"Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Spider-Man No More"

 

                The following is a review of the graphic novel “Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Spider-Man No More” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

                Months before Peter Parker was shot and killed, grade-schooler Miles Morales was about to start a new chapter in his life at a new school—when he was suddenly bitten by a stolen, genetically altered spider that gave him incredible arachnid-like powers.

                Washington was decimated. The government was a mess. The Southwest was in chaos. States were seceding from the union. America was falling apart. Steve Rogers/Captain America and Tony Stark/Iron Man met to discuss the existence of a new Spider-Man. Captain America blamed himself for Peter Parker’s death since Peter was young and untrained and wanted to shut Miles down, but Iron Man tried to convince him otherwise, until the news broke that Spider-Man was accused of murdering Aaron Davis/Prowler. Miles’ father Jefferson Davis broke the news that Spider-Man murdered Miles’ uncle to Miles. Miles’ best friend Ganke Lee tried to convince Miles he did nothing wrong. Miles received a phone call from May Parker, Peter Parker’s aunt, asking to meet with him. On the way to the meeting, Miles fought a robber called Batroc the Leaper and his crew, and though Miles was able to defeat them, the police on the scene tried to arrest Miles and Miles had to flee from the crime scene. At Miles’ meeting with May and Gwen Stacy, Captain America arrived to tell Miles if Miles went into action as Spider-Man again, Captain America would call Miles’ parents. Captain America was called off to fight the Rhino at the Lincoln Tunnel. May gave Miles Peter’s web shooters and encouraged Miles to do what he felt was the right thing to do. Miles assisted Captain America in defeating the Rhino, and Captain America agreed that Miles needed training.

                Miles was questioned by New York Police Department homicide detective Maria Hill about the death of Miles’ uncle. Miles pretended to know nothing about it and Hill informed Miles Aaron’s death might not have been Miles’ fault. Due to the outbreak of war in America, Miles’ school Brooklyn Visions Academy was closed until such time as the city felt it was safe for the school to open again, and the students were sent home. Miles hitched a ride to the Triskelion, base of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Ultimates, and asked Captain America if Miles could join the Ultimates. Jefferson was on his way home when he was stopped at a S.H.I.E.L.D. blockade. He got into an argument with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and was detained in a S.H.I.E.L.D. van. Captain America told Miles to go home, when a Quincarrier hijacked by Gorgon and a squad of Hydra agents attacked the Triskelion. Miles assisted in taking down the Hydra squad, and Captain America, impressed by Miles, invited him to join the Ultimates, an invite Miles accepted. Captain America was elected as the president of the United States of America. The Ultimates fought Hydra outside Casper, Wyoming. Miles was assigned to team up with Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman. The S.H.I.E.L.D. van Jefferson was in was stopped by Hydra agents. Jefferson was freed and took down the Hydra agents. Miles was separated from the fight and had to contend with a Giant Woman Hydra agent, then was found by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and brought home.

                Daily Bugle reporter Betty Brant was investigating the death of the Prowler and made a connection between Prowler and Spider-Man. Betty went to Aaron’s apartment and found the dead spider that gave Miles his powers. She brought the spider to current Roxxon Industries scientist and former Osborn Industries scientist Doctor Conrad Marcus, who had worked on the Oz project. Marcus confirmed to Betty that this spider could, in fact, have created the new Spider-Man. Betty mistakenly concluded that Jefferson was the new Spider-Man. Betty brought this news to Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson, but Jameson refused to publish it. Betty was going to bring the news to another source, but she didn’t live long enough for that to happen.

