Best of Marvel: Week of February 5th, 2020

Best of this Week: Miles Morales: Spider-Man #15 (Legacy #255) – Saladin Ahmed, Javier Garrón, David Curiel and Cory Petit

I had a really difficult time choosing between this and X-Men/Fantastic Four #1.

Both stories were great this week and I was tempted to choose the latter because up to this point, I hadn’t really been enjoying this Spider-Man run very much. Of course, here we are though. There was just something about how this issue pulled everything together that made me appreciate the story that Saladin Ahmed set out to tell and how Miles is finally growing into the hero that fans always knew he was. Everything just felt so right amidst this roller coaster of an “Ultimatum” arc. Even in the face of tremendous adversity Miles overcomes.

Throughout this series, Ahmed has been sprinkling small bits of an arc to readers with Miles constantly being late for class, tired and even being placed on academic probation by his Principal, Mr. Dutcher. Of course it’s easy to paint Dutcher as potentially a racist due to how much he’s had it in for Miles throughout the story, almost to very ludicrous points in his attempts to kick Miles out of the school. Things seek to finally take a turn when we find out that Dutcher found the notebook that Miles had been writing in with all of his Spider-Man adventure thoughts.

Garrón makes sure to draw Dutcher with the worst, “I’ve got your ass now” looks I’ve ever seen with one hand placed in his underarm while he taunts Miles with his journal. Curiel colors things ominously with light shadows going over most of his face as he prepares to ream Miles, but suddenly Brooklyn Visions, Miles’ school, is attacked by a horde of new Green Goblins. Garrón makes them look threatening as hell as they terrorize the student body and the teachers with destroyed cars and fire in the background.

Without hesitation, Miles tries to swoop in and save them, but the Goblins find him and Dutcher, rounding them up with the rest of the hostages. The leader Goblin demands that the school hand over Spider-Man while threatening the staff. Garrón and Curiel sell this by portraying the Goblin as a towering beast with one green foot planted on the head of one of the teachers, his grey toenails curling over him. They’re certainly not as intimidating as the Main Green Goblin of the Ultimate Universe, but their numbers and power do cast as at least mildly formidable foes, at least for this issue.

One of the black teachers steps up and offers to remain the only hostage if they let the kids and other teachers go. I really like this character as I think he’s the one that assigned the journal project and he’s been acting as something of a mentor to Miles throughout. He really cares about his students and colleagues even though he’s terrified and he’s the first of many to inspire courage in this issue.

Just as the Goblin is about to absolutely RIP the teacher’s head off, Dutcher steps up and says that his colleague doesn’t know where Spider-Man is and says that he does. Everyone remembers that moment in the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie where J. Jonah Jameson risks his life for Peter so that he can escape – well, after giving a telling look to Miles, Dutcher claims that he himself Spider-Man before getting smacked into a wall. This is an amazing turning point for the character as we’ve only seen him be annoying and antagonistic to Miles the entire time that we’ve known him. With one small act of courage, he kinda reverses it all when he could have just given into his worse thoughts.

Garrón and Curiel frame this scene excellently with one shot of Miles looking at Dutcher, with a light shining on his face, almost wondering what the right decision is. He may not like Miles too much, but he couldn’t forgive himself if he gave the boy up. We get another shot over Dutcher’s shoulder, shadows covering the other side of his face and Miles looking at him, afraid that he could have his identity exposed and die right there. With no dialogue these two panels say more than any word balloons could.

Ganke, Miles’ best friend, decides to launch another distraction for Miles to suit up and our hero swings in with an amazing splash page by Garrón and Curiel. The students cheer, the Goblins grit their teeth in anger and Miles takes a dynamic pose as his webs make an excellent line for the our eyes to follow from Miles arms, his heroic symbol and his gymnast legs getting ready to kick the crap out of evil. The black and red suit stands out amongst the mostly greens and browns of the page, putting the focus mainly on him.

For the most part, the rest of the issue is Garrón and Curiel showcasing Spider-Man’s Goblin Slaying skill while they try to take him down. He crashes through the wall of the school and Garrón emphasizes the weight and speed of the fight with debris and skid marks as Miles knocks two of the Goblins out, making them revert to human form. There’s also a really good shot of the leader Goblin chucking dumbbells and gymnast posts at Spider-Man.

Curiel does an amazing job of coloring the action as things move from the brown of the basketball court, to the blues of the indoor pool in which Garrón draws an amazing few panels of them fighting in the water. As per Curiel’s coloring style the water is fluid and beautiful and then gets excellent lighting as Spider-Man Venom Blasts the Goblin in the middle of it all.

Cory Petit deserves heaps of credit for giving this entire book life with his incredible lettering and even more so this fight sequence. His transparent CRASHes and ZZZZZTs sell both the intensity of Miles and the Goblin going through walls and the power of Spider-Man’s Venom Blasts respectively. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the SPLASH as the Goblin falls into the pool or the transparent SLOSH that curves down the villain’s arm as he tries to punch at Miles in the water.

The fight reaches its conclusion after Miles repeatedly kicks the Goblin in the face and finishes with an uppercut (Shoryuken!) over a red, pop-art background that could only have been made better with a POW sound effect. The Goblin, knowing he’s been defeated, jumps away and leaves Spider-Man until their next confrontation. Later on Miles and Mr. Dutcher resume their conversation from earlier and it is a far more tense situation, especially after all of the damage that occured to the school.

Surrounded by Curiel’s dim oranges from the fires raging in the background, Miles tries to explain all the things that he says in his Journal, but Mr. Dutcher calmly hands his student his journal back. Dutcher tells Miles that he “should report students engaging in dangerous activities to the administration,” but all that he read was a “fictional story.” For a moment, Dutcher gives Miles a look like he sees the fear on the young man’s face, but he rationalizes that if Miles hadn’t done what he did, there’s no telling if any of them would be alive.

