Amazing Spider-Man: Through the Gates of Hell (Comics) | Review

The first volume, Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1: Get Back Up, left Peter Parker battered and barely standing– this one removes the ground entirely. Through the Gates of Hell is where the long game stops being a promise and starts delivering real consequences that reshape his character.

Collecting Amazing Spider-Man (2025) #6-10, this volume boldly takes everything the first arc established and pushes it to its limit. Peter now has a job and Black Cat back in his life– and the writer ruthlessly dismantles that fragile stability within the opening pages with zero hesitation.

Joe Kelly (Superman: Emperor Joker, Superman: Ending Battle) continues as the writer driving this run and his confidence has visibly and significantly grown. The payoff potential seeded across Vol. 1 is now being cashed in and every single issue makes it clearer that Kelly had a very deliberate, well-thought-out plan from the start.

John Romita Jr. (The Sentry: Reborn, Superman: Before Truth) leads on art throughout the main story. Penciller Todd Nauck (Nightcrawler: Homecoming, Nightcrawler: Reborn) handles select issues and key scenes with quiet precision, bringing a distinct visual texture to the volume.

This volume picks up from Vol. 1's closing threads and wastes absolutely no time establishing how dramatically the stakes have shifted. Peter has a steady job at Rand Enterprises, Black Cat is back and things feel almost settled– which, for Spider-Man, is never a good sign at all.

Hellgate arrives in Manhattan without warning, without motive and without any apparent weakness. He is stronger than Spider-Man, practically unstoppable and operating on logic Peter cannot decode– making this first encounter deeply unsettling from the very start and unlike anything else this run has thrown at him before.

The Hellgate fight spans issues #7 and #8 as a relentless, city-wide beatdown. Spider-Man tries every strategy available and none of it works– a deliberate and clear echo of the classic Morlun encounter from the J. Michael Straczynski (Civil War: Spider-Man, The Other: Evolve or Die) run.

What makes Hellgate distinct from a standard unstoppable villain is his motivation above everything else. He is not here to destroy Spider-Man– he believes Peter is destined to be far stronger and he is deeply furious about the gap in a way that makes him far more unsettling.

A new character called Captain Kintsugi arrives uninvited during the battle to offer assistance. Peter refuses– injured, barely functional and still stubbornly refusing help on principle. The character screams future-visitor energy and everything about his introduction suggests Kelly has specific plans lined up for him down the line.

By issue #8, Spider-Man is broken in every possible sense of the word. Cracked ribs, a city that watched him lose publicly and long weeks of recovery ahead. The defeat is not framed as a quick setback– it reshapes Peter's psychology in ways that carry real weight for what follows.

Issue #9 picks up weeks later and absolutely nothing has waited for Peter to heal. He is walking to work on a cane, actively avoiding calls from everyone and watching Shocker openly run heists with the Aftershocks– filling the growing power vacuum Spider-Man's absence created.

When Spider-Man finally returns he is noticeably darker– harder, colder and operating with a focused aggression that feels entirely different. His new web formula is stronger than steel and designed to causes real injury. J. Jonah Jameson covers the brutal return on his podcast and even he struggles to openly take a coherent side.

Mary Jane Watson's secret– teased at the end of Vol. 1– is that she now hosts the Venom symbiote. Kelly threads this carefully across multiple issues and her complicated awareness of Spider-Man's situation adds real emotional weight to an otherwise brutally relentless arc.

Issue #10 introduces a decidedly more unsettling Peter– one dangerously obsessed with not losing again at any cost. The childhood flashbacks return here, this time tied to a far darker question that lingers: what does Peter Parker actually look like when he stops holding back?

Hellgate's full origin and motive remain unrevealed by volume's end and every unanswered question feels entirely deliberate. The milestone ASM #975 has been publicly teased by Marvel as a major Hellgate payoff issue, meaning Kelly is playing a very long game here and building toward something far bigger than this arc alone.

JRJR leads the art this time and the material suits him perfectly. His heavy lines and raw physical energy match a volume built entirely around pain, endurance and deep psychological damage in ways Larraz's more polished and precise cinematic style simply could not have managed.

Todd Nauck covers the Mary Jane scenes and select flashbacks, his expressive linework standing out against JRJR's unrelenting weight. Michael Dowling (Black Cat: Grand Theft Marvel, Black Cat: I'll Take Manhattan) handles issues #9 and #10 with a grounded style that holds its own.

Kelly's writing is most confident when Peter is at his lowest– and this volume wastes absolutely no opportunity to keep him firmly planted there. The internal monologue during the Hellgate fight stands as the sharpest and most revealing character work in the entire run– desperate, analytical and profoundly human, all felt at once.

The pacing drags in places– and that is the one area clearly worth flagging. The Hellgate fight across issues #7 and #8 runs noticeably long and some readers will feel the repetition acutely. Kelly's thematic intent is strong but could have used tighter compression across both issues.

Through the Gates of Hell is a harder and more demanding read than Vol. 1– darker, heavier and less immediately rewarding. That is by design. Kelly is not writing comfort-food Spider-Man and this volume makes that distinct position unmistakably clear from the very first issue.

The Hellgate fight dragging slightly is the one concrete flaw worth noting in an otherwise strong volume. The pacing issue is real and widely acknowledged. Outside of that, Kelly and Romita Jr. are delivering exactly the kind of Spider-Man run that rewards patience, punishes skimming through and only gets better with every chapter.

MJ's Venom secret, Peter's psychological unraveling and Hellgate's unrevealed origin are all threads pointing toward something significant. The milestone ASM #975 issue looms large on the horizon and this volume deliberately plants several of its most important seeds early.

If Vol. 1 made you care, Vol. 2 tests that commitment– and earns it. The Kelly era of Amazing Spider-Man is shaping up to be exactly the defining run this character has needed for years. Drop this run now and you will seriously regret it when everything eventually converges.

Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 2: Through the Gates of Hell collects the storyline in trade paperback, available through comic-book shops, bookstores and major online retailers. Digital editions can be read on Amazon Kindle, ComiXology and Marvel Unlimited, allowing readers to follow the arc instantly across phones, tablets and desktops.