Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man #5 Review
Okay, if you’re confused about why there are two Spider-Men and Green Goblin is back, you’re not alone. But, in my review of Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #5 we cover the aftermath of the fiasco last issue.
Our comic begins with Peter, if that is him, and Miles being held up by the police. They have orders not to use their guns because it’s a residential area, but as soon as the two make a break for it Miles gets shot. Again, Spider-Sense should negate that risk but he has the excuse of having a weaker version that Peter. Still, it’s nothing lethal and, with Maria Hill’s help, both manage to get away.
Anyway, the two fake Spider-Men are brothers who look nothing like the originals, so they aren’t clones. One wants to capitalize on this to go cross another item off their list, but the other wants to play it safe. Whoever they’re working for doesn’t take disappointment well, so the reluctant one has to go along either way and they get dolled up for another robbery.
Maria Hill, in the meantime, helps Miles out because Peter Parker helped her out when she was a beat cop and then she got the collar for when he put down Kangaroo, so he pretty much made her career and she wants to help them both. At the same time, Green Goblin pays JJJ a visit in his penthouse apartment while the faux Spider-Men go rob an evidence room that holds super powered goodies.
Green Goblin, now Osborn again, paid JJJ a visit so he can go on record and give him an interview. It turns out that Miles’ Venom Blast managed to fry the crazy out of him for a time, making him more lucid and capable of remembering he killed his son. He believes that SHIELD, Roxxon, and Hydra are responsible and he needs to take power because those in power took everything from him. When he confirms he’s not done fighting, JJJ tries to put him out of his misery with a bullet, but considering how the last few times someone has done that hasn’t worked out that’s probably just a waste.
As the comic ends, Miles goes back to Queens while wearing a shirt over his uniform, which should bring up alarm bells either way, and goes to see MJ. He asks if Peter is there and she tries to send him away, but Peter then tells her to let him in so they can talk.
Okay, review time.
Well, this is sort a wind-down after that big battle the last time. While I would have loved to see how Katie Bishop, Jessica Drew, Aunt May, and Gwen Stacy took the news, we did learn why Maria Hill is so supportive of Miles. But seriously, I mean really, the one guy who shoots happens to land the shot on someone with Spider-Sense?
Unless Miles being injured later on makes it so that Peter has to die again to save him, it’s a waste. Anyway, 4 out of 5.
Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #4
Holy Hell, this issue was something special since even I don’t know what’s going on. But, I’ll do my best to review Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #4.
The comic picks up with Katie making it back to her home, where her older sister Misha is, crying. When her sister asks what’s wrong, she tells her Miles is Spider-Man. Now, this is the exact type of thing you don’t want happening and the reason I called Miles an idiot for blabbing about it.
But what’s more concerning is the fact that her sister tells her to break up with him for both of their sakes, because if their parents find out they’ll kill them both. What type of parents do they have? Uh, anyway, the sister states the best case scenario is that he gets killed by a super-villain, which is all kinds of messed-up, but considering everything else she’s said it fits.
It’s just her luck then that Osborn decides to make his kill-count 2 for 2 on Spider-Men. Miles learns the hard way that fire burns, but he has more tricks at his disposal than Peter and can go invisible long enough to bean him with something heavy. Still, he’s out of his weight-class and the police pretty much gets toasted as the news reports Miles almost imminent demise.
It’s then that Peter Parker shows up in the Spider-Man suit, where he got it I don’t know, and everyone stares in stunned silence as Osborn, like me, wonders how the hell is he alive. I’m still going with the shape-shifter theory, but a clone might be on the table now.
The surviving police open fire, and promptly get fried for it, but it buys enough time for Peter to web his face and Miles to give him the poke of doom. Venom Blast + Fire Demon = Big Boom. Osborn flies off and the police decide they’re going to try and take in the two Spider-Men. Aunt May thinks she’s going insane, while Gwen reasons it’s someone else, but Aunt May says she knows it’s him as the comic ends.
Okay, Review Time…
First, I’m still on the fence if this is the real Peter or not. I want his casket exhumed, I want a lie detector test, I want a DNA test, and a psychic reading to boot before I believe it. Second, I’m not sure it’s a good thing he’s still alive. I mean, his death was the pinnacle of the Ultimate Universe.
You can’t top that, especially not by ruining it by bringing him back to life all of a sudden. This is a Hail Mary that can blow up in their faces. But, knowing Marvel, if they think it would save the series and boost sales, he back.
The art was top-notch and the whole damn issue was sweet. Full 5 out of 5.
Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #3 Review
Well, after Miles did what may have been the dumbest thing I could think of at the moment, I can’t wait to pick up where we last left off. So here’s my thoughts and opinions as I review the third issue of Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man.