Mr. Dutcher proves himself to be a trustworthy person because of the bravery that Miles showed him. Miles has saved Brooklyn, if not the whole of the world, many a time and he’s actually one of the more well liked Spider-People. Miles serves as an inspiration to the rest of Brooklyn Visions and the borough as a whole, but there’s also the downside of his presence. Somehow the Goblins were able to find out what school Spider-Man attended and that puts everyone in grave danger, so the question is… what will Miles do now? He did save the day and got taken off of academic probation, but the school is mostly in ruin. Much like Peter’s best victories, this one is pyrrhic.

Saladin Ahmed really knocked it out of the park with this issue. He does a really good job at scripting Miles and his supporting cast, making each of them seem courageous and sympathetic. Javier Garron and David Curiel’s art and colors have been some of the best parts of this run and they continue to stun with amazing visuals, making sure readers get really invested in the art and the story it tells along with the script.

I do also wonder if this story will play into the upcoming “Outlawed” event which sees teenaged superheroes getting banned from active operation after something terrible happens to Spider-Man friend, Kamala Khan aka. Ms. Marvel. The destruction of Brooklyn Visions could act as more fuel to the fire following this issue and it would be interesting to see how this could possibly contribute to that event. Maybe we’ll even see Miles unmask to the world? (Nah, it’s probably gonna be her, but who knows?) But I am excited at the very least for the rest of Ahmed’s run if the issues continue being this awesome.

Best of Marvel: Week of January 22nd, 2020

Best of this Week: Amazing Spider-Man #38 (Legacy #839) – Nick Spencer, Iban Coello, Brian Reber and Joe Caramagna

I can read the headline now: Spider-Man vs. Fake News.

At least that’s what it seems like this next Spider-Man arc will be about as the titular hero has to deal with his “biggest supporter,” J. Jonah Jameson, and his new job as a clickbait hound in the age of modern online journalism. Who knows what hijinks will ensue?

This issue exemplified the kind of humor that Nick Spencer excels at: the hilarity of hypocrisy when it comes to some of Spider-Man’s supporting cast. This was best shown in Spencer’s hilarious Superior Foes of Spider-Man (2013) as Boomerang did everything in his power to create a new Sinister Six while selling them out at every turn and not learning from his actions as everyone in his sphere suffered the consequences of his betrayals. Spencer channels that same energy as Jameson has to face the fruits of his journalistic practices in the form of Norah Winters and the new Threats and Menaces blog office.

After Jonah launches into a (Boomer) rant about today’s journalists, calling them soft, self-obsessed and lacking the edge that made him what he is, Norah tells her team to sound off about the stories they’re working on. Without missing a beat and with faces of malice, thanks to Coello, they tout their intentionally misleading headlines.

Norah explains that in the age of the 24-hour news cycle, they need to get those clicks by any means necessary and that Jameson was the inspiration for this because of his past headlines calling Spider-Man a menace usually without real evidence. She expects villains to repost it to their audiences and heroes to quote it with malice, giving them more clicks.

Everyone likes to take the piss of millennial journalists and can often come off as cringy, but somehow Spencer, Iban Coello and Brian Reber manage to really capture the essence of modern open architecture office spaces filled with young kids and their kooky hair colors. Coello draws a really good shot of this with the addition of a space for video games, two bright green vending machines and tables full of people either on desktops without dividing walls or on personal laptops. Of course, all of this comes after Jonah is nearly hit by a douchebag riding an electric scooter.

Reber colors everything in contrast to Jameson who wears a professional brown suit. The office itself is brightly lit, all of the freelancers and employees are given brighter clothes with striking reds, pinks, blues and purples. Even the basic Threats and Menaces banner is a bright red, kinda signalling how bad this company might be. It’s really fun to see how out of his element Jonah is among these kids and how much more awful they are in comparison to him… aside from creating supervillains.

As all of this is going on, Spider-Man is robbing a bank. One can see how this might be a problem as Jonah is doing his best to defend Spider-Man to Winters who wants him to write a smearing headline about the crime. Coello and Reber introduce us to the act with an amazingly dynamic splash page of Spidey zipping into the sky carrying bags of cash. The webs are slung so hard that they blur, laser gun blasts almost fly off the pages with vibrant red and orange colors and Spider-Man’s posing makes him look like he’s avoiding danger with ease.

We get a sidestory with Silver Sable trying to regain her strength with the help of (former?) Spider-Man villain, Foreigner, as the two are now lovers. After helping her, Foreigner goes to a secret casino where the use of superpowers is encouraged and there’s betting on the battles between superheroes, villains and everything in between. Foreigner still maintains his supervillain connections, but he seems to be using it towards helping Sable.

Minor supervillain and assassin, Chance, has set up the robbery and casino in order to place bets on Spidey’s performance and potential property damage. Of course, he also rigs it so that surprise drones appear to make things harder. As things begin to get hectic, lo and behold we get the best shot in the entire book: J. Jonah Jameson riding in to save Spider-Man on an electric scooter.

Coello and Reber make Jonah look like an absolute mad lad as he rushes into danger without a second thought to save Spider-Man. Fiery explosions ring out behind him, his pose makes him look like he came straight out of a Tony Hawk game and Spider-Man is absolutely shocked at all of this. Legitimately, it’s a really badass panel and one that should go down as one of the best out of context shots in comic history.

Spider-Man reacts as we would expect, chastising Jonah for putting himself in danger. Jonah retorts that he and Spider-Man were supposed to be a team after Jonah owned up to his some of his worst actions after a gang of supervillains confronted him and Spider-Man earlier in the series. Though he was supposed to keep it secret at the request of his sister, Teresa Parker, Spider-Man reveals to Jonah that the bank he robbed was a front for a criminal organization and that he needed to run because there were too many bad guys. As Jonah flees, he vows to Spider-Man that he’ll make his life easier one way or another.