                Miles ran out of web fluid. He and Ganke tried to figure out how to crack the formula Peter Parker left behind for Miles. Maria Hill interviewed Jameson about Betty’s death, and Jameson lied, saying Betty never revealed to Jameson who the new Spider-Man was. Reporters came to Miles’ apartment to interview Jefferson about his heroic actions against Hydra, but Jefferson did not want to comment. He went to the reports to ask how they found where he lived when a new Venom symbiote host arrived, looking for Spider-Man and believing Spider-Man to be Jefferson. Miles fought the monster. The monster, seeing both Spider-Man and Jefferson in the same place at the same time was confused, and after a brief fight with Miles, the monster retreated, but during the fight, Jefferson was severely injured. Jefferson was rushed to the hospital. Miles’ mother Rio Morales went with Jefferson but told Miles to stay behind. News of the Venom attack made the news, and Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker’s girlfriend Mary Jane Watson rushed to aid Miles. Gwen and Mary Jane told Miles what they knew about symbiotes and the potential reason why Venom might be looking for Miles. Maria Hill arrived at Miles’ apartment, aware Miles was Spider-Man and tried to spur him into action. Venom attacked the hospital, looking for Jefferson. Miles made it to the hospital and fought Venom. Rio came to Miles’ aid. Miles was able to defeat Venom, but at a terrible cost. Following a devastating loss, Miles decided to be Spider-Man no more.

                One year later, Miles had a girlfriend named Katie Bishop. Spider-Woman tried to convince Miles to be Spider-Man again, but Miles refused. While at a Chinese restaurant, Miles ran into Gwen, who was working as a waitress. Suddenly, the restaurant was caught in a fight between Lori Baumgartner/Bombshell and the team of Ty Johnson/Cloak and Tandy Bowen/Dagger. Ty and Tandy had been student council presidents of their high schools. They were on their way to their senior prom when their limo was in an accident. Doctors Layla Miller, Nathaniel Essex, Samuel Sterns, and Arnim Zola III, the Roxxon Brain Trust, procured Ty and Tandy, had Ty and Tandy pronounced dead, and injected Ty and Tandy with Dark Matter. Ty and Tandy revived with new powers and became Cloak and Dagger. Lori’s mother Lana Baumgartner had been arrested and transferred to Roxxon for experimentation in lieu of going to prison. Lana was pregnant when she was experimented on, and Lori was born with powers as well, and when she grew older, she became Bombshell. Ganke was mad at Miles for witnessing a superhuman fight and not getting involved. Spider-Woman came to Miles again and explained her connection to Peter Parker in an attempt to convince Miles to be Spider-Man again. Spider-Woman wanted to team up with Bombshell, Cloak, and Dagger to take down Roxxon. Despite being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and despite S.H.I.E.L.D. and Roxxon having business connections, Spider-Woman did not trust the company. Roxxon hired Anthony Masters/Taskmaster to bring Roxxon’s experiments back to the company. Miles then had to decide if he wanted to once again take on the great responsibility that came with his great power and be Spider-Man again.

