The previous issue’s cliffhanger saw Kraven attack Spider-Man with a demonically possessed spear and an ominous transformation, originally meant to awake the Green Goblin inside Norman Osborn, began manifesting inside Peter. It was a strong start to this new arc and Zeb Wells continues to rehab the webslinger’s marquee series with a strong follow-up in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #33.

Wells opens the issue with a short time jump and a haunting in look at what’s going on inside Peter’s mind as he wrestles with his new mindset, as well as a look at Norman and Kraven’s own internal conflicts. Wells writes compelling dialogue for all three characters speaking with their own inner demons. You feel like you’re witnessing three characters in the midst of psychotic episodes as they argue within their own minds and struggle to control their own thoughts. Patrick Gleason’s designs and Marcio Menyz’s colors, particularly in the opening Spider-Man scenes, do a lot of work to emphasize the raw emotions with emphatic facial expressions and moody shadowing. Joe Caramanga’s use of two different letterboxes for each scene to highlight the dual voices happening in each characters’ head is simple yet effective.

The rest (and majority) of the issue plays out from Kraven’s POV as Peter’s dark Spider-Man turns the tables and hunts him throughout the city. It’s a thrilling game of cat and mouse that reveals just how far Peter has fallen into his new dark persona. The entire creative team builds tangible moments of suspense that keep you wondering what’s about to happen. Wells’ writing even had me feeling sympathy for Kraven at one point. Visually, Gleason switches between white and black gutters as things grow more menacing and it creates a sense of claustrophobia as Peter closes in and Kraven has nowhere else to run.

I found it interesting that we see so much from Kraven’s perspective in this issue, but I thought it played wonderfully as we as readers also don’t know what’s happened to Peter or what he might be capable of now. It magnified the unknown and uncertainty coming out of the previous issue and made for a captivating issue here that didn’t answer everything completely but gave a lot of clues as to what’s happening. There was also a hint that the Green Goblin is fighting to come out of Norman which could further complicate things for everyone involved. I’m not sure how that will progress or be explained since Norman wasn’t struck by Kraven’s spear, though we don’t know what else may have happened during the short time jump. I was also surprised we didn’t see any more Queen Goblin as she was the one who put Kraven up to the task of unleashing the Green Goblin in the first place.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed this issue. It had a great balance of darkness and suspense in building the stakes for this new arc. The final scene see Peter make one of the darkest decisions I can remember him making. It gave me flashbacks to Dan Slott’s Superior Spider-Man, which will be returning later this year. I don’t know if the previous Amazing Spider-Man arc suffered due to Wells having to shelve his own ideas in order to handle the Kamala Khan story, but it definitely feels like a switch has been flipped for the series and we’re back to a more traditional Spider-Man story. I’m looking forward to seeing how this plays out and just how much darker things will get.

Rating: 8/10