Soon after, we get an amazing double page spread of Spider-Man taking down these nameless villains as Chance counts down. He thwips, kicks and smashes these clowns over the head with his signature Spidey style before Chance announces that the house wins after Spider-Man takes them all down.

As far as art showcasing goes, Coello, Reber and Joe Caramagna smash it out of the park here. The panels flow as the action moves between Spider-an acrobatic antics and Chance’s excited facial expressions. Colors are rich and switch between explosive oranges to dynamic blue skies. The lettering is truly amazing as every sound effect is emphasized and given proper placement for effect.

Spider-Man wins, but soon gets a call from Teresa, asking him if he knows what Top Secret means. He questions what’s going on and then sees the headline from J. Jonah Jameson exposing the plot and why Spider-Man is a hero for it, accompanied by Jonah raising his arms into the air with childlike excitement. This is gonna be a wacky adventure.

This book was a lot of fun and I’m glad Nick Spencer is writing it. He’s able to bring the funny and really works with his artists to give each issue and story its own identity. None of them feel exactly the same and that’s commendable.

With much thanks to Chip Zdarsky, Nick Spencer continues to build on the relationships established in the Spectacular Spider-Man series with Jameson doing his best to repay Peter for all the times he’s called him a menace after revealing his identity to his former biggest antagonist. At the same time, it’s nice that Peter’s also keeping in contact with his sister Teresa, a character that absolutely has a lot more going on that people might expect.

Iban Coello is an amazing artist and makes every page look so dynamic and fun, combined with Brian Reber’s coloring, this is an awesome looking Spider-Man book. Joe Caramagna as always does a stellar job by placing each balloon so that the dialogue is easy to follow without cluttering up the pages, emphasizing words to give every character a unique voice and placing sound effects so that one can almost hear the pages as they turn. I enjoyed all of this immensely.

If there’s any criticism I could level at this book, it would be the drawing out of the eventual conflict between Spider-Man and Kindred. I know Nick Spencer is playing the long game and he’s very good at it, making me anticipate it with every issue the creepy villain appears in, but there has to be substantial storytelling in the mean time. Hunted was an amazing story from start to finish, but the 2099 crossover left a lot to be desired.

In between, there hasn’t been much to rave about. Even the Absolute Carnage crossover and the Sinister Syndicate storyline have been on the lower levels of Spencer’s stories during his time on Spider-Man. Sure they were fun, but unlike the absolute hilarity that is the storyline with Boomerang, they feel a bit disjointed from the rest of the stellar story that Spencer is telling. I get a similar feeling from this issue despite how fun it was.

But don’t let my impatience stop you from buying this book

Best of Marvel: Week of December 11th, 2019

Best of this Week: Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #14 – Tom Taylor, Marguerite Sauvage, Ken Lashley, Rachelle Rosenberg and Travis Lanham

There’s a reason Spider-Man is Marvel’s most popular hero.

He’s the everyman. The guy that everyone of any age can relate to to some degree, or at least want to be even a little. Sometimes he’s down on his luck, but he always pushes on. He somehow manages to juggle work-life balance with superheroism thrown into that awful mix. He has family and friends that care about him so much as he cares about them and though sometimes he’s late or missed things, it’s always for a good reason, because he’s saving the world. What’s a better way to repay all of his devotion than by being there for him for even just one night?

That’s the entire premise of this issue and it absolutely builds off of the rest of this run to produce an almost tear inducing finale that made everything worth it. As sad as I am that this down-to-Earth superhero story is ending, it’s certainly going out on a high note.

Ever since Aunt May’s cancer diagnosis in, I think, issue #4, her health has always been this lingering concern throughout the book. Even before Peter found out about May, we got an amazing issue where Spider-Man teamed up with his new sidekick, Spider-Bite, and we got that reveal that he had a potentially terminal disease. It was wonderful because Spider-Man showed that he was never too high in the clouds to remember who he was fighting for. Even when the kid wanted to give up, or didn’t have hope, Spider-Man was there for him and it was beautiful. Peter found a way to give that kid strength against all odds.

Peter, however, upon finding out about Aunt May’s diagnosis, didn’t have the same strength. He didn’t want to believe it. He stormed off, not knowing what to do. He had saved the universe, billions of lives and there was effectively nothing he could do for his ailing Aunt. It’s such a real, but childish response to horrible news like that. However, for Peter, it’s normal. Peter’s done everything under the sun to protect Aunt May in the past, even going so far as to sell his love and marriage with Mary Jane to Mephisto in order to save May’s life for another decade in our time. All May really needed was Peter to be there for her and he realized as much.

Aunt May, ever the tough cookie, didn’t respond to the news with defeated grief. Instead she reopened the FEAST center for New York’s homeless to do something good with whatever time she had left and without a doubt helped the community despite the many times it was destroyed or threatened by supervillains. She wasn’t going to let cancer stop her from being the amazing woman that she always has been.

This book begins with a flashback sequence drawn by Marguerite Sauvage. Colored in red and white, Aunt May consoles a crying Peter after he gets yelled at by Uncle Ben for running away. He misses his parents, but May is there to assure him that he’s never alone and that as he goes to sleep, she will be there when he wakes up. It’s a touching scene made great by Sauvage’s warm coloring, soft shadows and sweet body language that shows the affection between them.

When the flashback ends and we cut to the modern day, May goes in for her first round of treatments and Peter makes the same promise to her that she made for him, that he’ll be there when she wakes up. Of course, given the good old Parker luck, a supervillain manages to crash New York’s power grid, causing the hospital to lose power as well. Initially, Peter wants to stay in the hospital and drink their bad coffee, but his guilt convinces him that he’s needed in the city and he shoots off to fight whoever may be thinking of taking advantage of the darkness.

