"Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Revivals and Revelations"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Revivals and Revelations” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            After taking a year off to mourn the death of his mother, Miles Morales/Spider-Man found himself teamed up with the Ultimates’ Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman and new heroes Tyrone Johnson/Cloak, Tandy Bowen/Dagger, and Lana Baumgartner/Bombshell to shut down the evil Roxxon Corporation. Meanwhile, on another Earth in another dimension, a massive amount of time-travel abuses among the super-hero community created a series of rips in the space-time continuum that wreaked havoc across the galaxy. One such rip dropped into this universe a cosmic force, known only as Galactus, with a carnal appetite for entire worlds.

            Spider-Woman, after afraid of losing her position on the Ultimates, requested S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Monica Chang place her in charge of an investigation into the surviving Roxxon genetic experiments other than Cloak, Dagger, and Bombshell. Bombshell’s parole officer threatened her with jail time for using her powers as it violated the rules of her probation. Miles found out that some members of the NYPD were happy Spider-Man was back in action. Cloak brought Dagger to her old home, only to find it abandoned. Frustrated and wanting a big bad guy to hit, Cloak and Dagger witnessed the appearance of Galactus in New Jersey, which Galactus then proceeded to wipe off the map, but Cloak and Dagger discovered they were no match for Galactus. Spider-Man teamed up with the Ultimates to try to save as many people in New York as possible. Bombshell witnessed the carnage being caused by Galactus and decided to try her hand at being a superhero. Cloak and Dagger joined the rescue effort. Spider-Man found his father Jefferson Davis looking for his son and unmasked to his father. Jefferson then blamed Miles for the death of both Jefferson’s brother Aaron Davis/Prowler and Miles’ mother Rio Morales. Miles told his father to hide and that Miles would come back. Spider-Man found a crashed plane, carrying a surviving J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of the Daily Bugle and thebugle.com. As the heroes struggled to save lives, Jameson promised to change their lives. Miles returned home, looking for his father, but Jefferson was nowhere to be found. Miles was contacted by Steve Rogers/Captain America, who asked for Spider-Man’s help stopping Galactus.

            To commemorate the second anniversary of the untimely passing of Peter Parker, Peter’s Aunt May Parker and confidante Gwen Stacy hosted a small get-together at their house to celebrate Peter’s life. Miles was invited and brought his best friend Ganke Lee along as his plus one. Those in attendance at the get-together were Peter’s girlfriend Mary Jane Watson, Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman, Lana Baumgartner/Bombshell, Johnny Storm/Human Torch, Bobby Drake/Iceman, Liz Allan/Firestar, Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat, Kenny “Kong” McFarlane. J. Jonah Jameson was invited, but he decided not to leave his limousine, and Tony Stark/Iron Man was unable to attend, but he sent catering from chef Chester Cebulski. Ganke brought Gwen a gift he made from Legos, which Miles feared would scare Gwen away, but which instead earned Ganke a kiss from Gwen. The guests discussed what they thought Peter’s life would turn out to be like should he have lived. Gwen decided to honor Peter that the party should do something nice, so the guests brought the catering to Queen’s Mission to offer food and comfort to the poor, homeless, and hungry. As the guests dispersed from May’s house, someone was watching from the bushes.

