The Amazing Spider-Man #26: “Tornage” Reigns!

When Death Spiral was initially solicited, I was very wary of its length. Marvel has a history of overindulging in symbiote-based crossovers, much to the detriment of the stories they’re trying to tell. With how things began shaping up at the start of this story, I found those fears beginning to fade. With the release of The Amazing Spider-Man #26 and last week’s Venom #256, however, it seems as though my concerns with lethargic pacing and a reliance on shock value have come to fruition.

This issue isn’t terrible, per se. It hits all the beats of a Spider-Man/Venom story, with strong art and action choreography, but that’s where its strengths end. There are no personal stakes for Peter or MJ that have any weight to them, aside from Anna and May being caught in a crossfire that is guaranteed to not hit them. The mystery behind Torment grows less and less effective with each passing issue of mindless violence and has failed to really cement him as a threat worth fearing.

Yes, we hammer home the fact that May is in grave danger, but the ship has sailed on that character’s potential death carrying any weight now that she’s been killed and brought back multiple times. Yes, we killed Paul, but when the biggest impact of your massive, character-driven event is the cheap death of a fan-hated character, then you’ve truly missed the mark on getting readers invested in the story itself. The early issues of this set up breadcrumbs for our characters to follow, but everyone besides Eddie has found themselves stuck in the same repetitive back-and-forth with Torment that has no bite aside from the weak threat of him killing those close to our main heroes.

So instead of driving the story forward with deeper, thematically relevant connections between the characters, we cash in on cheap infighting that makes for quick but poor drama. With the years of stories shared between these characters, and Eddie’s completely rational decision to take on Carnage as his own burden, there is no reason for MJ and Peter to ostracize him or emotionally overreact. The creation of the character isn’t his fault. We continue to treat the Venom symbiote as this hurt puppy instead of the second half of a relationship of equal toxicity. MJ berating him is so out of character for her, to the point where she was almost unrecognizable to me in that dialogue exchange. She can forgive Paul, who contributed to mass murder, but can’t forgive or work with Eddie, who has been fighting back his own darkness for over three decades now?

We completely miss the moment for MJ to reflect on herself, her own highs and lows of the last year alongside the Venom symbiote. There is no time spent with her and Dylan grappling with the wound that is Paul’s death. Even if we are in a rush to stop Torment, we could have had a simple internal narrative to bring the reader into her headspace, which could then have given us some emotional depth and reasoning for her treatment of Eddie toward the end of the issue.

On the flip side, we get a lot of Carnage and Torment working together in this issue, and it isn’t that entertaining now that it’s finally happened. Their dynamic is one-note and somewhat irritating to read, especially with Kelly’s voice for Carnage steeped in the chattery, reference-heavy culture of a bygone era. Now, Peter facing off against the pair is written quite well and illustrated by the art team with strong cinematic flair. The design for “Tornage” is beyond over-the-top in a way that I really respect.

Unfortunately, the fight between Peter and our crazed murderous duo leaves us exactly where we’ve been since the start of this event. We’re left, once again, simply waiting for Torment to reach May and Anna, sitting passively without anything of substance to grab onto. So if you enjoy the flair of big, dumb symbiote action, this issue may still entertain you, but not unlike the stories that inspired it, Death Spiral has gotten lost within the spiral of its poor pacing.