Initially, I thought this issue was going to be another one of Peter’s gauntlets where he’d have to go up against all of his villains and save the day alone and it sure seemed that way. Ken Lashley sets up a conflict with Shocker, making him look cool and dangerous with Rachelle Rosenberg’s colors making his energy waves look devastating. Just as the two are about to fight, Shocker gets THWIPPED away by Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Miles tells Peter that he’s not supposed to be out in the city tonight and asks his mentor to follow him.

Lashley stuns with a sequence of many of Peter’s friends protecting Spider-Man’s neighborhood for the night. Rumor, the newest elderly superhero that’s made her name in this series, Human Torch, Iron Man, Ben Grimm, Ms. Marvel, Mr. Fantastic, Miles and the Defenders (Jessica, Luke and Danny) all show up for him. Spider-Man may not get the respect from the public at large, but he has managed to cultivate amazing friendships among his own fellow heroes and what more could he possibly ask for?

Spider-Man returns to the hospital and tries to sneak back in when he’s stopped by a kid who gives him a bit of information on who might have caused the blackout. He manages to get a hold of Detective Sebbens, the officer he befriended early on in the series and she gives him an address. It leads him to a suburban neighborhood which is hilarious as Ken Lashley draws him running around like a nerd. Spider-Man finds the home and the perpetrator, a simple high school kid.

This is the bit that made me absolutely love this issue.

Peter understands that the kid is just that, a kid, so he calmly asks him to reboot the city’s power. The kid, Darick, does so, to the surprise of Spider-Man. He cites the many many times that Spider-Man has saved the world and even apologizes for making Spider-Man’s life harder. Spider-Man doesn’t come down hard on him. He sees that Darick’s a smart kid, able to hack the Social Services website into showing that he had a family when he’s been alone. Pete says there’ll be consequences, but promises to be there for him and says that he’ll talk to other people he knows about Darick – hopefully putting him on the right path.

The last beautiful shot is a mirror of what Aunt May said to Peter all those years ago as he’s there when she wakes up.

Tom Taylor knows how to write a damn good story. He understands what Spider-Man is all about; the little guy, the man on the street. Universe eating monsters be damned, Spider-Man will take on any threat, but what makes him so special is that he’ll always remain grounded. He didn’t have to go see the sick kid in the hospital and he certainly could have just thrown Darick under the jail, but he didn’t. He sees the good potential in everyone and gives them a chance to improve the world with that hope. That’s what’s made Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man such a refreshing story to read.

Sure, all of it may not have focused on small things, but it did focus on helping everyone. The Undercity, pensioners, how the people that Spider-Man’s saved feel about him. It’s been a wonderful ride, especially with the art teams. Ken Lashley and Marguerite Sauvage absolutely made this issue feel so personal with their stellart art.I only hope that we get to see more stories like this for other heroes. Not everything can always be the most dire of straits, sometimes it’s good to stop and smell the roses.

Best of Marvel: Week of October 16th, 2019

Best of this Week: Absolute Carnage #4 – Donny Cates, Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer, Frank Martin, Jay Leisten and Clayton Cowles

God is Coming and Eddie Brock is ready for him.

Things have not been looking good for Eddie, Peter and the rest of the heroes of New York. Carnage’s brutality and efficiency has seen him gain the upper hand at every turn imaginable, allowing him to snatch up codices from almost everyone he’s encountered. Ghost Riders haven’t been safe, Spider-People haven’t been safe and even girls with magical powers over hell haven’t been able to stop Carnage’s warpath.

The last issue saw him take the appearance of Eddie Brock to infiltrate The Maker’s lab to steal the codices from Captain America, The Thing and Wolverine, taking everyone by surprise and seeing the Hulk use the Venom Symbiote himself. This issue follows up on that excellently by showing us the fallout of Hulk merging with Venom, Eddie dealing with the loss of his other again and the heroic efforts he makes to protect his son.

The book begins with an amazingly drawn and explosive punch by Venom Hulk. Carnage is laughing as he’s being put through a wall while clawing at Hulk’s eyes. The Symbiote is barely able to contain all of Hulk’s massive musculature as it appears to be tearing apart around his fist and forearm. The use of blur around the edges of the page sell you on the velocity of the punch and all of the rubble flying out as they go through the wall shows just how heavy and impactful the blow was. For added measure, there’s even a pigeon just flying by as it all happens.

As the fight is going on, Eddie and Peter take Normie and Ethan to The Maker’s armory to protect the kids from the Symbiote Zombies and Norman Osborn himself. Eddie is dead set on protecting the other heroes, but Peter tries to convince him to stay down with the rest of them. This issue gives us one of the best glimpses of the inner heroism of Eddie Brock as he looks at Spider-Man with the most desperate look possible, one eye stitched closed and asks him to let him do this. Spider-Man does and Eddie gathers Cap’s shield and maybe some kind of electric glove to go and protect everyone. Presumably, the events of Amazing Spider-Man #31 take place while Eddie is out fighting.

The next few pages are just strings of awesomely paced and spectacularly drawn fight scenes. Eddie, armed with the shield, fights his way through Carnage’s hordes and Miles Morales as an infected symbiote re-emerges. (Sorta ignoring the events of Miles’ own tie-in) Elsewhere, Venom Hulk and Carnage continue their romp around the warehouse district as Carnage is surprisingly holding his own against the black and green giant. Frank Martin and the various inkers really set the mood for the fight. The fires glow bright in the backgrounds with a vibrant red and white coloring to it, almost like a fiery mist. Rain crashes down around them and the inks are dark in the perfect places, really bringing out the deep red in Carnage’s color scheme as well as the black veins that now coil around his body. As Carnage mushes Hulk into a wall, you can feel his expression of pain and rage, accentuated by the glowing green of his eyes.

