Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #2

Background

Miles Morales is now dealing with the fact that his father has disappeared after Miles told him that he is Spider-Man. He wonders whether or not to tell his girlfriend about his secret, whilst balancing a life in the All-New Ultimates.

That's not his only problems though. SHIELD has gone and Norman Osborn has escaped from prison and a set of Spider-Man twins have embarked on a crime spree.

Just when things couldn't get more complicated, Miles finds the presumed-dead Peter Parker in his apartment!

Story Details

The Green Goblin lands at the ruined Oscorp Industries. He transforms back into Norman Osborn and silently enters a hidden safe-house. Inside he examines a stash of the super-drug Oz and ponders his next move.

Miles Morales is gobsmacked! Peter asks for his webshooters back, but, upon receiving no reaction, decides to wait for Miles to deal with what he is seeing. Miles freaks and asks numerous questions but Peter says that it is none of his business and that no-one asked Miles to be Spider-Man. Miles demands that Peter contacts Aunt May, but he refuses. Miles says that we will and this angers Peter. It is revealed that Peter spied on them all at his memorial (Ultimate Spider-Man #200) and Peter asks for his webshooters again. Peter is adamant that he died and starts to get annoyed. He grabs Miles, who accidentally venom blasts him! Peter recovers and punches Miles out. When he comes to, Peter and his webshooters are gone. Miles suddenly realises something... Clone!

The Spider-Twins attack a shipment at the docs. They demand, from the final remaining guard, that he give them the package that Tony Stark labelled "Latveria".

At Ganke's house the next day, Miles and Ganke discuss the whole clone idea. Miles has to reveal to Ganke that Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman is actually a female clone of Peter Parker. Miles explains that he ran straight to Aunt May's house to tell her but she wasn't in and, now that he's thought about it, may be he shouldn't tell her and ruin her life. Ganke thinks they should tell Gwen Stacy, but her phone is off. Katie Bishop suddenly interrupts the conversation and they get all awkward! She presumes they've been talking about her and is about to leave when Miles asks her to stay as they have to talk. Miles gears up to tell her the truth... there's something she should know about him!

General Comments

I mentioned last issue that I wanted some more slow burning stories that add to the character of Miles and truly develop him without lots of massive shocks, events and reboots. Brian Michael Bendis goes someway to delivering this this issue through his interactions with Peter. I'm not wholly interested in the Peter story really. Clone? Not a clone? Not bothered. What I love is the way Miles speaks to him, portraying and arguing his own sense of responsibility and not quite believing that this Peter is not living up to the standards that he's been trying to deliver. This is a lovely exploration of how Miles thinks. Even through the adversity and loss he's suffered, he maintains his belief in "the good" and again proves that Bendis can write darn good dialogue when he wants to.

The rest of the issue is fairly empty. There's the obligatory teasers of Osborn and Spider-Twins (though the Latveria reference is fairly interesting), but nothing more. Miles will be (probably) interrupted in his attempt to tell Katie the truth and, even if he does tell her, we've only had a one-issue build up to this revelation and it probably won't mean much unless Katie is actually way more interesting than she seems she is.

It is a grand job that David Marquez is on hand to deliver some outstanding work to pull this into high quality. I simple can't fault any single panel, line, expression or layout decision. It is a perfect example of both comic book art and storytelling prowess.

Overall Rating

A truly well-delivered comic but there's just not that much to deliver.