Miles Morales has finally hit the big time thanks to his starring role in the smash hit Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, and Marvel is giving all of Miles’ new fans an easy entry into his comic-book adventures with a new ongoing series written by Saladin Ahmed with art by Javier Garrón, colorist David Curiel, and letterer Cory Petit. The comic-book Miles is older and more experienced than his rookie film counterpart; he’s done learning the ropes but is still struggling to figure out how to juggle his personal life, academic obligations, and superhero responsibilities. The creative team covers all the basics in Miles Morales: Spider-Man #1 (Marvel), but it also pushes Miles forward by focusing on the essential Spider-Man theme, responsibility, and what that means for a young Afro-Latino man witnessing injustice that he can’t fight with his fists.
Unlike Spider-Gwen—sorry, Ghost Spider—Mile is spared from his new ongoing series beginning with a Spider-Geddon crossover, allowing the creative team to introduce readers to the main character without wading through interdimensional nonsense that is more complicated and less emotionally engaging than the Into The Spider-Verse plot. (There’s a quick mention of Spider-Geddon in Miles Morales #1, but the story doesn’t linger on it.) Ahmed avoids cosmic stakes in his story, instead exploring Miles reacts to real-world problems like the deportation and detainment of undocumented immigrants and poverty within his hometown. “I’ve never been more sure of my power,” Mile says. “But I’ve never been more confused about my responsibility.” It’s a compelling thesis statement for the series, differentiating Miles from other Spider-People by emphasizing how issues of social justice weigh on his conscience.
Ahmed works to ground Miles in this first chapter by focusing on his relationships with his friends, family, and Brooklyn community, giving him a journal-writing assignment that provides the book’s narration while putting the reader inside his head. The problem with this journal conceit is that it can make for some awkward exposition, like when Miles feels the need to specify his parents’ names. This is a personal journal that isn’t supposed to be read by anyone else, but it reads like Miles is explaining his life to an outside audience rather than working through his internal issues on the page. Cory Petit’s all-caps lettering for Miles’ captions is also a strange choice. It’s a looser font that has more of a handwritten look, but having lower case letters would distinguish it from the rest of the text and make it feel more personal.
Javier Garrón and David Curiel’s artwork is very much in line with the slick look of previous Miles artist teams, but the vibrant, experimental visuals of Into The Spider-Verse, it would have been nice to see that level of ingenuity carry over to Miles’ comic-book adventures. That said, the art team does impressive work bringing Miles’ world to life, giving a lot of attention to environments and fully realized background characters, with Garrón significantly leveling up his costume design to reflect personality through clothing. The big action sequence at the end of the issue is when some of Into The Spider-Verse’s visual sensibility starts to come through with bright colors and graphic flourishes, and Garrón has a strong grasp on Miles’ agile physicality and how that contrasts with the raw power of the Rhino. Into The Spider-Verse showed that there’s a lot of freedom for artists to go big and bold with superhero imagery, and ideally that film’s success will inspire the Miles Morales art team to heighten the visuals on this series.
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““I’ve never been more sure of my power,” Mile says. “But I’ve never been more confused about my responsibility.” It’s a compelling thesis statement for the series, differentiating Miles from other Spider-People by emphasizing how issues of social justice weigh on his conscience.”And a lot more compelling than Earth-616 Peter Parker, who’s interpretation of responsibility involved selling his marriage to the devil despite the advice of his Aunt May’s soul and the Marvel Universe equivalent of God.
Is there some sort of Godwin’s Law pertaining to every mention of Spider-Man must lead to him making a deal with the devil?
This scene is followed by a sexy, satanic threesome.
That might be the worst take on Spider-man ever. You picked the one story that most of the writers hate, and have tried to get away from to show the character of Peter Parker, who has been around for 50+ years. I think Miles Morales is great, but there’s no need to shit on Peter Parker because of One More Day. Spider-Man has tackled social justice issues for decades. It was kind of Stan Lee’s thing.
If the writers hate this story, and I don’t doubt there are, than why in the past 12 years since it happened has there been no direct attempt to directly undo OMD? I’m not talking about stuff like just having Peter and MJ get back together, I’m talking about actually addressing the fact that Peter made a Faustian Pact with a Lord of Hell. Aside from Mephisto popping up to taunt Peter in Spider-Man/Deadpool #5, Marvel has not made any direct allusions to OMD at all.And I think I do need to shot on Peter Parker because he is one of the most self-centered superheroes out there.
lol get the fuck over it nerd
The writers don’t want the marriage back, so it’s easier to leave OMD intact. They want Peter Parker to continue to go through the struggle of being a superhero and trying to balance his personal relationships. I only watched the first part of that because that guy with the hat is annoying. Assuming that video continues along the same track, the argument is that Peter Parker is selfish because he ignores his personal relationships to save people as Spider-man. He says that Peter Parker should either not have relationships or should be Spider-Man less. I guess. That’s stupid. Sacrificing his relationships to save people, and taking the blame for it, when it would be easier to tell everyone his secret identity so they would understand why he is always late or missing is the opposite of selfish. He does the right thing by using his powers to help. He protects most of the people in his life by not endangering them or burdening them with his alter ego. If the argument is that he should live as a hermit, I don’t think that humans can do that. I can name 5 more self-centered superheroes (Batman, Deadpool, Iron Man, Cyclops, Namor).
