Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #3

Background

Peter Parker is dead and Miles Morales is young teenager who has been bitten by a radioactive/mutated spider and has now developed spider power! What will he do now...

Story Details

Miles reveals to his best best friend Ganke that he as developed spider powers. They decide to go see Miles' uncle Aaron to try and find out more about the spider and where the powers come from. When they arrive at Aaron's apartment, it is totally empty and it looks like Aaron has left.

On the way home, they pass a burning building and with Ganke's encouragement, Miles saves some people using his new found powers. At this point, Peter Parker is still alive and Spider-man and since Miles isn't wearing a costume or disguise, some of the bystanders assume Miles is Spider-man without the costume.

Miles returns to his boarding school and his normal life, but keeps contemplating what to do with his powers. He is having a nightmare about Electro when a drill is called at the school. The kids, including Miles, are gathered in the gym and told that a super-powered battle is raging in the city and that Spider-man has been shot.

General Comments

I have been enjoying the new Spider-man so far. It's been really good, not as good as when the Ultimate title first started off, but in comparison to some of the other characters that have worn the Spidey mantle, Miles' story so far is better than most.

This issue is fairly strong, with believable interaction between Ganke and Miles and awesome art by Pichelli. There's a lot of 'real-life' moments in this issue and not much in the way of super-heroics and this creative team really handle these aspects with expertise, weaving an engaging and enjoyable story.

There is a sense of retreading old ground that starts to creep into this story though, it sometimes seems too familiar. Sure a lot has changed with this new Spider-man, but the whole 'young teen discovering and dealing with new powers' element has been done before, particularly by Bendis and it needs to either be skipped through more quickly or given a new take.

Overall Rating

Great issue, though moving a bit slowly...