Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #1

Background

The events of Secret Wars have brought Miles Morales from the Ultimate Universe into the main Marvel Universe. Some aspects of his previous life have come with him, while others are entirely different.

Story Details

Miles Morales isn’t your typical teenage boy, but you wouldn’t know that from looking at him. He suffers through a lot of the same things that normal teenagers do, but he does it in very different ways. Case in point, a girl is very angry with him because he was late for their date. Why was he late though? He was working as Spider-Man to apprehend the Shocker. Why are his grades slipping? He’s had to skip assignments because he has to go out and stop the bad guys.

Miles’ life is put on hold once again when Blackheart comes and starts tearing up New York. He’s taken down the main Avengers already, and now Miles is the only one left standing who can do anything about it. After a few unsuccessful attempts to stop Blackheart with his standard abilities, Miles decides to deploy his “Venom-Blast,” which ultimately crumbles Blackheart to the ground. Unfortunately, this battle has caused a lot of collateral damage to Miles’ surroundings, and Peter Parker shows up none too happy about it.

General Comments

As the beginning of a new series, the job of this comic book was to establish a solid status-quo for Miles and his supporting cast. I have to say that this issue accomplishes that task rather well, and we immediately get a sense of exactly what kind of story we are reading. This is meant to be the typical Spider-Man narrative. Miles is a normal guy with extraordinary abilities, but he still deals with a lot of the same problems as the rest of us. We can see what kind of problems he faces with his peers, his schoolwork, his parents, and even some of his fellow heroes. I think it's particularly beneficial for new readers who are not as familiar with the character to find out just what he deals with and how he goes about it. As such, I think having all of this groundwork laid is a solid move.

I do kind of roll my eyes at the fact that the Avengers are taken down very easily by BlackHeart, only for the villain himself to be taken out quite easily by Miles. I always tend to shake my head whenever the Avengers are taken down in a book that isn't their own, but here it feels particularly ridiculous given the fact that a KID takes down the villain two pages later. I understand that the book needs to establish Miles as a capable hero in his own right, but I think there are better ways to go about doing that than over-powering him.

The cliffhanger with Peter showing up on the last page is one that I really like. Peter’s role in this book has been described as a “quasi-mentor” figure to Miles, and I think that is an absolutely fantastic idea. Peter Parker is a perfect choice to help train and educate the younger generation of heroes, and him teaching Miles only makes perfect sense.

I think Pichelli, Carlucci, and Ponsor do a pretty good job on the artwork. It has a really fun cartoon-ish look to it that I think fits the tone of the story.

Overall Rating

This issue is a perfectly solid start to this new series. It establishes Miles’ world very well, and we immediately get a sense of what kind of comic we are reading.