                Okay, so we’ve got the synopsis out of the way, now let’s get to my personal part of this review. As usual, we’re going to start with my own opinions on this book. I will start by saying that I found the stories in this book to be highly enjoyable. First off, the fractured America storylines in Divided We Fall and United We Stand are extremely relevant in this day and age thirteen years later. But this blog does not discuss politics, so I will go no further than just saying that. I will say I felt like there was a contradiction between this volume of “Miles Morales: Spider-Man” and the previous volume. It seems like the “Spider-Men” storyline from “Hero in Training” was ignored in “Spider-Man No More” since in this volume, Miles met Aunt May and Gwen Stacy for the first time and received Peter’s web shooters, while in the previous volume, Miles also met Aunt May and Gwen and did not have the web shooters, so I’m confused about the timing/existence of the storyline. That said, I loved Gwen’s reaction to Captain America trying to shut Miles down. I also liked Miles’ self-monologue complaint about the lameness of his villains, particularly Batroc the Leaper. I liked the choice to make Maria Hill an NYPD homicide detective; Hill is a character I’ve loved to hate for almost twenty years now. Seeing her in a different role and actually helping Miles was refreshing. I liked Jefferson’s conflict with being a hero and not wanting to be one, it mirrors Miles’ conflict from the previous volume. I don’t quite get how Captain America got to be elected president of the United States, I read the story thirteen years ago in “Ultimate Comics Ultimates,” but I honestly don’t remember all the details. I loved Jameson’s rationalization for not wanting to out the new Spider-Man, not wanting to ruin a man’s life, I’m glad he learned something from the death of Peter Parker. I did not like this portrayal of Betty Brant, I found it completely uncharacteristic of any other depiction of her, I did not enjoy seeing her as a money-hungry, opportunistic… (word I’m not going to use since this is a G-rated blog). I found the Venom War storyline to be the best story in the book. It was written with so much emotion, and the ending was just heartbreaking. I enjoyed the Spider-Man No More storyline, it’s something that every Spider-Man goes through, and I thought Miles’ was a good one, particularly that he lasted for a year. I loved how even though Peter Parker was dead, Brian Michael Bendis still found use for Aunt May, Gwen, and Mary Jane Watson. I don’t know why Bendis picked to use Layla Miller as part of the Roxxon Brain Trust, since in the main Marvel Universe, Layla was not a doctor, the same as making Miles’ girlfriend Katie Bishop, who in other universes is Hawkeye, the choices to use those names seemed really random. I enjoyed the evil corporation plot with Roxxon, I know that’s a little bit of a cliché, but Bendis still managed to make this entertaining. I enjoyed watching Miles’ growth and maturation over the course of this book, both as a teenager and as a superhero, I thought the progression was brilliantly written. Unfortunately, I found some conflict with the artwork in this graphic novel. All of these artists just had a way of drawing faces that just didn’t appeal to me when they were close up, but their action scenes were all spot on. I especially did not like the Venom design. I thought it just looked horrible. As for the choice in title, I felt like it was an appropriate pick. Honestly, the best choices were “Divided We Fall,” “United We Stand,” “Venom War,” or “Spider-Man No More,” and the only two titles that would truly sell would be “Venom War” or “Spider-Man No More,” the latter of which, in my opinion, taking up enough of the book to be a more proper representation of the entirety of the book itself, although “United We Stand” would, in my opinion, be an adequate representation of the content of the book as well. But overall, I enjoyed reading the book, but I just wish I could have had art I appreciated more.

                Next up, we’re going to talk about accessibility. I’ve explained this over six dozen times before, and I know I’ll be doing this dozens more times over the course of this blog, but once again, there are people reading this post now who have never read a Tim Cubbin review before and are wondering what the heck I mean by accessibility. So when I use the word “accessibility” in this blog, I’m saying how easy it would be for someone who has never heard of Miles Morales before or knows nothing about Marvel Comics or otherwise has no prior knowledge of what they’re about to read to go to their local bookstore or library or favorite shopping site and pick up this book, and then read it and understand everything they’ve read. This book has two accessibility issues. The first is that this is Vol. 2 and it picks up exactly where Vol. 1 left off and continues a story that’s already begun and not having read the previous volume is extremely detrimental to understanding the content of this particular volume. The second issue is that Divided We Fall and United We Stand were event storylines in “Ultimate Comics Spider-Man,” “Ultimate Comics X-Men,” and “Ultimate Comics Ultimates” and the rest of the event, especially “Ultimate Comics Ultimates,” contains more details to the story that this book doesn’t have and leaves a great deal of confusion to those who haven’t read the other series. Heck, thirteen years later, even I practically need a refresher. So, I will say if you are new to Marvel Comics, this is not a good starting point for you. Even if you’ve seen the “Spider-Verse” films or played the video games, they are nothing like this comic series and it’s essential to read the first twelve issues of “Ultimate Comics Spider-Man” (2011) before reading this graphic novel.

