Amazing Spider-Man / Queen in Black #1 – Answer the Question (FCBD 2026)

As the editorial office behind some of Marvel’s biggest titles gears up for the rest of 2026, they’ve laid out a selection of stories for Free Comic Book Day this year that went the extra mile in getting me excited for their offerings, even on stories I initially held reservations for. Below are reviews for each of them, just in case you missed out on this issue.

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The Amazing Spider-Man – Answer the Question

The Amazing Spider-Man title is in an interesting spot at the moment, having just wrapped up a year of epic stories and crossovers that have set a precedent for Joe Kelly weaving stories that plan to use the character in the biggest ways possible. However, the guy still does have a knack for grounding the character in smaller moments, which can be seen both in the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man #28 and this year’s FCBD story.

Entitled “Answer the Question,” the story sees Peter jumping headfirst into a conflict with the Answer, a D-tier villain whom the web-head has sparred with a few times over the last few years. His main schtick is that he can generate any kind of power to solve a situation troubling him. In this story, the Answer has become overwhelmed with an ocean of information with questionable legitimacy, and has begun short-circuiting, so to speak, as a result

It’s delightfully topical and lighthearted, with Peter having to resolve the situation in the ill-typical, but poignantly Spider-Man, way of talking the antagonist out of his rampage. It’s nothing special, but it is an original story with a nice sense of heart and humor that helps keep this run’s explosive stories grounded in the everyday mundanity of being Spider-Man. Tagged on at the end is a tease for ASM #1000 and the ongoing cousin storyline established in ASM #27. It doesn’t expand much on the hanging thread of Peter’s cousin, but it does confirm the genetic relationship to be true.

John Romita Jr. is on pencils, and his work truly hasn’t looked this clean in a long time. He is a legend worth learning from, but depending on the colorist, his work can look muddy. The flat, poppy color work of Marcio Menyz in this story reminds me of when Romita was illustrating the book during the early 2000s, which is where his work on Spider-Man hit its apex. For Menyz, it’s a color palette I haven’t quite seen from him when working with Romita on Spider-Man, but it’s a welcome change in approach.

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Queen in Black – Earthfall

Al Ewing’s time on Venom has been one of many multitudes, utilizing a variety of different tones and protagonists to weave together an albeit messy, but spontaneous, saga for the titular symbiote. Queen in Black seems to be his swan song, a successor to the King in Black event that ended the previous volume of Venom in glorious fashion. Admittedly, the premise of Ewing’s sister event seemed like a dull attempt at cashing in on the popularity of Marvel Rivals, which utilized a similar story line about Hela becoming the symbiote overlord in one of the game’s earlier seasons.

Alas, I was pleasantly surprised by the preview pages released for the event as part of this year’s FCBD celebration. It sets up the action-figure assault on Earth by the symbiotes with stylish art and ends on a great hero shot that communicates exactly what this event is without over embellishing on detail. It’s going to be big, and probably a little dumb, but it’s living by the rule of cool without any shame.

What is decidedly left on the cutting room floor is whether VenoMJ has an important role to play in this event. The preview is so focused on catching readers up on Hela’s planned invasion and the color-coded hierarchy of symbiotes that it misses an opportunity to hook readers with character-driven bait. Internet chatter has been very negative on her transition into Venom, so a strong move would have been to give her any sort of page time in this preview to soften the hard exteriors of new readers who may already have their minds made up about the character before headlining an event directly spinning out of her title.

The art, overall, was solid. It has a wispy flair to it that adds a bit of moodiness to the tone, something Iban Coello has employed over the years while working on many different Venom stories. He’s certainly bringing his A-game here, elevating what seems to be a heartfelt schlock fest into a feast for the eyes.

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The Infernal Hulk – Infernal Rage

 The last bit of this release focuses on the finale to Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Nic Klein’s final Hulk tale, and its the one I have the least amount of things to say. This is the story that felt the most like a ‘preview’, but with Klein’s pristine arc and the epic narration penned by Johnson, I was enticed by the monstrous tale on display. This is your reminder that, if you miss true Marvel horror books and you haven’t read any of their run yet, you absolutely should get caught up before the finale. Its a fantastic book that is looking to crescendo with a bang.