            Following the shut down of S.H.I.E.L.D., Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, who was believed dead and was being held in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, was to be transferred to federal prison. Burglars who came to be called the “Spider-Man Twins” began a crime spree. While being transferred, Osborn escaped custody as the Green Goblin. Miles consulted Mary Jane as Miles considered telling his girlfriend Katie Bishop that Miles was Spider-Man, asking how long Mary Jane knew Peter was Spider-Man and what Mary Jane’s relationship with Peter was like. Miles went to his father’s apartment to check if Jefferson had returned and instead found Peter Parker searching through the apartment. Peter wanted his web-shooters back, which May had gifted to Miles after Miles took up the mantle of Spider-Man after Peter’s death. Miles wanted Peter to tell May that Peter was alive. Peter knocked Miles unconscious and took back the web-shooters. Miles believed this Peter Parker to be a clone and went to Ganke with Miles’s suspicions. Ned Leeds came to Jameson with intentions to run a story on the Spider-Men, but Jameson refused to publish it. Reporter Ben Urich arrived with the story of Norman Osborn being alive and on the loose, which Jameson decided to go along with. A security guard attacked by the Spider-Men died in the ER, and homicide detective Maria Hill was put in charge of the case. Hill was already aware that Miles was Spider-Man. Miles confessed to Katie that he was Spider-Man. Her reaction was to run away from him. Hill arrived and asked Miles to get in the car with her, but Miles pulled a disappearing act. After Hill left, Miles and Ganke read Urich’s story about Norman Osborn. Miles decided to go to the last place Norman Osborn was seen alive: in front of Peter Parker’s house. Monica Chang led a unit into Osborn Industries to look for Norman Osborn, but the unit did not survive their encounter with the Green Goblin. Miles went to Peter Parker’s house, where he was confronted by the Green Goblin. Katie confessed to her sister Misha that Miles was Spider-Man. Miles fought the Green Goblin and was joined in the fight by Peter Parker. The media witnessed the arrival of Peter Parker, and May immediately knew this was the real Peter Parker by watching the news footage. Miles used his venom blast on the Green Goblin, who then fled from the two Spider-Men, who were then confronted by the police. During Miles and Peter’s escape, Miles was grazed in the leg by a police bullet. Miles was discovered by Maria Hill, who Miles got in the car with. The Spider-Man Twins decided to take advantage of the return of Peter Parker. Hill helped Miles treat his wound. Osborn went to Jameson to confess his story. Osborn had a theory that because of the Oz formula in their blood, Osborn and Peter were unable to die. Jameson attempted to end Osborn but only ended up meeting his own demise. Miles and Hill went to Mary Jane’s house, where they learned she had been helping hide the fact that Peter Parker was alive. May and Gwen arrived and reunited with Peter. The Green Goblin also arrived in front of Mary Jane’s house. Miles fought and defeated the Green Goblin with his venom blast. Osborn taunted Miles, saying Osborn had information about Miles’ father before turning back into the Green Goblin. Miles and Peter fought the Green Goblin again, and Hill joined in to make sure Norman Osborn would never menace the world again. Peter returned the web-shooters to Miles and gave Miles his blessing to be Spider-Man, but decided he had to leave for the safety of his family and friends, and Peter and Mary Jane drove off together. Miles returned to Brooklyn Visions Academy, where he was woken up by Ganke, who informed Miles that Miles had a visitor: Miles’ father. Jefferson revealed to Miles that twenty-five years ago, Jefferson had gone undercover for S.H.I.E.L.D., working to bring down Wilson Fisk/Kingpin from inside Fisk’s own organization and the reason he left Miles was because Jefferson didn’t feel worthy enough, and Jefferson and Miles reunited as father and son. Miles found Max Dillon/Electro and Victor Creed/Sabretooth engaged in a fight. He tried to let them defeat each other, until innocent lives were threatened, and he joined in the fight. Miles was aided in the fight by Cloak and Dagger, and the trio were able to defeat the supervillains. Miles went to Katie’s house to try to talk to Katie and was greeted by Katie’s father. Misha had revealed to her father that Miles was Spider-Man. Katie’s father drugged Miles. The Spider-Man Twins robbed a top secret S.H.I.E.L.D. warehouse. They were confronted by Jessica Drew/Black Widow, but the Twins were able to defeat Black Widow. Miles’ father attempted to contact Miles but was unsuccessful. Ganke and Miles’ roommate Judge revealed to Ganke that Judge knew Miles was Spider-Man. Miles woke up in a Hydra facility. Katie’s parents were agents of Hydra, and she was born into the organization. Hydra agents also abducted Jefferson and Ganke. Miles tried to escape but was blackmailed with Jefferson and Ganke’s lives. Judge was sent to look for Miles and Ganke and discovered their room was trashed. Victor Van Damme/Doctor Doom was in the process of making a merger with Hydra and arrived at the Hydra facility. Doom wanted to learn how to duplicate Miles and Jessica’s powers, make an army of super-soldiers with spider powers, then dispose of Miles and Jessica. Judge went to Miles’ father’s apartment to search for Miles and was greeted by Cloak and Dagger, who were also looking for Miles. Judge, Cloak and Dagger contacted Bombshell and Kitty Pryde, and the group recruited Maria Hill and Brooklyn Police Department Captain Frank Quaid to rescue Miles. As the group tried to make their escape, they witnessed their world about to come to an end.

