Amazing Spider-Man: Resolute (Comics) | Review

With a city holding its breath, Amazing Spider-Man: Resolute opens on a hero-shaped absence. Peter Parker is gone, defeated and exiled after his brutal loss to Hellgate and someone new has slipped into the mask so convincingly that even Aunt May has not detected the switch. A single impostor carries the weight of a city's frail trust.

That impostor is clearly not doing a great job either. His reckless choices behind the mask have already snagged the attention of New York's other arachnid-themed heroes, none of whom are pleased to see a stranger wearing their friend's colorful suit without permission or explanation.

Writer Joe Kelly (Superman: Emperor Joker, Superman: Ending Battle) steers this volume and it marks another chapter in his long, layered climb on the title. Kelly has spent this series building toward consequences and Resolute is where several of those threads finally begin pulling tight.

Lead artist John Romita Jr. (Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home, Amazing Spider-Man: Until the Stars Turn Cold) handles the bulk of the interior art across this collection, bringing his signature heavy linework to Osborn's earthbound double life. His style anchors the book's visual identity even as other artists step in for certain chapters.

The fallout from Hellgate defines nearly everything here. Peter Parker's confidence is shattered after that harsh beatdown earlier and he spends much of this story stranded off-world, working through guilt, doubt and a slow, painful, hard-won return to something resembling his old self.

Back on Earth, Norman Osborn takes up the mantle, trying to prove that his redemption is real, stakes he now understands better than anyone else. It is a bold role reversal that forces fans to watch one of Spider-Man's toughest oldest enemies fight to protect the city he once terrorized.

Osborn fully commits to the role, fooling colleagues, reporters and even Peter's own family with his surprisingly convincing performance, proof of just how far his desperation runs. Underneath the costume though, guilt gnaws at him constantly and Kelly uses that internal tension to keep nearly every scene charged with a quiet unease.

A vengeful figure calling himself the Goblin-Slayer emerges with a goal in mind: making Osborn pay dearly for decades of Green Goblin atrocities. His relentless pursuit builds a ticking clock to the entire book and threatens to finally expose the secret Osborn keeps desperately protecting.

A new Spider-Slayer enters the fray, built specifically to hunt every spider-powered target and it does not discriminate between friends or foes. Both the disguised Osborn and rising teen hero Kintsugi soon find themselves squarely trapped within its crosshairs across several tense issues.

Kintsugi is one of Resolute's most interesting additions, a teenage superhero whose powers and back-story unfold slowly rather than all at once, a subtle creative choice that ultimately pays off handsomely by the book's final chapters. Kelly wants readers invested in him before pulling the character into heavier stakes as the run unfolds.

A quieter sub-plot finds Osborn discreetly seeking reassurance from J. Jonah Jameson about his own sanity, unaware Jameson has already suspected something is wrong. Their scenes together add unexpected warmth, showing two weary men bound by their shared love for the real Peter.

Resolute saves one of its biggest surprises for the final act of the arc, revealing that a seemingly ordinary therapist has a darker identity tied directly to the Goblin mythology, one readers likely never saw coming. It is the kind of reveal that entirely re-contextualizes earlier low-key scenes.

Meanwhile up in space, Peter finally gets his rematch against Hellgate, the god-tier warrior who broke him earlier in the run. This next big fight plays out much differently from their first brutal encounter, testing not just raw strength this time but Peter's own growth, patience, resolve and hard-earned self-belief under growing pressure.

Without spoiling the exact outcome, the confrontation resolves in a way that favors emotional payoff over pure spectacle, a bold choice that will not please every new reader but perfectly fits Kelly's ongoing theme of earned trust over brute force throughout this entire, hard-fought arc.

True to its solicitation promise, one of the Spiders soon pays the ultimate price before the book closes, a gut-punch moment building directly upon lingering threads from Through the Gates of Hell and setting up major consequences Marvel has already teased across several future issues.

Splitting art duties across three distinct artists could have easily made Resolute oddly disjointed and uneven but each artist is matched thoughtfully to their chapters based on tone, pacing and setting. The book unfolds as a deliberate mosaic of styles rather than a mismatched patchwork and the strong editorial planning shows through.

Pepe Larraz (Avengers: No Surrender, Inhuman: AXIS) handles the cosmic sequences with clean, polished linework that makes alien worlds feel so vast and tactile. His panel composition during the Hellgate rematch stands out, giving the fight weight but never losing clarity amid the chaos.

Todd Nauck (Nightcrawler: Homecoming, Nightcrawler: Reborn) joins JRJR on these earthbound chapters, leaning hard into heavier lines and grittier texture that suit Osborn's tense double life. Kelly's scripting ties each and every artist's chapter together smoothly, keeping tone and pacing consistent despite its ever-shifting visual hands.

Cover artist Patrick Gleason (Action Comics: Invisible Mafia, Aquaman: Kingdom Lost) delivers a striking wraparound image that captures the book's central mystery without giving away who is behind the mask, a smart choice that mirrors the restraint Kelly shows throughout the storyline.

Amazing Spider-Man: Resolute is one confident, tightly plotted volume that finally starts paying off setups Kelly has been quietly planting since issue one. The dual-identity mystery, the Goblin-Slayer sub-plot and Kintsugi's own introduction all land with narrative purpose rather than filler.

The strongest element remains Osborn's internal conflict, played with surprising nuance instead of cartoonish villainy. Watching a former enemy fight this hard to earn trust he may never fully deserve gives this arc emotional stakes that outlast the action scenes themselves, elevating the entire book beyond its typical impostor premise.

The main drawback is patchy pacing during the mid-book Spider-Slayer run, which occasionally slow the momentum built by the Osborn and Goblin-Slayer threads. It is a minor stumble in an otherwise well-structured collection, hardly enough to unravel this overall reading experience.

For fans following Peter Parker's post-Hellgate recovery, Amazing Spider-Man: Resolute truly is essential reading that rewards patience built across the two prior volumes. With bigger threats already teased for the year ahead, this is the arc that quietly sets the stage for everything next.

Resolute arc is collected in Amazing Spider-Man: Resolute, which gathers Amazing Spider-Man (2025) #11 (A story), #12, #14, #16, #18, #20-21 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual (2026) #1 (B story). Physical editions are available through Amazon, local comic shops and major bookstores for fans who love to grab a collected paperback.

If you enjoy digital comics, the collection can be purchased on ComiXology, Kindle and various other Marvel supported digital storefronts, while the individual issues of Resolute storyline are available for readers through Marvel Unlimited as part of its massive online subscription library.