Pinned under Cap’s shield with Miles bearing down on him, Eddie decides to use the shock glove to blast the symbiote off of the young Spider, allowing the two to finally re-team as Miles runs down what he learned while hearing Carnage’s thoughts. He warns that if he gets Hulk’s Codex and the Venom Symbiote, he’ll be unstoppable. In a surprise upset, Carnage overpowers the mind of the Hulk, turning him back into Banner and rips his spine right out as Eddie and Miles show up. It’s a disgusting scene as they always are with Cowles making sure to put as much emphasis as he can by giving it a nice “SHRIPP” sound effect in big, bold, red letters over an entirely black background.

Before we know it, Carnage is covered in the Venom Symbiote, becoming an ultra badass. Ryan Stegman has done a lot to redesign some of the elements of some symbiotes, but this Black Carnage is somehow so much cooler and so much better. He looks like a demon knight with the pauldrons with spikes, an improbable neck guard/collar and Maleficent-esque horns all crackling with hell energy. Eddie begins to lose all hope upon seeing him, but that feeling is washed away when Captain America, The Thing and Wolverine all show up to help in the fight.

Miles grabs Eddie and tells him that the Maker’s machine that was supposed to destroy the codices did no such thing and instead saved them all. The last moments of the book show the Doverton Avengers fight a losing effort against Carnage while Eddie punches the machine, giving his own inner monologue about how he feels something creeping up inside of him. The hope that he thought was lost. Surrounded by all of this blackness and despair, Carnage and all of his bringers of Death, Eddie punches his way to the light.

As the penultimate issue to Absolute Carnage, have to say that this event and the various tie-ins that have accompanied it have been absolutely amazing to read. I usually decry back to back event stories, especially since we had just come off the heels of War of the Realms, but Absolute Carnage fit the aesthetic of everything I love in stories. It’s dark, it’s bleak and it’s Absolutely Brutal.

Ryan Stegman can do no wrong here as his art style is amazing from start to finish, he has an eye for action scenes and makes great use of single a double page spreads to bring out the most in every scene. Even when the fighting is confined to a few panels, he manages to spring as many infected as he can into the space, making things feel claustrophobic and dangerous. Frank Martin’s colors give this book life, however, when they’re burning with darkness or glimmer with small glimpses of hope. They complete the amazing package by pulling the emotion out of you, whether you’re terrified or you have a bit of hope only or it to be ripped away.

JP Mayer and Jay Leisten help him by making sure that the pages have the perfect amount of darkness to them. The inks are phenomenal and really help to give off that feeling of hopelessness and danger in every scene, even better that most of this story takes place at night so the mood is always set.

I love that Eddie Brock is starting to be seen less as the villain who used to eat people’s brains and more as this responsible every-man that’s been caught in an extraordinary situation. When he got the Symbiote back at the end of Lee Price’s time in All-New, All Different Marvel, I never expected him to get this much heart. That’s the main thing that Donny Cates has contributed to this character, that feeling of heroism.

Eddie’s becoming a much better person than he ever was in the past, but at the same time, we know that he can never fully escape who he was. Even at the end of this issue there was a transcription of his first time in jail when he first met Cletus Kasady and it was so weird to see how unhinged Eddie was not too long ago.

As Absolute Carnage draws to a close (and with Venom Island on the horizon) I can’t wait to see what direction his story takes and how Eddie Brock could possibly see Avenger status in the far future. High recommend.

Best of Marvel: Week of August 28th, 2019

Runner Up: Absolute Carnage #2 – Donny Cates, Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer, Frank Martin and Clayton Cowles

God is Here.

After the events of the last issue there aren’t enough words to describe just how hopeless things are looking for anyone who has ever worn a symbiote.

Spider-Man and venom have been backed into a corner by Carnage and his horde of infected inmates at the Ravencroft Asylum. With no other options Eddie decides it best to break out and punches a hole through the wall for a tactical retreat. Eddie is typically known for his ability to brute force his way through any problem, but Carnage is a new monster altogether and as he sees Spider-Man running out of energy, he gives into the fear that they might die.

In the past, the combined might of Spider-Man and Venom has been more than enough to combat Cletus Kasady. Even when Cletus had help, he still couldn’t hold a candle to the heroes, but now, they’re almost low tier by comparison.

Spider-Man notes that he’s almost out of web fluid, so there’s no way that they’re swinging out of there, so Eddie and the Symbiote utilize one of their badass upgrades, spreads his wings and flies out of Ravencroft with Peter screaming frantically “WHATISGOINGONRIGHTNOWIHATEALLOFIT!” They then land on a roof in the city, defeated and horrified that they may not be able to stop Carnage this time.

Spider-Man says that he’ll try to get a hold of Wolverine and Captain America and Eddie says that he’ll go find any of the lowlifes that have been Symbiotes and the two split to complete their missions. Carnage chooses not to follow after them, instead he waits and plots. This issue then turns into a bit of a catch up game for the other tie in issues while Carnage gloats to Norman that everything is running smoothly and that the world will be painted red soon enough.

Ryan Stegman absolutely smashes the art in this issue with absolutely killer detail, expressions of fear and disgusting visuals, especially in Carnage’s underground lair – The sprawling mass of symbiotic flesh that covers New York’s sewage system, packed full of infected humans is a dreadful sight. In the beginning of the issue, Stegman drew a splash page of Carnage with other panels overlaid, showing one of his eyes of madness and the decayed flesh that’s absolutely under the symbiote. It’s an absolutely terrifying sight that set the tone of this horror show.

Not only were these shots great, but Stegman kills one of the moments that happens in the Miles Morales tie-in where Miles and Scorpion (Mac Gargan) fight off the infected hordes trying to take Gargan’s spine. In the tie-in, the art is more subdued and less violent, but here, Stegman turns it into something to get squeamish over. Gargan tries to abandon Miles to fight the infected alone, but is thrown back into the fight by Venom.

Unfortunately, Carnage is there waiting to pounce. He plunges a tendril into Mac’s back and DIGS around to get that spine. There’s no need to leave anything to the imagination as the blood spurts out, Gargan screams in agony and Kasady looks like he’s having the goddamned time of his life. Mayer and Martin’s colors and inks really sell just how violent all of this is. It’s almost gross just how close they get the color right and how dark the scene is. Miles swoops in to save him, but… no good deed goes unpunished.

