Spider-Man: Holiday Spectacular (2025) #1 review — A heartwarming tale of holiday parties, friendship amongst heroes, and Jell-O salad

The holiday season is nearly upon us, and you know what that means. No, not the inescapable marathon of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You,” and yet another string of indistinguishable Hallmark movies about a successful person from the big city returning to their rural hometown and ditching their whole life after learning the “true meaning of the holidays.” I’m talking about spending time with family, whether blood or found. There’s nothing quite like it, and not being able to spend the holidays with the people you care about the most can make this time of year difficult for anyone, even those with superpowers. Such is the case for poor Peter, as writer Rainbow Powell shows us in Marvel’s 2025 Spider-Man: Holiday Spectacular.

*Mild spoilers ahead for Spider-Man: Holiday Spectacular (2025) #1*

Opening in the Baxter Building, we find Spider-Man talking with Ben Grimm (and helping himself to some piping hot latkes) at the Thing’s annual holiday party. Everything is bright and cheerful as the other guests arrive, including some who Spidey is surprised to see, and it looks to be the start of a great holiday season. At least, until Peter gets a call from Aunt May, who informs him that she won’t be home for Christmas as she’ll be away on a cruise. Crushed by this news, Spider-Man leaves the party early to go home to his lonely apartment, weighed down by the prospect of spending his holiday without the person he most wanted to be with.

What follows is a heartwarming showing of kinship from various other heroes in the Marvel universe, all of whom want to spend Christmas with Peter. It’s honestly crazy how many different characters show up throughout the issue, with fun moments at the Avengers holiday party or the “swamp Christmas” with Wolverine’s X-Men team in Louisiana. It’s the kind of outpouring of friendship that anyone would hope would be shown in a similar situation, and that it’s being shown towards a character whom comics have so often mistreated over his decades of publication is wonderful. 

Though Peter spends the bulk of the issue in his Spider-Man suit, this is more of a holiday movie type of story than a traditional superhero one. There aren’t any bad guys Spidey has to stop, no sinister plot threatening the world. There’s just a person sad that he’ll be spending the holiday without the person he normally spends it with, something that all of us have or will experience at some point. It’s horribly relatable, and all the more heartwarming for it. 

It’s also great seeing Spider-Man interact with all of these different heroes. Powell does a fantastic job of showcasing just how wide Spidey’s relationships across the Marvel universe go. From the Fantastic Four to the Avengers, Daredevil to the X-Men, it feels like Peter has at least met practically every major hero, and knows a great number of them well enough to be on friendly terms with. The mere fact that so many were willing to extend invitations to Peter to join them on their various holiday plans and seemed genuinely happy about it says a lot about how he’s viewed across the superhero community, even if Peter doesn’t feel the same about himself. This is shown by how he’s constantly questioning to himself why others are inviting him to things, even going as far as to openly ask Daredevil directly if he’s spending time with him just out of pity, to which Daredevil responds with “Maybe I’m the one who didn’t want to be alone on Christmas Eve, and YOU’RE the one being merciful.” 

My only real complaint is that we don’t see any other Spider-Man characters throughout the story. None of his friends from his personal life make appearances, nor any of his fellow spider-themed comrades. Granted, the sheer volume of iconic characters present throughout the book makes this a very minor complaint, but it would have been nice to see Miles Morales or even J Jonah Jameson make at least a minor appearance. 

Is this a normal comic book adventure? No. But it’s a wonderful read, showing us a more relatable, human side of a character who can perform superhuman feats we could only dream of. Which, honestly, is something that has always been one of Spider-Man’s greatest strengths all the way back to the earliest days of his publication. Spidey isn’t an alien from another planet or a tragic billionaire who deals with his trauma by brooding in a bat costume. He was that nerdy kid who was bullied by the popular kids; the insecure guy who could never seem to catch a break, no matter how hard he tried; the guy forever burdened by the very human guilt of what his early mistakes caused. Yes, he may put on red-and-blue spandex and swing around the city fighting supervillains, but beneath the iconic mask is a man who just wants to do the right thing with the gifts he was given, even if the world he’s working to save chooses to hate and fear him. A man who just wants to spend the holiday with the aunt who raised him, and who was shown such a massive outpouring of support during what would otherwise have been a very difficult time for him. Beat that, Hallmark. 

Spider-Man: Holiday Spectacular (2025) #1 is available now from Marvel Comics.