Bold claim up front: comic events can ruin a great Spider-Man run even when the event itself is strong. If you love Spider-Man as much as the best recent stories, you’ll want to read on to understand how a big crossover can both energize and undermine individual arcs. And this is the part most people miss: the best crossovers sometimes steal the spotlight from what made the character work in the first place.
A shared universe’s signature strength is celebration—multiple characters and decades of mythos coming together. When it lands, events like Infinity War or Siege feel monumental, reconfiguring the landscape for months or even years. Tie-in issues extend the impact, weaving connections across ongoing series. But the same force that can elevate the overall world can also disrupt a character’s personal progress and momentum.
Take the current event, Death Spiral, which brings Spider-Man, Venom, and Carnage into a tense, life-altering intersection. The premiere issue, Amazing Spider-Man / Venom: Death Spiral, promises a gripping, high-stakes narrative. Yet this promising start creates a tension: the event’s demands pull the rug out from under one of Spider-Man’s strongest recent stories.
Spider-Man’s space-to-Earth journey began in Joe Kelly’s 2025 Amazing Spider-Man run. Peter Parker grapples with an almost absurdly powerful foe, Hellgate, and ends up stranded on a distant world. In his absence, Norman Osborn steps into the void, trying to fill the Spider-Man mantle while Peter undergoes a journey of self-discovery to regain strength. Norman’s arc mirrors Peter’s growth, as he attempts to become the hero New York needs. It’s a bold, status-quo-shifting direction not seen since the Superior Spider-Man era, and it delivers real excitement: Peter rediscovers inner resolve, and Norman learns to act more heroically than his past would suggest.
That fresh dynamic offered real value: new angles on both Peter and Norman, plus a break from the usual Spider-Man melodrama. But when the time came to return to the classic status quo, the transition felt rushed. We never fully fleshed out Peter’s interstellar crew, and Norman’s redemption arc accelerated toward a conclusion just as it hit an interesting turning point. Even though the ending of these threads remained solid, they never reached the heights the opening pages promised—and, in my view, the culprit was Death Spiral.
The trade-off of crossovers
Both Peter and Norman could have benefited from more room to develop, but the story needed Peter back on Earth for Death Spiral. The event’s scheduling ties into other ongoing titles (Venom and Eddie Brock: Carnage), so delays weren’t an option. In order to satisfy the lead narrative arc, the space adventure had to yield to the event’s timeline. The result is a built-in constraint that curtails one thread to advance another.
This isn’t a new problem. Crossovers often overtake ongoing stories, forcing quick endings or multiple tie-ins that pause main plots for months with limited payoff. Crossovers are a terrific tool for connecting characters, but they can also pull heroes into situations that undercut their standalone stories. It can feel like sacrificing individual character journeys for the sake of a group saga, sometimes without caring for either side’s quality.
That said, events aren’t inherently bad. They’re among the best aspects of comics when handled thoughtfully. The key is to treat them as amplifiers rather than erasers: they should enhance multiple series without collapsing the momentum of any single run. Death Spiral looked exciting in its early pages, and it still has potential, but I can’t help but wonder what Spider-Man’s interstellar arc might have become if it hadn’t been rushed to align with the event.
Your take
What do you think about how events shape, help, or hinder individual runs? Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the ComicBook Forum.
