Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Illustrated by Sara Pichelli and David MessinaMiles’ journey to becoming Spider-Man continues!
Will Miles live up to Peter Parker’s legacy?
A mysterious figure from Peter Parker’s past returns!
The secret origin of Miles Morales continues in this week’s issue of Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man, and one might even say that the first chapter has come to a close. When Ultimate Peter Parker was first put in the red and blue spandex, Marvel was changed forever. Is Bendis talented and/or lucky enough to pull off the same feat twice?
Follow the cut for my thoughts on the issue.
When Miles was announced to be the next Ultimate Spider-Man, I was a bit wary. No, not because of the ridiculous things that bigots were spewing at the time – that just made me worry about society, not the comic – but I was a bit worried that, once the mask was on, there would be no difference between the two Spider-manboys. You can give two characters different backgrounds, different interests, different goals, and, yes, different ethnicities, but all of the hard work it takes to accomplish this can be completely thrown out the window when you have these two, supposedly so different, characters sound the same. Put two characters that sound the same in similar costumes, and you have a disaster. Bendis’s strength, dialogue, is also his weakness; he enjoys writing it so much that he sometimes has too much fun with it, and over-embellishes it to a point where the reader becomes conscious that they are, in fact, reading, and not hearing. I don’t mind his dialogue as much as some others do, but I do acknowledge one point his critics make: This tendency can sometimes make his characters sound identical. You can probably see my concern. All this hubbub about an all new, all different Spider-Man would all be for naught if he was just a black Peter Parker, only distinguishable when his mask isn’t on.
Thankfully, despite how much I wrote about that, this doesn’t happen.
This is the first issue where we really see Miles in action – yeah, we saw him hopping around a bit in previous installments, but we actually get to see him go up against a familiar face in a true superhero-versus-supervillain brawl (not counting Ultimate Fallout, which… well, I didn’t read). Miles only gets a few quips in – three, if I remember correctly – but in that short spurt we hear a completely different kind of Spidey, one who views his circumstances with a sort of wide-eyed wonder, befitting his younger age. He’s funny, yes, but he isn’t funny because he cracks wise. He’s funny because he’s a kid. Ask any writer, and they’ll tell you that properly voicing children is difficult. They just think – and, consequently, speak – in a way that we adults have since forgotten, and it’s this dulled familiarity that makes what kids say so damned funny; we know what they mean, and know how they got there, but we would never have thought to put it that way ourselves. Bendis’s voice for Miles tickles that sense of nostalgia, and really stands as a testament to his gift for dialogue, no matter how much some readers might lambast him for it.
Outside of dialogue, though, the issue was more or less an instance of “Okay, let’s get this kid into his costume and move on.” In comparison to the preceding issues, which took their time, this issue seemed to exist to force Miles into his costume and into the superhero world full-time, though we did get some solid fight scenes and tickling character interactions. It isn’t necessarily Bendis’s fault, though; the only real way to avoid this would be to completely change the setting. When Ultimate Spider-Man first debuted, Bendis had a fresh new start, and could work at whatever pace that he wanted. Now, though, he and other creators have built a world with structure, and that world isn’t going to remain motionless when a new major player is introduced. The issue is less an instance of Bendis forcing the story into a certain direction, and more him making sure that the story follows its natural course.
Continued belowThe relaunched Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man seems like it’s going be bringing us more of the writing that made the first volume great, but there’s one thing this volume has that the previous one (or two, depending on your take) lacked: The magnificent artwork of Sara Pichelli. Pichelli is a truly outstanding artist, and her clean, dynamic style fits the book perfectly. On this issue, though, Pichelli only drew the layouts, while David Messina handled the finishes. For the most part, this isn’t a problem. Part of Pichelli’s strength as an artist comes from her excellent composition, and David Messina is a strong artist in his own right. Messina seems to even modify his style a bit, as if to preserve a sense of continuity between issues, and while he does an excellent job in some areas – seriously, I have trouble distinguishing some panels apart from Sara’s own work – it’s also his undoing. Well, maybe not quite so dramatic as that. It’s just that in some panels, his efforts to blend with Pichelli slacken, and the art becomes more apparently drawn by Messina. Messina on Pichelli layouts, but Messina nonetheless. David Messina drawing like himself shouldn’t be a problem – as I said, he’s a great artist – but his earlier efforts to establish a visual continuity mean that when he breaks that continuity, it’s even more distracting than if he hadn’t attempted.
I know what you’re thinking. “If this is the only complaint Walt has about the art, then it can’t be that bad.” And you’re right. The art is hardly bad – hell, it’s great. Pichelli and Messina are an artistic tag-team that have proven their worth before, working together to create beautiful, fluid pieces of sequential art. Still, the discontinuity bothers me a bit.
Peter’s years in Ultimate Spider-Man were truly special. Miles is off to a great start in matching that reputation. Launching a “legacy” character in an already established setting while attempting to bring in new fans at the same time is a tricky maneuver, but it’s apparent that everyone aboard this book is trying to make it work – and they’re succeeding.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – Buy it!
