Spider-Men #2

Background

The regular Marvel universe Spider-man ran afoul of the Mysterio of his world. One dimensional portal-making device going haywire later, and the 616 Peter Parker found himself in the world of the Ultimate Universe, and face to face with the new Spider-man of that world, young Miles Morales.

Story Details

Mysterio wakes up in last issue's abandoned building, his damaged gear strewn all around him. He sees that the Peter Parker Spider-man has crossed into the Ultimate dimension, and activates one of his Mysterio avatars to intercept Parker.

Cut to Parker and Miles in costume on the rooftop. Peter asks "so--what's the deal?"

After a beat, Miles retorts "You tell me." to which Peter asks "is this a clone thing?"

Miles asks if the Spider-man in front of him is Peter Parker, which freaks Peter out. He fires a webline at Miles, which he dodges, which leaves Miles feeling impressed with himself. Peter takes that opportunity to send Miles flying with a kick. Peter fires another webline which misses, and Miles asks if his webs are real or organic.

Miles is able to jump over Peter and land a venom sting on him which takes Peter out. Miles tries to unmask Peter while he's down, but Peter wakes up and throws him off, saying unmasking another hero "is a big super hero no-no". Miles goes sailing over the edge of the building, Peter dives to catch him, but Miles has clung to the side and gone invisible. Miles strikes, they both head crashing to the ground, but are saved by Peter's web net. With a zip, Peter webs off Miles' mask.

Peter demands to know how Miles knows the name Peter Parker, and Miles venom stings the net they're standing in. This knocks Peter out fully. Miles uses Parker's webshooter to get them to a nearby building, where he unmasks Peter.

Peter wakes up in a holding cell. Ultimate Nick Fury is on the other side of the cell's force field. Fury asks if the person in front of him is Peter Parker. He says he doesn't know how to answer that question. Peter asks his own ridiculous run on sentence of a question back to Fury. Peter then asks where the kid is. Fury lets him out of the cell, and introduces him to Miles. Fury explains that Parker's a Spider-man from somewhere else. He also explains that Miles is the expert on Peter Parker and tells Miles to take Parker and show him what happened to the Parker of that world.

They board a helicopter together. Parker asks Miles if Peter Parker here is dead. Before Miles can respond, a rocket blows up the side of the copter. They grab the pilot and swing for safety. Miles asks what's going on, Peter says why not ask him--referring to the avatar of Mysterio on a nearby rooftop with a rocket launcher.

General Comments

We're finally getting to the good stuff of this tale. Peter Parker meeting Miles Morales, his replacement Spider-man in the alternate ultimate Universe, is quite the entertaining read.

Bendis wrings as much gravitas from this meeting as possible, from Miles being in awe of finally meeting his hero, to Nick Fury himself acting reverent at the thought of a Peter Parker alive again in that world, even if it's a cross-dimensional Parker. It'll be interesting to see how Peter reacts to learning his counterpart's fate in the Ultimate universe.

Overall Rating

The artwork is fluid and vibrant, and Bendis' story manages to entertain even though it basically consists of three short scenes. I'm intrigued--bring on part three.