In this review of The Amazing Spider-Man #33, Peter Parker’s quiet fears come to life, while Mayor Cage’s new squad helps protect New York City.
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #33
Written by: Joe Kelly
Art and Main Cover: Ed McGuinness
Variant Covers: Lee Bermejo, David Nakayama, InHyuk Lee, Áthila Fabbio
Page Count: 25 pages
Release Date: July 22, 2026
This review contains spoilers
The Amazing Spider-Man #33 begins with Peter and Cormac Crane preparing for a family dinner with Aunt May. It’s revealed Cormac is very wealthy, as a limo arrives to pick them up. But a police chase breaks out against Jack O’Lantern, and Peter makes an excuse to leave for “work”. Cormac covers for him while May remarks on how her nephew’s leaving is a common occurrence.
During the battle, Spidey quips and swings around, but his timing is off by a hair. The narrating voice emphasizes that his focus is on the dinner and the existence of another son for May. That timing throws him off, leading to a rocket being on a collision course with a construction site. That is until the Department of Damage Control shows up to make the save and arrests the Halloween-themed villain.
The leader, a man by the name of Agent Griffyn unveils the jetpacks are part of a new initiative by Mayor Luke Cage. The idea is to create a new DODC unit for helping protect everyday civilians during patrol duty instead of cleaning up messes, with Griffyn being inspired by Spider-Man. Spidey is initially weary, but later respects the unit and accepts an invitation to take down Tarantula later.
Hoping to clean up his own messes, Pete first heads to the residence of Kintsugi and his mother Dr. Osmani-Milton. Kintsugi recognizes him as Spider-Man and walks away, while Peter tells his mother to not take her angered teenage son’s words to heart. He delivers key research as repentance for the mess Ben Reilly caused at Rand Enterprises.
Elsewhere, Cormac offers a donation of $2,000,000 to the F.E.A.S.T. Center, which he gets May to accept. On the way to dinner, Peter catches May calling Cormac “son” outside, and leaves before they spot him.
He heads to the agreed upon stakeout against Tarantula early, and when Griffyn’s team arrives, they see the Wall-Crawler engaged against Tarantula, but also Grizzly, making the battle harder than initially thought.
Analysis
The Cormac Crane plot-line is picking up steam in a good way. In earlier issues, we predicted the arising conflict would be Cormac replacing Peter during his forced time away as Spider-Man. Peter’s been subtly dealing with the potential repercussions of that internally for the last few issues. Seeing it come to fruition now makes for interesting character drama.
In addition, I like how his first choice after being dealt this blow was to stop crime. Peter tends to play off his life as Spider-Man as duty/responsibility, but this sequence proved he does need the mantle on a personal level.
On the topic of duty/responsibility, Agent Griffyn being inspired by Spider-Man to protect the neighborhoods is sweet. Oftentimes, it’s Spidey looking up to other superheroes. Seeing an enhanced individual look up to his philosophy is uncommon and welcome, especially when it’s a character with the resources to seek more glory and higher profile missions.
The concept of a trained unit flying around NYC with jetpacks in broad daylight is also intriguing. A few different paths Kelly can take that, but more on that later.
Kelly has been delivering excellent humor over the past few issues, and it continues here vs Jack O’Lantern. “Screenagers” to describe teens made me chuckle, it’s classic Spider-Man wordplay. The only nitpick I had with the battle is that one panel featured wonky text positioning, making it a bit hard to follow the flow.
Final Thoughts
All in all, this was a very enjoyable Spider-Man read on the heels of Brand New Day, featuring a well thought-out internal conflict for Peter Parker.
