(w) Brian Bendis
(a) Sara Pichelli
(c) Justin Ponsor
It's honestly kind of hard to keep track of how many reset buttons were pushed, and what exactly they changed, in the wake of Marvel's recently-concluded "Secret Wars" event. It's a bit confusing, and frankly I hope some of the more disgraceful aspects of the continuity (e.g. Gwen Stacy having stress-sex with Norman Osborn and bearing his children) have finally been expunged for all time.
Whatever was done or undone, Miles Morales is now in the "mainstream" Marvel Universe, with his "Ultimate" universe having been one of the casualties of the aforementioned Secret Wars. He's back in school, his best friend Ganke is still around, and he's still Spider-Man, albeit a little older than when last I saw him. Here, he faces off against a pretty heavyweight threat in the demon Blackheart, and manages to come out on top, and as a result manages to impress the Avengers (who have apparently not yet disbanded at this time, and who have not yet informally recruited him, but I'll get into that later) and none other than the original Spider-Man himself, Peter Parker, who is now a big-time CEO whose adventures take him well beyond the borders of the United States. Media starts debating about him, and a local "YouTuber" has posted a video in which she has happily observed, thanks to a gaping tear in Miles' costume, that he is a person of color (though whether he is African American, Indian or Latini American remains unknown). As a result of his adventures, though, Miles' grades have begun to drop, and both his parents and another family member revealed at the end of issue #2 are deeply concerned. Another person who has taken interest in Miles, though, is the erstwhile Spider-Man friend and now-full-time Spider-Man foe Felicia Hardy, a.k.a. the Black Cat.
I followed just about all of Miles Morales' solo books, only missing out on issue #12 of his last "Ultimate" title (and if anyone knows where to find one at retail level, please let me know), and to my knowledge, his mother died at the hands of the Venom symbiote, so seeing her alive was a bit of a surprise for me, though I have been seeing the ramifications of this "Secret War" all over the place (with another example being Charles Soule's "Daredevil"). Once I got past that, the story was a pretty breezy read, though decompression seems to rear its head against as Bendis essentially stretched Miles' fight scene with Blackheart over two issues. Still, I think this particular arc worked out pretty well; there was just the right amount of exposition to establish that this is no longer the Ultimate Universe, though I suppose at some point down the line a little more explanation will be in order.
I'm a little confused as to when this story takes place in the Marvel timeline, given that, over at "All-New, All-Different Avengers" Miles is now very much a part of Tony's ragtag team, whereas here, they seem to be meeting him for the first time. This is an advantage of books being released at the same time; it helps keep people updated. To his credit, Bendis keeps things pretty simple and easy to follow, though I think people new to this character will have to do a little back-issue hunting. Also, I was a bit wary, though, especially bearing in mind Bendis' penchant for disregarding continuity, even the stuff he himself creates.
One aspect of the book with which I had practically no problem, though, was Sara Pichelli, who had, for awhile, turned the art duties of this book over to David Marquez. While I am a big fan of Marquez's work, Pichelli is Miles' real "mom," and her art has quite conspicuously improved since she was last on this book, which says quite a lot considering that she was already turning in some exemplary work back then. Miles has aged a little bit since she first got on the book; he's gone from fresh-faced tweener to gangly teenager, though I confess I remain partial to the "kid" look he had in the earlier issues, and which he still has in the Avengers book where he appears, courtesy of Mahmud Asrar's interpretation.
For me, it's so far, so good with these two issues, and it's interesting to see what Bendis has in store for Miles, given that the somewhat ruthless Black Cat has apparently taken an interest in him.
8/10
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