Absolute Carnage absolutely does what it set out to do. I have never been more afraid for the Marvel Universe than I am right now. Of course, there have been universal threats, but with how close and personal this feels and the looming feeling of dread knowing that Knull is THIS close to returning is mortifying. Normally a villain will just kill a hero or destroy them and whatnot, but Carnage wants nothing but massacre. If there’s not torture and blood then what is it all worth?

Everything that Cates and Stegman have been building to has lead us here. To say that it’s beginning to lay off would be an understatement. The dividends of fear are fore more exponential than anyone could have anticipated and this will likely go down as one of the greatest Venom/Carnage stories ever written. Absolute High Recommend.

Best of Marvel: Week of August 28th, 2019

Best of this Week: Spider-Man Life Story #6: The ‘10s – Chip Zdarsky, Mark Bagley, Drew Hennessy, Frank D’Armata and Travis Lanham

All good things must come to an end. That’s the main theme of this final issue of Chip Zdarsky and Mark Bagley’s phenomenal Life Story miniseries as it recounts the last adventure that Spider-Man goes on as he leaves the world free and safe in the capable hands of the new generation of superheroes.

Comic books are cyclical. For some heroes, you get a short run, 6-12 issues and then they disappear for years until they’re needed again for some big event. For the bigger heroes, there are ongoing series that last years upon years with some BIG changes that inevitably get reversed for the sake of reestablishing the status quo. It’s understandable, recognizable names draw big money, but there’s only so many times you can see a hero fight a particular villain before it becomes trite and meaningless.

The same goes for their daily lives as well. Peter Parker has been stuck as a meandering young adult for the better part of a decade since the events of One More Day and he hasn’t been allowed to grow past his immaturity, save for the few times when the situations have become desperate and dire. Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows tried to posit a family man Peter Parker in an alternate universe, but for the most part he came off as just regular Peter with a kid to banter off of. Nick Spencer and Tom Taylor are doing their best in their respective Spider-Man series to get Spider-Man back to a position where things actively change for him, but Chip Zdarsky has gone the extra mile.

The Spider-Man Life Story miniseries goes through Peter’s life if he actually aged with the decades that all of his comics took place in. He goes through the struggles of being an American citizen straddling the fence during Vietnam, the aftermath boiling to a superhuman civil war, a better Clone Saga of the 90s, Aunt May’s death, the start of the information age and finally having children and watching them grow up. Peter Parker is allowed to grow old, change with the times. He sees old friends die, new heroes emerge, give his take on current events of the time and it’s all been amazing.

I know I mentioned that fighting the same villains over and over can seem trite and meaningless, but that’s only when they’re done for the sake of being done. In this fantastic take on the Superior Spider-Man story, Peter and Otto have their absolute final confrontation with one another over the body and soul of the young Miles Morales. Peter and Miles are shot into space to stop some sort of satellite created by Doctor Doom that allowed him to fill the power vacuum left by Captain America and Iron Man’s Civil War. As the two explore, Peter is attacked by Kraven wearing the Venom symbiote, but he dispatches the villain easily and it’s revealed that the suit was just piloting a are skeleton.

Miles questions how it was possible and Peter replies that all of his old enemies are dead and rightfully accuses Miles of being Otto Octavius, Doctor Octopus. Otto reveals his scheme, but instead of fighting Pete physically, he chooses instead to go into the mindscape and have a battle of the intellect as they were always destined to do.

Bagey pulls out all of his stops as he draws Spider-Man costumes from the various decades as well as beautifully illustrates some of the best of Spider-Man’s rogues gallery as they battle for supremacy. Set against a white background, the characters shine with their vibrant colors, dynamic posing and Bagley’s ever amazing facial expressions. I have never seen Otto look so menacingly mad and subsequently, once Peter defeats him, absolutely crushed.

Using the only person that Peter knew Otto cared about, Aunt May, she’s able to convince Otto to let go of his hatred and rage. She tells him to let Miles live his life, to move on. I really felt this and inside, it feels like Zdarsky is also telling us that sometimes we have to let the status quo go. Spider-Man has been around for longer than some of us have been alive and will be long after most of us are gone. Do we really want him to be the same mid-20s to early 30s hero that we knew, or do we want to spend our time with someone new? Miles Morales is a little more than ten years old, he’s fairly young as a character and I wholeheartedly believe that he can carry on the Spider-Man name on his own.

As the satellite starts to collapse and there’s only one escape pod left, Peter chooses to save Miles and sacrifice himself so that the future can flourish in peace due to his heroism. It’s a true heroes death and something that we almost never see (and likely never will), but if this were a true moment of closure, then I would be happy with it. Peter Parker is known for having more guilt than a Catholic who hasn’t been to Mass for a month (or Daredevil) and as he finally closes his eyes for the final time, he has a nice conversation with Mary Jane and recounts his recurring dream of the day he truly learned about power and responsibility. The last panel is his guilt finally being washed away.

If there is one series I would recommend anyone read, hands down, without a doubt it would be this one. Chip Zdarsky has a strange yet beautiful understanding of how to tell a story with characters that some of us know better than our own family members. Mark Bagley has the art skills to make us care about them immensely as well. Putting these two together as well as their amazing inker in Andrew Hennessy and colorist in Frank D’Armata, they sell you on each decade presented and how Peter changes throughout.

Spider-Man isn’t the same plucky youth we met in the 1960s. By the end of his story, he’s led a full life full of adventure and his time has been well spent making sure that it was a future worth living in. Isn’t that something that we all can only dream of?