The story starts out at the Daily Bugle where one of them is trying to pitch a story about Spider-Men when JJJ shuts him down, citing he doesn’t want any half-truths and that he wants the whole and real story. He does this while there’s a plaque of his old Spider-Man story claiming him to be a menace, which he lampshades and then states he wants a story about heroes being heroes or something he could use. Right on cue, he gets reports on Norman Osborn being alive.
At the police station some crazy guy dressed as Ms. Marvel is spouting about how the Earths are converging and will soon be one, which was the rumors going around last year about Cataclysm and the Ultimate Line ending, so touché Marvel. Maria Hill gets notice that one of the men the spider guys had beaten died in the ER, making it a murder. She then gets a note about Miles’ parents and sets off to find him.
Back with the idiot, by that I mean Miles this time, he just dropped the bombshell of his secret identity on his girlfriend and she bails out. Ganke gets on his ass about it, but before he can catch up to her Maria Hill just comes up and tells him to get in the car. He straight up runs and switches to invisible mode despite Ganke telling him not to, only to wait until she’s gone to uncloak himself. Then they learn that Osborn is alive and Miles goes to Aunt May’s house because that’s the first place he’ll visit and cause damage.
Speaking of Osborn, the FBI fucked up so they call in former SHIELD director Monica Chang and storm Osborn Industries to catch him. They find the man in his secret lair, dressed in a nice suit and haircut. He basically calls Monica a patsy, citing she’s just not as good as Nick Fury was, and then he sets her face on fire, kills the guards, crashes a helicopter on top of her, and blows the place up. Dick.
Miles finally makes it to Aunt May’s house, learning the hard way that having no web-shooters makes things far more difficult to travel. Thankfully Aunt May and Gwen aren’t around at the time. Not thankfully, Green Goblin shows up and it’s looking like we’re getting a repeat of the Death of Spider-Man as the comic ends.
Okay, review time…
Well, I loved this issue. The art was nice for the most part, not as crisp as before but still decent, and we have a redux of the most critical point of the last story while both a “Peter Parker” and Green Goblin are around. Here’s hoping that someone actually shows up to help, otherwise the death of a second Spider-Man by the same villain is going to look really bad.
5 out of 5!
Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #1 Review
Okay, Miles has been around for a bit so it’s time he got a series named after him. So in this continuation of his life upon donning the Spider-Man mask again I’ll be reading and reviewing it to give you my biased opinion of what I think of it. This is the first review of Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man and it already contains swearing so beware!
The story begins at a top-secret SHIELD containment facility. Since Cataclysm ended the way it did, SHIELD has been disbanded and that means all their prisoners get transferred to a federal prison. That includes one special bastard who by all rights should be dead:
Norman-fucking-Osborn, aka the Green Goblin, aka the man who killed Peter Parker. Apparently he didn’t die and Fury thought to keep his ass locked up since nothing seems to finish the damn job. The guard, no longer assigned to watch him, knocks his teeth in for killing Peter and tell them to keep an eye on the bastard…it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how that’s going to end.
Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, two guys are discussing whether or not Captain America is dead. Let’s face it, they didn’t find the body so he’ll probably pop up later on. But this meta-discussion gets ended when some spider-man dressed douche-bags decide to make with the robbing of an armored truck. This is not what Miles needs.
Speaking of his needs, he’s making out with Katie Bishop when she’s asking where he was last night. Considering the shot of the All New Ultimates I would say he’s busy, but since he can’t explain that because she’s not in the loop she incorrectly assumes it was because Jefferson had came home. Apparently his Dad decided to simply abandon him…see my end notes about that. Either way the discussion comes to a close when a teacher tells him to get to class and we get an angsty teen shot.
We then skip to Long Island Expressway where Norman turns into the Green Goblin and escapes, shocker, and then back to Miles and Ganke. Miles is once again debating with Ganke on telling Katie his secret identity and Ganke argues against while now crushing on Dagger instead of Gwen. He’s got a thing for older women since puberty kicked in I guess….I can respect that.
Miles reminds him that she’s taken and out of his league and then goes pouty face when Ganke mentions he helped him be Spider-Man. He then decides to call up Mary Jane and gets some advice. She tells him that yeah it’s good to tell the girl because she shouldn’t have to find out after his death makes the front page of the news. But she also warns him that it’s like being married, you tell her then you’re connected for life, so make sure she’s not a villain or decides to go the woman-scorned route if something goes down.
Miles stress-level continues to rise as he learns about the fake spider-men and knows that he’s going to probably be framed for a crime he didn’t commit soon enough. As he enters his home he finds someone ransacking the place looking for something and when they turn around it’s…wait for it…wait for it…wait for it….