            Okay, now that we’ve gotten that rather lengthy summary out of the way, let’s move on to my part of this review. We’re going to start, as always, with my own personal opinions on the book. I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. As some of my longtime readers may know, one of my favorite comic book writers is Brian Michael Bendis, I usually love reading his work, and this time, he did not disappoint me. I do, however, have a major complaint with the “Cataclysm” storyline. As some of my longtime readers may know, Epic Collections do not actually contain the main issues of an event, rather they collect the issues of characters from around the time of the event pertaining to the titular series. “Cataclysm: The Ultimates’ Last Stand” was an event that spawned several other limited series, including “Cataclysm: Ultimate Spider-Man,” this latter limited series being the only part of “Cataclysm” included in this volume. Therefore, readers of this volume only get one part of the story, which is far from the complete story. The ending of my third paragraph was actually not me trying to be vague to avoid spoiling the ending of the story, that paragraph ends where the story ends. I will admit to a good deal of disappointment from this, but I was still able to find enjoyment reading what was contained in this volume. I found the storyline of Miles and Jefferson dealing with Miles being Spider-Man to be very emotional, having been abandoned by my father myself, and I thought the writing on that was excellent. It was established right at the beginning of the series that Jefferson hated mutants and superheroes and Miles was afraid of what telling Miles’ father that Miles was Spider-Man would mean for Miles, and the readers had been waiting for this to happen, and when it finally did Jefferson’s reaction was to abandon Miles. And the fact was that Jefferson really did this because he didn’t feel worthy whereas Miles was worthy, and I thought that was highly compelling, and the resolution between the two of them was extremely touching. I loved the celebration for Peter Parker; I thought that issue was fantastic. I especially loved the connection between Ganke and Gwen, I thought that was quite humorous. I was quite surprised by Peter Parker’s return and the fact that Oz grants immortality when I first read this storyline when it originally came out. I found it entertaining watching Peter and Miles team up against the Green Goblin, I thought their fights were pretty epic. I had forgotten over the years exactly how dark this storyline was and how many deaths and attempted deaths were caused by Osborn. Jameson’s fate in particular was extremely shocking to me, how he attempted to end Norman before meeting his own demise. This was also one of the few series of the comics where I found Maria Hill to actually be a likeable character. The way she took on Osborn was impressive. I enjoyed the Bishop Hydra twist. I totally did not see that one coming. I also enjoyed Miles’ father’s involvement in S.H.I.E.L.D., that was also unexpected. I liked Bendis’ subtle hints about “Secret Wars” with the arrests of the crazy people in costume, that was actually quite amusing. I do hate how the ending led directly into “Secret Wars” and the next volume of “Miles Morales: Spider-Man” will be in a different universe with no explanation of how Miles became part of the Marvel Universe because Marvel will not include “Secret Wars” in a Modern Era Epic Collection because of the whole not including events in Epic Collections thing and I don’t have a good recollection of that event from ten years ago. And the whole last issue in this book felt rather rushed, especially leading up to the ending, which was extremely inconclusive, by the way. I did like seeing the little team form together at the end, even though we’ll never see this team-up again. Moving forward, I will also say that I found the art in this graphic novel to be spectacular. I thought David Marquez did an exceptional job illustrating these issues and I found looking at this book to be visually pleasing. I thought this was amazing comic book artwork. As far as the title goes, I feel like it is a good representation of this collection. This book did have the revivals of Peter Parker and Norman Osborn, and there were a lot of revelations such as Jefferson being involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Bishops being involved with Hydra, so “Revivals and Revelations” perfectly encapsulates the essence of this volume, and I think it’s a spot-on title. Finally, we’re going to discuss the cover. The cover of this book shows a small Miles swinging in front of a large, roaring Green Goblin. I don’t feel this shows accurate proportions to the characters inside the issue. As such, I don’t find this to be the “perfect” cover to this book. However, the Green Goblin is a threat through seven of the sixteen issues contained in this collection, so featuring him so prominently on the cover is, in my opinion, adequate enough, but I do feel there are other covers from this collection that would work as well as, if not better than, the choice the editors picked for this volume. Overall, though, I did find this book to be a highly enjoyable experience, despite the few areas of disappointment at the beginning and end.

            Next up on our docket of topics to discuss, we’re going to cover accessibility. I know my longtime readers know what I mean by this, I have used this word in reviews over six dozen times by this point, but I know I always have first-time readers with every post I do, so I have to re-explain myself every time I do a review for the newbs who have stumbled onto my blog for the first time. So, when I say “is ‘Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Revivals and Revelations’ accessible?” what I am asking is, can a person who has never heard of Miles Morales before or never read a Marvel Comic before obtain this book, read it cover to cover, and understand what they have just read based solely on what is contained in this book and this book alone? The answer to that question is a big no. My reasoning for this is the “Cataclysm: The Ultimates’ Last Stand” tie-in. First off, this is a spin-off series from an event that does not tell the full story of the event and all of the details of the event outside of Miles, Cloak, Dagger, Bombshell, and Spider-Woman’s actions saving the people in New York City are left out of this volume. On top of that, this event is multiversal, originating in the Marvel Universe and impacting the Ultimate Universe, the latter being the setting for this collection. Secondly, the “Cataclysm: Ultimate Spider-Man” series continues directly from where “Ultimate Comics Spider-Man” left off, following twenty-eight issues of continuity, and reading this volume without consuming the previous storylines leading up to this point can be somewhat difficult to process. I would not qualify this book as one for someone who knows nothing about Marvel Comics. As for qualifications for reading this volume, I would say the reader should have read the previous two volumes of “Miles Morales: Spider-Man”, “Cataclysm: The Ultimates’ Last Stand,” and know the essence of the original “Ultimate Spider-Man” and “Ultimate Comics Spider-Man” series, particularly Peter Parker’s death in order to optimally read this collection and completely assimilate what they have just read.