Best of Marvel: Week of August 21st, 2019

Runner Up: The Superior Spider-Man #10 (Legacy #43) – Christos Gage, Mike Hawthorne, Wade von Grawbadger, Jordie Bellaire and Clayton Cowles

Things were looking up for Otto Octavius. He had found a nice woman and was slowly falling in love, he had mended fences with Anna-Maria in a way. After the events of War of the Realms, he was a respected and loved hero in San Francisco and then it all came crashing down.

After taking the lovely Emma on a swing through the city, The Spider-Man of San Francisco goes on to visit the child he saved all the way back in issue #4 and help his new adoptive parents get custody of him. These small moments of warmness are a far cry from the maniacal nature that we were once accustomed to from Octavius. Bellaire colors most these scenes in a nice, warm orange. Giving us this feeling of joy and some happiness for Otto… at least until he’s discussing having a child with Emma and she alerts him to the news report that asks if the SF Spider-Man is really Otto Octavius.

Things start to spiral even further as Spider-Man is interviewed and dances around the question and the Brothers Grimm acknowledge that he hired them for some temp work if they went straight, alluding to the first arc of the book. Otto is furious, Anna-Maria gives him snark and Emma tells him that he needs to face things head on, getting in front of it all. He can prove that he’s changed. Unfortunately, Anna-Maria brings up the kid as an example of someone who he’s helped and he swings to the apartment to find the foster parents angry and the child sad that he lied. Normally Otto wouldn’t think twice about lying to someone or omitting information, but looking into that child’s eyes as he began to cry, Otto reveals that he lied because he wanted the kid to like him and they hug.

Soon after, Otto is called back to Horizon University where he is known as Professor Tolliver. Max Modell is waiting for him as he’s received an email telling him that Tolliver is actually Otto Octavius. Surprisingly to Otto, Max already knew. Max Modell may act like a goof, but he’s not considered one of the brightest minds in Marvel for no reason. He ran a DNA test to confirm soon after his emergence and gave “Tolliver” a chance to prove himself a changed man and given that he has, he’s been trying to help clear his name.

With Max’s security footage and his own enhanced suit, Otto is able to determine that it was actually Spiders-Man that sent all of the incriminating data to everyone. Once Spiders-Man realizes he’s caught, the thousands of spiders that make up his form reconstitute until Ock defeats him and compresses the former Peter Parker’s consciousness into one Spider-Body. After some pushing, Spiders-Man reveals that it was Norman Osborn’s idea. This Norman Osborn, however, is from another dimension where he’s the Spider Totem and his main enemy was a Green Goblin Peter Parker, if I remember right.

Spiders-Man also tells Otto that Norman is in his own dimension, safe from harm. During the events of Spider-Geddon, the Web of Fate was destroyed, making dimensional travel much harder for Spider people. Octavius hits a wall until Anna-Maria comes out that she’s saved a bit of Terrax’s energy from the first arc in the Living Brain robot, in case Otto ever reverted. This makes him sink even lower, but ultimately he understands and tries to use the power to make a portal…only Norman planned for this and over loads the machine, causing it to destroy the building almost killing everyone inside if not for Otto.

Otto manages to save Max and Anna-Maria, but is swiftly defeated and left for dead by Norman who was there the entire time. When Otto asks why Norman is doing this, he responds in the most Norman Osborn way possible by saying, “You insulted me.”

Just when Otto Octavius was finding his place in the world as a hero, forces mostly belong his control have made their move in an effort to derail him. Otto finally seems happy, even helping out a young child that he absolutely has no obligation to and starting a budding new relationship with an older woman that’s just as smart as he. Things were going well, he even got a key to the city for crying out loud!

But, as fate befalls all Spiders, his terrible actions in the past are coming back to haunt him. Who’s to say that Mephisto doesn’t have a little bit of a hand in this as well? We can only hope things turn out well for Otto in the end, but not before Norman makes things much, much worse.

Best of Marvel: Week of August 7th, 2019

Best of this Week: Absolute Carnage #1 – Donny Cates, Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer, Frank Martin and Clayton Cowles

God is Here.

The seeds have been sown all over the Marvel Universe for the re-emergence of Carnage in a big way for months. He’s had single back-up pages in The Avengers, Black Cat, Captain Marvel, Immortal Hulk and many others portending his arrival and the sheer amount of people and creatures that are now within his thrall. Everything is coming to a head and it is absolutely terrifying.

The book begins with Eddie Brock recalling the events of everything Donny Cates has written since he took over the character.and other past events that have ultimately shaped what will soon happen. Eddie tells his son Dylan, who doesn’t know that Eddie is his father, about Knull, the God of the Symbiotes, and how he’s being kept asleep by the planet of symbiotes surrounding him. The only way for Knull to be woken up is if someone collected enough symbiote pieces and DNA to reconnect to the hive mind and if Knull is reawakened, he will begin spreading a new age of darkness across the cosmos.

Eddie references the fights against the Dragon of Knull in the beginning of his run, but also talks about the other people who have held the Symbiote or symbiotes. He pulls so much history out in so few sentences, along with a stellar double page spread by Stegman that one might be convinced to check out other great stories just to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Characters from Maximum Carnage are shown, heroes that may have been changed during Venomized and of course Captain America, The Thing and Wolverine from the amazing Carnage USA.

After Eddie recounts the danger that the two are in, they see that Eddie is a wanted man after killing many inmates at Ryker’s Island. Of course Eddie was never there and after suspecting that they’re being followed, Eddie tells Dylan that they need to make a break for it and they run away from their tail into the subway. Unfortunately for them, Cletus Kasady was lying in wait and pushes them onto the tracks, only for them to be saved by their tail; Venom.

Eddie re-bonds with the symbiote after derailing the train and a new and terrifying Carnage confronts them. Stegman wastes not a single stroke in making Carnage look like a menacing force of pure psychotic evil. His teeth are jagged, his limbs are gangly with “skin” that looks like it’s constantly dripping with blood an his ribcage and spine are exposed, but covered in the same material. He could almost be considered skeletal if not for the pumping veins all around him. This is a Monster Carnage, even more terrifying than 2015’s Carnage series and many times more powerful.