It’s Peter Parker!
Okay, review time.
Really, Peter’s back…yeah, I’m not buying it. Last time I checked, Scorpion and Jessica were the only clones still running around so I say it’s him. Actually, did those two Chameleons twins get killed off or not, because that would explain so much…
The debate about telling girlfriend or not doesn’t really interest me because it’s been done before and they have us another shot of Miles being angsty, probably because he resents being Spider-Man again now that it cost him his last family member. His life was so much better before he put it on…
Speaking of which, was the Marvel staff smoking something hard when they thought that up. Jefferson abandoning his son and Miles going angsty? You’re having the African-American father, who was reasonable up until the mask came off, abandon his son? Just to make him a troubled teen rather than the chipper kid he was like ten issues ago? Really?
This…is not the type of controversy they should be trying to stir up. It’d be one thing if Jefferson was shown as abusive before, rather than just one stress-induced incident that they could both sit down and talk about after the end of the world. I mean, he was a semi-bigot with grievances against Spider-Man, but seriously they pulled that out of their asses over the course of ten pages rather than ten issues like Jefferson one day finding his spider-suit and then stewing it over.
I shouldn’t have expected better. I blame myself…no, wait, I blame Marvel. C’mon now, having Jefferson abandon him is just fucking cheap and plays into negative stereotypes on top of Miles going angst over it. The only excuse that I’d accept is that he died and they’re hiding the body. I don’t fucking want broody Miles because his Daddy left him, that daddy issue shit gets old.
You don’t see Cloak bitching about his circumstances…just saying…and for fuck’s sake, stop taking off your mask Miles!
Anyway, I can’t give this a perfect score because of the above and we know that Peter is either a clone or a shape-shifter who appears after SHIELD is closed down. Really, sending super-villains to federal prisons just begs for it. Given that in 616 Mystique breaks in and out of SHIELD for a hobby it’s fairly obvious. In fact I’d like to be proven wrong…
It gets a 3 out of 5. Clean it up, Marvel.
Superior Spider-Man #29 Review
The Goblin Nation arc continues in Superior Spider-Man #29 and I’m here to give you my thoughts on it as I review what went down.
The story picks up where it left off, with Anna being brought to the Goblin King by Menace. He tells her to hush up since he’s watching a News Report saying that Peter and Carlie were buried alive, leaving Menace and Anna distraught as their sister/lover were thought to be killed. The Goblin King brushes the death of Carlie off, saying he’ll make her a new sister, thinking that the death of Spider-Man’s best friend was the real tragedy since it was so boring.
The goblin raid continues and it’s revealed that just about every hero in New York is out there and trying to stem the flow, with the head of Alchemax trying to have the mayor unleash the Goblin Slayers to help save people for the PR boosts. JJ, however, doesn’t’ want them out until they can take down Spider-Man with it being made apparent his grudge was getting in the way. It’s enough that one of his staff members leave him behind, saying enough is enough.
MJ is with May and the others she saved, as far away from New York as she could manage, telling them to keep calm and explaining that it was their only choice. She receives a call from Otto, who she tries to get to calm May down, only for him to brush her aside as he tries to cure Carlie with Sanjay. That ends when the Goblin King hacks his number and tells him to put on the mask and meet him.
The Goblin King apparently took killing Spider-Man personally, because he wanted to be the one to do it as his number one enemy while Otto was number two, so he destroys everything related to his legacy, including his childhood home, the place where he had his accident, the clinic where he saved a little girl, and the place where the police have stashed all his goodies. He then tells him that he’s got a classmate of his as a hostage and tells him to meet him at the university.
Trying to get there he ignores a mugging and tries to have the police chief come help in his place, but they think he’s in on it and JJ unleashes the Spider-Slayers to search for him. When he finally arrives, the Goblin King has Lamaze as the hostage. He states he saw the footage of Otto trying to save him during Stunner’s rampage (he must’ve glossed over Anna being there) and assumed he was the closest thing Otto had as a friend.
Disappointed, he threatens to leave and find someone else he cared about. Otto tries to gut him like a fish, but the goblin turns out to have hacked his mechanical arms and turn them against him. One is about to kill him when Lamaze intercepts it, leaving Otto confused about why he would do such a thing.
Lamaze states that it was because when Spider-Man saved him and Anna from Stunner, he regretted running away when she needed help and since then all he wanted was a chance to do what was right. To that end he thanked Otto for showing him what it meant to be a hero and then dies in his arms. Okay, credit where it was due, that was bittersweet.