            Okay, moving on, we’re up to one of the key elements of my reviews: the numeric score. I know that it’s not the single most important part of my reviews to everyone, some people come so they can read about the story, but it is essential to state exactly how good I feel a book is when I write a review on a scaling system. So, my scoring system is extremely simple: I score media on a scale of exact integers ranging from one through ten. One is the lowest score I can possibly give, and that means that this book is not worth reading at all, and every remaining copy that hasn’t been purchased by unfortunate souls should be pulled off the shelves and destroyed, then the original plates should be wiped so this trash can never be reprinted. Ten is the highest score I can possibly give, and that means that this book is sheer perfection and one of the best things I have ever read in my entire life, and it should not be on shelves because everyone should be buying it, and the publishers should need to reprint this book on a regular basis because of the popularity that there just aren’t enough copies to satisfy the masses. Okay, I know, I’m being extra here, one and ten honestly should not exactly mean what I’ve just typed, but you get my point. Anyway, when I score an Epic Collection, I take every factor into account when producing my scores. This includes: the story: was it exciting, compelling, interesting, entertaining, and enjoyable to read from beginning to end? The art: was it visually appealing and nice to look at throughout the entire book? And the title: does it perfectly capture the essence of what the stories are about? The cover: does it adequately depict what to expect from the interior content of the collection? My longtime readers will know that I am extremely hard to please and that I don’t give out tens unless all of those factors are met exactly. So, I will say I did highly enjoy the story that was in the book, but the missing content hurts the quality of the read, and the last issue felt rushed and the story ended in an inconclusive way that will not be resolved in the next volume. The artwork was excellent. The title was a perfect choice to describe the stories in the book. The cover was adequate enough for the book, but it wasn’t the perfect representation for all the content in this collection. So, putting all of these puzzle pieces together, the score we are looking at here is… an eight! I feel like this was an exceptionally good book. While it did have its flaws, it was still highly entertaining.

            Next up, we’re going to do my recommendation segment. This segment answers two questions. The first question is: do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to you, my readers, or to anyone unfortunate enough to get caught up in a conversation with me about this book, who are now interested in reading this book based solely on what I have just related to anyone consuming my words? The second question is: regardless of if I would recommend this book personally, whom do I think is a good type of audience for this book, besides the obvious Miles Morales, Spider-Man and Marvel Comics fans? To answer my first question, yes, I do recommend this book to you. If you’re reading this review and want to read this book now, I suggest you go to your favorite online retailer, or your preferred bookstore, or your nearest comic book store, or your local library, or your Marvel obsessed friend or relative and look for this book and read it as soon as you can. If you read this, feel free to comment to me your opinions on this book, I would love to hear from you. Everything I say on this blog is purely my own personal opinion, and I don’t expect anyone to agree with me at all. You’re entitled to feel however you want to feel about what you read, and if you feel the same or if you feel different, I want to know. Please drop a comment here to let me know what you thought of this book. As for an audience for this book, I would recommend it to readers who enjoy family dramas and trying to find acceptance from your family; readers who enjoy stories about legacy, trying to live up to being who you are, who you want to be, and who others expect you to be; readers who enjoy stories about immortality and the repercussions of such a gift and how it can be a curse; readers who enjoy stories about secrets and what those secrets can mean to your friends, family, and relationships; and readers who enjoy stories with lots of plot twists and twists and turns and unexpected moments.

            Okay, we’re just about done here, but there are a few more things I do have to say before I click post. First off, I have been doing this blog for over five years. I have done over 180 posts, so feel free to keep exploring timcubbin.blogspot.com for more content by me. If you liked this post and want more Miles Morales, feel free to check out “Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Hero in Training” and “Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Spider-Man No More” for more content. I’ve done over six dozen other Epic Collection reviews similar to this one, so feel free to check some of those out too. I’ve also written reviews of Marvel Comics events posted on Marvel Unlimited, as well as reviews of prose novels and manga, but the current focus of this blog is on Marvel Modern Era Epic Collections and Marvel Ultimate Epic Collections. I purchase every one of those as soon as I can after their release and if possible, put up a review as soon as I can after I’m done reading it. My next review is going to be “Young Avengers: The Children’s Crusade,” you can expect to see that within the next two months following the posting of this review, so if that sound interesting to you, keep checking back for it. Feel free to like, retweet, share, do whatever you can to promote this post and me. I do have a bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in journalism, but due to life circumstances am unable to get a job in the professional field, but I do this blog in my spare time to do something to contribute to what I spent my time in college learning so my skills don’t go to waste, so I’d appreciate getting as much readership as I possibly can. That’s all I have to say for now, but until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!