instead, they’re telling a story that should be normal but feels slightly off.
It makes the final reveal feel just that much better, learning that it isn’t just Spider-Man that’s been replaced, but also Peter himself. Though the way it’s presented is very similar to past Spider-Man stories that involved clones from the past, that also adds an element of intrigue, because we don’t know if it’s clones behind the Spider-Man and Peter replacement just yet. And if they are, then why?
This is a great way to set up further reveals in the next few issues, and hopefully this momentum continues.
Final Thoughts:
This issue does a great job in setting up suspense and keeps the story engaging, but it does suffer from a lack of detail in the art, and the familiarity of the storyline may have long time fans feeling like this has already been done.
