Amazing Spider-Man #14 (2025) Review
Summary: For the first time in a long time, Spider-Man feels amazing again. Great colors, great story beats, and the actual usage of Peter's allies makes this an issue you MUST pick up.
4
Norman Osborn... hero?
Background – Norman might actually be good at this, and Peter’s friend might be experimenting. Uh-oh.
Writing – Now that Peter has been sent to space, Norman Osborn has taken up the mantle of the gree… I mean the Amazing Spider-Man. While everyone doubts him (including himself), Roderick Kingsley seems hellbent on giving Norman an unintentional chance to prove himself. While Kingsley’s reasons have yet to be exposed, this new group led by Alecto has a bone to pick with Norman. With 60 years (in real time) of dastardly deeds, it could be any one of countless reasons. By the end of the issue, it’s clear that Norman has what it takes to be a hero after all… but it may be for the wrong reasons. He seems to love the thrill of being a hero more than the helping-the-innocent portion of the job.
Meanwhile, Ben Reilly is trying his best to improve Peter’s life. As always in these cases, when somebody else pretends to be Peter, they focus more on his professional side and let his personal relationships take a nosedive. He has ostracized Mary Jane, completely ignored Randy and Shay, and has pretty much ghosted Aunt May. On one hand, I can understand a bit of this. The gaps in his memory allow for some emotional detachment, but come on! Ben’s not stupid. He knows May is important to Peter, and for a guy who desperately wants his memories back and to be Peter Parker, ignoring May seems really dumb.
While that is going on, Ben Reilly is doing brilliant work over at Rand—so much so that, despite his (Peter’s) tendency to be late, his boss is willing to give him a promotion that his friend Nehring was in line for. While Nehring has yet to learn this, his need to catch up to “Peter” is bound to get him into trouble. My only question is this: will he turn into a monster or a tech villain? Because that’s how these stories go. Somebody tries to match Peter’s scientific breakthroughs or tries to win a girl’s affections, and their inevitable jealousy makes them do something stupid, which sets off a laser beam that ends up hitting some chemicals—or the person themselves—and voila! We have a new villain.
I actually feel kind of bad for Nehring. He has obviously been a class clown for his whole life, but has also been brilliant enough to dazzle people and skate by. Now he really has to prove his worth.
Finally, in another plot twist, Captain Kintsugi is now just Kintsugi. Oh, and his shield is made out of titanium. Okay then.
Why is Captain Kintsugi a thing?
Artwork – What works: I LOVE the colors in this book. Kudos to Marcio Menyz & Erick Arcineiga. Everything pops. Norman’s costume design is great, with the extra web shooters (at least that’s what I think they are) around his ankles being a practical addition. He would need all the help he can get fighting these villains. Chasm’s design is still really nice-looking, and the rendering of Hallow’s Eve’s powers is very… unsettling.
The best panel has to be Norman standing in front of the destroyed mech suit. It shows the smoldering wreckage in the background as Norman stands there with red lenses for eyes and the body posture of a man just barely holding it together. It’s striking.
What doesn’t work: I gripe about Kintsugi a lot, but the artwork for him doesn’t always match the previous panel. His first appearance in this issue makes him look like he’s around 14–15 years old. Two pages later, he looks like he just graduated high school. He also looks like a reject out of a Tron movie.
The design of what I’ll call the Spider-Slayer is also very underwhelming. I realize it’s not a true Spider-Slayer mech, but normally these mechs have some kind of individuality to them. This just looks like something out of a PS1 game from 25 years ago.
Final Thoughts – It’s been a while, and I realize I’m jumping on the review bandwagon for this run kind of late in the game, but THANK GOD this storyline has developed. While some people may gripe that Norman doesn’t deserve to be Spider-Man, this is his best shot at redemption. Fourteen years ago, Doctor Octopus switched bodies with Peter and Dan Slott got pelted with tomatoes and death threats. That ended up being such a highly regarded storyline it continued on for at least 12 more years in various incarnations. This has the opportunity to do that again.
Peter is going to have a big mess to clean up when he comes home, but I can honestly say that for the first time in a long time I’m not only excited to read Amazing Spider-Man, but I’m actually intrigued by what comes next. Between this and Peter’s Buck Rogers stint in space, Spider-Man is amazing again.
4/5
Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Joe Kelly
Penciler: Ed McGuinness and Todd Nauck
Inker: Mark Farmer, Wade Von Grawbadger, Ed McGuinness, Todd Nauck
Colorist: Marcio Menyz, Erick Arcineiga
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover Artists: Patrick Gleason, Marcio Menyz
Genre: Superhero
Format: Monthly
Release Date: 10/15/2025
About the Author
Matt Fischer Lover of all things nerdy. Reader of Comics for over 25 years. DC encyclopedia. X-Men historian. Spider-Man and Marvel lover. Indie side guy.
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