“SPIDER-MAN NO MORE!”
Will tragedy force Miles to quit?!
Bombshell is back!
An all new Cloak and Dagger!!!
The Good
Cover- Very literal but illustrated well. We have Miles Morales walking away from the Spider-Man costume which has been placed in a dumpster. While Miles walks away the rain of course is pouring overhead. The Dumped costume is in the foreground while Miles is in the Middle ground with the tall buildings in the background.
Art- I thought I would have missed Sarah Pichelli but I’m happy to report we have nothing to worry about since Dave Marquez handles expressions as well as she did, if not better! The characters all have rich expressive eyes
Humor- Ganke is a pure unadulterated geek and his love of legos as a teenager (and from the looks of it heading into adulthood) has the expected reaction from girls. He has pretty much no game whatsoever! Hilarity ensues! I also love that look of pride on Miles Father’s face when he thought Miles had a thing going on with Gwen Stacey. That right there is priceless! Oh and that ‘we thought you were gay” speech? Hilarious!
Women- Miles is clearly still reeling from his mother’s death and has distanced himself from anything related to his superhero life including Gwen Stacey and Spider-Woman but this issue I can actually see him hooking up with both because of the shared traumatic history they have thanks to heroics. He may think Spider Woman can’t relate to his loss but she has all the memories of Peter Parker, she lost uncle Ben, she lost Peter Parker, the life she remembers and even her gender identity for crying out loud, this chick gets it! As for Gwen Stacey she had to watch Peter fall for Mary Jane, her dad died, Peter died, she died and came back! Yeah he has far more in common with these two than he realizes and I’m hoping Bendis goes down that road.
Black Hero- Miles Morales is our star and some of that shine I saw back during his debut has returned, hopefully Bendis can take us off the predictability rail and inject more originality back into this book!
Little touches- Small details made this issue more enjoyable than the entire Venom War. Details like the growth spurt of Miles and Ganke, Ganke not being so fat anymore and Miles entering the thralls of puberty. Having a girlfriend was nice as well, and considering her mainstream 616 counterpart if the female Hawkeye things are about to get exciting!
The Bad
One Year Later- Time jumps are a double edged sword, sure it worked for Dragon Ball Z but when Claremont tried it after the first X-men movie for “revolution” he almost destroyed the X-men brand and lead to the death of X-man, Generation X and X-Force. The execution by Bendis will either grab new fans or alienate old ones. Tight rope time guys, and my microscope is on those Sales Figures!
Spider Woman- Ok, don’t get me wrong since she is a female cone of the now dead Peter Parker but the illustration of her on the roof was terrible! She had shoulders as wide as her hips and those hips made her look like she had quite a few butt shots while still having those stick figure legs. What’s worst when she gets illustrated in the latter half of the book she has none of these problems! Simply terrible!
The Ugly
Ultimately this is a step in the right direction for a book that had gotten terrible formulaic and predictable. Great art, great character driven story and exciting new developments make this my favorite Bendis book this month! 4/5
Been waiting on this.
” Having a girlfriend was nice as well,” I agree because early before the first copy hit the self, rumors were that he would be gay. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It just seemed that they were making him into a big gumbo of minority labels. Half Black, half Hispanic, and gay. The only thing missing was being a paraplegic.