I’m pretty sure the writer’s do want to bring back the marriage, the impression I got was the editorial was making it stay in place. In fact I think several times when asked about it by fans, Dan Slott just straight up said it was out of his hands.
It’s not the kind of mistake you own up to. At best, it’s the type of mistake you try to ignore on a “let’s never mention this again” basis. More importantly, as bad as the original story was, there’s not that much incentive for anyone to undo it, even if editorial would allow them to. While Marvel’s creatives may object to the idea of one of their biggest heroes agreeing to a Satanic annulment, I doubt very many of them are enthused at the prospect of getting back into the Parker/Watson marriage.
Jesus just let it go.
Will you stop posting this exact panel and “take” on it in every single god damn Spiderman article? It’s getting increasingly frustrating seeing this continue to be the top comment despite having decreasing relevance to the actual topics at hand.
After seeing Into The Spider-Verse, I’m totally ready for Marvel to just reboot the character entirely. Seriously, no disrespect to Brian Bendis, but in 2 hours that movie nailed down a better version of Miles (and his personal life) then the past 6 years of comics have.
That’s a… weird statement, given Bendis was one of spider-verse’s producers and that a lot of Miles’ story beats from the film, excluding the parallel universe stuff, reflect story beats from his introduction, where Bendis probably had the most control over the character. A lot of the poorly developed stuff seems to have gotten its start in editorial mandate-be it to end his continuity, stick him in a team book or crossover, or have him make room for Peter Parker again because Peter has a movie or game coming out.Not that Bendis didn’t have a hand in all that crossover and team junk, of course.
Most of what I mean concerns Miles’ friends and family and that I like what they did with them over the original comics. Kinja doesn’t seem to do spoiler text so I’ll just mention one thing that’s in the trailers: making Miles’ dad a cop is a thousand times better of an idea than having him be a damn secret SHIELD agent like the comics.
So, what’s the story with Miles now? Did he just jump over from the Ultimate Universe when it blew up or whatever? What about his family?
He made the jump, but only he remembers it… sometimes. (Bendis was kind of unclear on that, only addressing it once and then never exploring the ramifications that having a new family in a different universe would leave on a person). His family and supporting cast did too… for the most part. Any characters that already existed in the main universe didn’t come with, so for instance Miles’ friends like Kitty Pryde or Cloak and Dagger didn’t make it because those characters have established 616 versions. Oh and the Molecule Man (who recreated the universe) did Miles a solid and brought his dead mom came back to life.If any of that was confusing, well, comics everybody!
My favorite detail is that Molecule Man resurrected Miles’s mom because Miles happened to be carrying a burger when Secret Wars began, and gave that burger to Molecule Man when they met—what, weeks? months?—later.
The short version is that during Secret Wars (2015), Miles gave a man with reality warping abilities named Owen Reece a three week-old hamburger that was in his pocket.Owen then used his powers when Earth-1610, Miles’ original Universe, was destroyed to basically transport Miles and his supporting cast to Earth-616.
It seems like the Molecule Man could produce many fresh hamburgers for himself.
I’m requesting an ongoing Spider Ham series as well.“My hands are wet because I just washed them and for no other reason!”
Very promising start to the new series. Enjoyed reading this after seeing Spiderverse!
otherwise decent art drug down by bad coloring. Gradients aren’t ALWAYS the answer!
Do they address Miles and the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the new comic yet, and what he imagines his new superhero life is? That’s the one dangling plot thread that irked me with Bendis clean-up of the series.
I will not be buying issue 2. This was I think the only marvel I buy at the moment it’s all DC or indepents. Bennis captured miles. I am a little worried we may be Howard the duck Steve Gerber territory or ed on winter soldier or kirby on the new gods. Maybe no o e will be able to do miles… I hope I am wrong
Saladin Ahmed is a pretty horrible writer who can’t see his characters for anything other then their most superficial qualities. He writes Iceman as the most stereotypical 90s tv era gay man who has literally nothing of interest to say as an xmen, mutant or superhero. This write up shows that off as well. Absolutely nothing to add to or compound on Miles Morales character other then really driving home that he’s black. Doesn’t really seem like an interesting enough premise to base a series on. This is why, like any of Ahmed’s books this will be prematurely cancelled.