Joe Kelly uncut on Amazing Spider-Man, Death Spiral, and the Road to #1000

This week on the AIPT Comics Podcast, we’re running the full, uncut version of our interview with Kelly, presented exactly as it happened. No segmentation. No topic breaks. Just the entire deep-dive in one sitting.

While the written 7-part series is still ongoing and will continue rolling out over the next two weeks, this episode gives listeners the complete conversation in its original flow. Kelly opens up about the emotional thesis behind his run, building new villains like Plague RX and Kintsugi, pushing Spider-Man into cosmic territory, and how Death Spiral directly sets the stage for Amazing Spider-Man #1000.

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NEWS

1. Cyclops’ team breaks, Storm’s daughter arrives, and Wolverine pays the price in Marvel’s May X-Men reveals
2. Knull and Mary Jane's Venom get new costumes in May and June 2026
3. Abrams ComicArts reveals wide-ranging Fall 2026 lineup spanning history, Marvel, manga, and classics
4. Secret origin of G.I. Joe Risk gets 3-issue arc starting in May 2026
5. DC announces ‘You’re A Superhero!’ lifting up heroes in everyday life
6. DC crowns Supergirl the star of Superman Day with 'Summer of Supergirl' publishing push
7. IDW launches new crime imprint with 3 titles: Seven Wives, Killer Influences, and Fixation

Our Top Books of the Week:

Dave:

1. Marc Spector: Moon Knight #1 (Jed MacKay, Devmalya Pramanik)
2. Absolute Wonder Woman Annual #1 (Kelly Thompson, Mattia de Iulis)

Chris:​​

1. Cyclops #1 (Alex Paknadel, Roge Antonio)
2. Jar Jar #1 (Ahmed Best, Marc Guggenheim, Kieron McKeown, and Laura Braga)

Standout KAPOW moment of the week:

Chris: A Star Called The Sun (Simon Roy)

Dave: Wade Wilson: Deadpool #1 (Ben Percy, Geoff Shaw)

TOP BOOKS FOR NEXT WEEK

• Chris: The Florida Hippopotamus Cocaine Massacre #1 (Fred Kennedy, James Edward Clark)
• Dave: Absolute Batman #17 (Scott Snyder, Eric Canete)

JUDGING BY THE COVER JR.

• Dave: The Amazing Spider-Man #22 (Lee Bermejo Amazing Visions Virgin Cover)
• Chris: It’s Jeff Meets Daredevil #1 (Nic Klein Variant)

Interview: Joe Kelly Interview - ASM

1. Across every arc—hallucinations, Hellgate, the clone/mantle complications, and the cosmic crew—you keep returning to identity: who Peter is, who wears the mask, and what Spider-Man means to other people. Was that always the core of your plan, or did the run’s central theme reveal itself as you built each storyline?
2. A big throughline in your early issues is Peter’s youth trauma—middle school rebellion, underage drinking, that “ghost/orphan” feeling. What made you want to excavate that specific era of Peter, and what do you feel it reveals about adult Peter that we don’t always get to see?
3. You’ve got a great handle on Peter’s voice—the anxious humor, the scramble-thinking, the moral compass. What’s your “non-negotiable” for Spider-Man dialogue, especially when he’s scared or outmatched?
4. New villains have to feel dangerous fast. With Plague RX, you paired him with Tombstone and used him to escalate the sense that Peter’s absence is creating openings all over NYC. What is Plague RX’s core concept—what does he represent in the ecosystem of this run?
5. Without spoiling, where does Kintsugi fit into your larger thematic engine? The word implies brokenness repaired into something stronger—how consciously are you using that idea as a lens for Peter (and the other “Spider-Men” threads) in this era?
6. Looking ahead: Death Spiral is looming. From your perspective, what is Spider-Man’s emotional “pressure point” heading into that event—what fear or flaw does the event squeeze that readers might not expect?
7. With the upcoming Death Spiral event on the horizon, a lot of your current themes—identity fractures, moral erosion, escalation—feel like they’re converging.
8. How does Death Spiral build on what you’ve been laying down in Amazing Spider-Man, and what should readers emotionally brace for?
9.  We recently lost Sal Buscema, whose work helped define Spider-Man’s physicality, emotion, and readability for generations.
10. As someone contributing to Spidey’s evolving legacy, what does Sal Buscema’s influence mean to you—either directly or indirectly—as a Spider-Man storyteller?