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Saturday 10 March 2018

Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Volume 2 Review (Brian Michael Bendis, Nico Leon)


Hmm. Yeah, unfortunately the post-Secret Wars Miles Morales stuff isn’t an improvement over the post-Cataclysm crap. Event comics have completely ruined this character. And if that wasn’t enough, here comes another one in the form of Civil War II to compound the fuck-up! Jesus, what a mess Brian Bendis ended up making of poor Miles’ series. 

In post-Secret Wars Marvel, the Ultimates universe is gone with the surviving remnants folded together so Miles is Spider-Man alongside Peter Parker’s Spidey and co. - I know, it’s a stupidly overcrowded situation. His ma’s brought back to life for no reason, completely undermining the traditionally tragic Spidey origin, and his da is rewritten as a secret SHIELD Agent, also for no reason. The former X-Man Goldballs is Miles and Ganke’s new roomie. You see a story in all this? Me neither - this is just... stuff! Window-dressing that should accompany a plot, not be THE focus of a book. 

Most of the book is Civil War II bullshit, which, if you’ve read that event like me (and for the record: not a bad event - not good but definitely not as bad as they usually are; it’s surprisingly readable and not totally astoopid), nothing here’s gonna interest you. It certainly doesn’t add anything to the main storyline it’s tying into. 

Miles’ gran has hired Jessica Jones to spy on him which goes nowhere. Miles’ dad’s SHIELD initiation - which takes up an entire issue - was completely pointless. This is what Bendis on autopilot looks like. He gets so wrapped up in extraneous irrelevancies like character banter that he completely forgets to give them anything to do. I have no clue what Miles’ story is going forward but that’s because there doesn’t seem to be one! 

Nico Leon’s art is fine but nothing special and Sara Pichelli draws the Jefferson/SHIELD ish which looked pretty cool. And, let’s be fair: Bendis is a good writer. For all my criticisms of it, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Volume 2 isn’t a badly-written comic - it’s just frustratingly dull wheel-spinning and in dire need of a story. Sort it out, Bendis!

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