However, the moment is ruined when the Spider-Slayers show up. Jameson is willing to lose everything to kill him and manages to get Otto in a pinch until Spider-Man 2099 shows up and shuts them down. But, unlike everyone else who grabbed the idiot ball, he knows something isn’t right with Peter and wants answers. Sadly the comic ends before he can get them as the Spider-Slayers are hacked by the Goblin King and grabs both of the Spider-Men.
Okay, review time.
The fallout continues as we see more character assassination on Peter by Otto, who’s getting a taste of what it’s like to be on the opposite end of the whole situation for once. Not only that, but he’s dragging Jameson and several others down with him in the process. That being said, I’m calling bull that the Avengers and every hero in New York are being pressured. New York is where like 90% of them are concentrated at. It’s the one place where the only way for things to get this bad was if they had super-powers again like Spider-Island.
However, I did like the issue and I’ll give it a 4 out of 5.
Superior Spider-Man #28 Review
THE WILD CARD APPEARS!
Well, it’s going down as the Green Goblin has declared war on the Superior Spider-Man in issue #28, so let’s get it on.
The comic begins with civilians in the distance watching Spider-Island burn as the attack begins. The Green Goblin gave him a chance to join up, but since he refused all he can do is retreat or die, which he reluctantly does after his favorite henchmen, #23, gets killed off in an explosion while the rest of the Spiderlings up top are getting slaughtered. He orders the ones still alive to hold the line while he escapes with his robot, so they’re all dead I’m sure.
Inside his noggin we have Peter Parker, who tried hiding in his memories and got sucked into seeing just what type of life Otto has lived. An abusive father and a smothering mother, bullies outside and only science as a bastion against the world, it’s really no wonder he turned into a villain. But for all their similarities, Peter had Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and that allows him to hold onto his sense of self as he continues to ride out Otto’s memories…for now.
Back to the Goblins, they destroyed Spider-Island in less than ten pages and the Goblin King has come in for a report. When they report Otto has gone missing, he’s not really worried since he knows his every weakness and orders his men to seek out the people important to him in order to draw him out. Namely the people important to Spider-Man, since he doesn’t know that Otto is wearing Peter Parker’s skin, as you may recall when he first got his hands on the journal and questioned Carlie one it.
At Alchemax, Mayor Jameson has called together the media and informed them that he’s transformed the Anti-Spider Patrol into Goblin Slayers, to which MJ states he’s out of his mind from her living room. She’s with her new boyfriend, who isn’t part of the inner circle, so he doesn’t see why it’s a bad thing. Before she can explain why, the little goblin kids who threw her off a roof and then bombed her club make a third play for her and she busts out the web-shooters.
MJ proved goddamn genre savvy after being the damsel in distress enough. She knows what’s going on and knows what her role in this is, the Wild Card. So the first damn thing she going to do is remove all the pieces off the board.
Back to Otto, he finally arrives at Parker Industries, where his partner is waiting and furious that he’s been missing for a month and tells him the police have been harassing them since Carlie went missing. That’s when Wraith showed up and tried to make him talk, but he knows about her tricks with fear gas and lets her get knocked out by Carlie, who has arrived for him just as a couple of the Ninja Goblins try to kidnap Aunt May and Jay Jameson, only for them to have been take away to safety by MJ already as Peter Parker loses himself in the memories of Otto in the mindscape.
Carlie chases Otto around, making it clear she knows who he is without saying his name as she cuts through the robot butler and defense system of mechanical tentacles. To this end he splits up with Sanji Jaffrey and confronts her alone, willing to defend his legacy now that Spider-Island is gone and kill all the Goblins. Luckily he kicks her right in the earpiece, which allows them to talk in private. Carlie reveals she’s still somewhat sane and needs Otto’s help in holding onto it before she loses control again, cryptically mentioning that he has no idea what the Goblin King has in store for him and the world.
As the comic ends, we see that Carlie’s sister was the only one who managed to get a piece on the board as she finds and kidnaps Anna Maria without her even knowing it by claiming to have been sent by MJ to retrieve her….crap…
Okay, review time.
So the plot moves again as Otto’s first line of defense has been breached. We see a good portion of the people who have been involved in Otto’s time as Spider-Man acting reasonable with more on the way, including MJ doing a magnificent job as the Wild Card. As for Carlie and Anna…well, damn. One’s going to have to live with the fact that she has killed people while on the Goblin Formula, so I feel bad for her, and the other is getting the Gwen Stacy treatment like I feared because the Goblin King wasn’t an idiot. I’ll give the dude credit, he plays hardball.
The art didn’t pop as much as it did in the past, at least to me, but the darker tone probably matches the mood as this is taking a dark turn already. So I won’t hold it against the artist.
A perfect, must have issue that gets a 5 out of 5.
Twilit Dreams Circle 