                Okay, I’ve been going on for a very long time at this point, I think we’re ready to get to my numeric score now. Now, for those of you who have never read one of my reviews before, my scoring scale is extremely simple. I score on a scale of exact integers between one through ten. If I score a book as a one, that means it is a flaming hot pile of trash and that every single copy of this graphic novel should be taken out of sales, thrown on a pile, and set on fire, then never be reprinted again. If, on the other hand, I give a book a score of a ten (which honestly doesn’t happen very often), then that means this book is sheer perfection, and every copy should be bought and read again and again and demand should be so high that this book needs to be reprinted every year. Now, I’m a very hard critic, I don’t just give out tens for no reason. To get a ten, the book has to exceed expectations. The story has to be gripping, exciting, interesting, intriguing, and engaging, hold my interest from start to finish, make me not want to put the book down, be full of surprises, and make me wish the book had more when I get to the end, and the art has to be consistently appealing, if not blow me away, and make me want to look at each panel for longer than needed just to appreciate the artwork. On the other hand, I’m not fond of giving out low scores either unless I feel like the book honestly deserves it. I very rarely give ones, I can count the amount of times I’ve done that so far on one hand. Well, you can probably guess that this book doesn’t exactly hit either pole, and if you made that guess, you’d be absolutely right. So, let’s talk about what score I’m actually going to give this graphic novel. As my regular readers know, I have a metaphorical blender for making review scores. So I’m going to take this entire book, the story I found to be highly enjoyable, the fact that I do have some complaints about certain details, the art that I wasn’t a total fan of, and the title that I thought fit the book well, and I’m going to dump it into my blender. Next, I’m going to hit mix and keep it going until this book is completely blended. Then I’m going to pour it out into my cup and look at the score, and it is… a seven. I honestly did enjoy this book and feel like it deserves a good score, but there were a few faults, and I have to gripe about the art, so the point deductions are, in my opinion, fair, and this score is, again, in my opinion, fair. Had this book perhaps had different artists, this could have gotten an eight. I also had to take a strike at the score for the contradiction between the two volumes due to the “Spider-Men” story in the previous volume as I feel like the lack of continuity made the stories rather confusing and I’m not sure if/when this story was even supposed to take place. Otherwise, I felt this was a commendable effort and an enjoyable read and I had a blast consuming this graphic novel.

                New up on our agenda shall be my recommendation. I always do this segment in two parts, answering two questions. The first question is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to anyone reading this review or to anyone else I talk to such as friends or family interested in comic books? The second question is, regardless of the answer to question one, who do I think would be the best audience? You can probably already guess the answer, but I’ll say it for you anyway. The answer is yes, I would recommend this book to anyone reading this review who is now interested in reading this book based on what they have just read. I tried to keep the spoilers to a minimum in order to give you a reason to actually want to read the book to find out how it ends. As for who I think the best audience is, I’d say it’s most appealing to people who are fans of Miles Morales, or to those who are fans of the work of Brian Michael Bendis, but if you want to read this volume, I’d recommend reading “Hero in Training” in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format first.

                Okay, I think we’re getting to the point where we’re ready to just about wrap things up. Before we part ways, there are a few things I would like to say first. Firstly, I have been doing this blog for almost five years now. At this point, I have now done over 170 posts. Over five dozen of them have been reviews of Epic Collections, and I have done other book reviews and events reviews as well. If you liked this review and want more Miles Morales content, feel free to search for “Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Hero in Training.” I’ve also written other kinds of content on this blog, such as short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials. Feel free to keep browsing timcubbin.blogspot.com for more posts, there’s plenty to see. I can tell you that I post on a very frequent basis, usually at least once a month. I am a die-hard Marvel fan and purchase every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection that is released as soon as I can after they are released and if possible, put up a review. There are a few Modern Era Epic Collections I have yet to review, maybe one day those will be remedied. You can expect to see my next post within the next four weeks, it will be “Spider-Man/Deadpool: Road Trip” so if you are interested, keep an eye out for that. And that’s really all I have to say for now, so until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!