Carnage, like most children of other symbiotes, has always been stronger than Venom. Though, with enough force and maybe some help, Carnage has always been defeated one way or another, but not this time. Kasady beats the ever living hell out of Venom, smacking him in the face and smashing him into the ground. He gets right on the cusp of killing him before Eddie grabs the third rail of the subway line and electrocutes the both of them, a temporary victory so that he and Dylan can escape. The symbiote puts Eddie into something of a coma while he heals the body and takes them to the one person that can help.

In a little diner where they think it’s safe, Eddie, Dylan and Spider-Man talk about what’s been going on. Spider-Man is taken aback and annoyingly jokes to Eddie about all of this being out of his league before a news report is shown depicting a mass grave of people that have had their spines ripped out, likely for the Symbiote DNA or Codices (plural for Codex) as Eddie calls them. After some chumps try to rob the diner, Spider-Man takes them out handedly while formulating a plan with Eddie, saying that Reed Richards could have made a machine to help remove the Codex from anyone that has ever been attached to a symbiote, but he would have needed to start long ago.

We then cut to The Maker, the Reed Richards from the Ultimate Universe that has taken up residence in the 616 Universe, as he’s actually been working on such a machine for use on Flash Thompson. The Maker’s goals and those of his employers are unknown and that makes for horrifying implications because there is no way that he is up to any sort of good at all and makes it clear that he too is trying to reunite the symbiotes.

Spider-Man shows up with Normie Osborn as the first possible test subject, but doesn’t want it to be used until he knows that it’s safe. Maker moans that if he has to be so sure, then he should find someone else with a codex, someone dangerous that Carnage may in fact go after next. Peter and Eddie get the same thought: Norman Osborn.

Norman had used the Carnage symbiote to become the Red Goblin not too long ago and after his defeat at the hands of Spider-Man, lost his mind and gained the memories and personality of Cletus Kasady. Things go to hell in a handbasket very quickly as John Jameson, the guard who let them into Ravencroft also known as the Man-Wolf, reveals himself as another of Carnage’s infected puppets.

Mayer then coats the book in an intense and overbearing red hue, signaling nothing but danger as Carnage throws pieces of himself into each cell. There are elements of body horror as he pulls these tiny bits of himself out of his chest and they burrow into the victims. Kasady’s mouth and eyes also seem to drip with his symbiote form as he and the other barrel down on Venom and Spider-Man. A giant and beautiful brawl ensues with the infected ripping and tearing at the pair. The mass of bodies overwhelm and Eddie almost begins to kill before being reigned in by Spider-Man. Unfortunately Spider-Man gets caught by Carnage.

It was around here that I had the realization that Pete and Cletus haven’t actually clashed in YEARS. Maybe as far back as 2011’s Carnage USA was the last time the two fought, so to see Pete finally see him again with half of his mask gone, there’s a small bit of fear in his body language. This is doubled as Carnage throws Spider-Man into Norman’s cell door, breaking it open to reveal a deranged Norman who appears to have been slicing himself with a piece of glass in his cell. With the combination of the bright red of his blood juxtaposed against the darkness of his cell, Norman stands out, not as the cunning genius that we knew him, but as another victim of Carnage and he smiles with mad glee.

Absolute Carnage #1 absolutely lives up to the hype that has been built for it. This story can expand so far and with the tie-ins that have been announced, I’m actually very excited. Carnage has been scary, but this is on a whole new level for him. You never quite know who is one of his thralls! Hell, John Jamson appeared to be completely normal until the trigger was pulled in him and turned him into another monster. Carnage has always been a problem for the larger Marvel universe whenever people have had to fight him individually. Deadpool had a hard time fighting him. Captain America, Wolverine, Hawkeye and the Thing almost died fighting him. Even when he was temporarily a good guy during AXIS, he was still horrifically dangerous.

With new god-like abilities, lack of weaknesses and unimaginable unpredictability, what can anyone do?

Ryan Stegman’s art needs to be absolutely praised as well. His lines are crisp and heavy in an almost perfect way. He manages to give things a darkness and depth to them that makes everything feel absolutely brutal, disgusting and weighty. He can capture faces of absolute terror, rage and every wonderful expression that Venom makes. Personally I love how emotive he makes Spider-Man’s mask with the eyes widening and shrinking with his surprise or incredulity. He also has a talent for spreads as there are about three really good ones that really shows his skill for depth of field. Venom and Spider-Man also look incredibly strong. We all know that I love muscular art and all of their muscles are accentuated through their costumes. Spider-Man has his lithe and athletic body and Venom is nothing but raw strength and I love it.

Absolute Carnage hit every correct note. There was violence, horror and even a little bit of family drama. The stakes are very high and while not on the same scale as War of the Realms, the sheer amount of murders caused and their horrifying nature is more than enough to be concerned about. Donny Cates looks like he’s going to do it again with his first big Marvel event (I think, I don’t really remember) and bring us all to another level of badass storytelling.

High recommend.

Best of Marvel: Week of July 17th, 2019

Runner Up: The Superior Spider-Man #9 (Legacy #42) – Christos Gage, Mike Hawthorne, Wade von Grawbadger, Jordie Bellaire and Clayton Cowles

The “Superior” Spider-Man is actually starting to live up to the ideal.

After the events of the War of the Realms, the Spider-Man of San Francisco is awarded the key to the city for his efforts in making sure that there were zero casualties as Frost Giants stomped their way across SanFran. He accepts the gesture, but “crime” calls him away, only it’s not a crime, he simply thinks he has better things to do with his time than deal with the trivialities of ceremonies. He heads back to his lab and converses with Anna Maria about her making him go to the ceremony and summarily dismisses his colleague Emma after she apologizes for freaking out on him on their first date.

Otto seems to be in a bigger huff than usual and takes his frustrations out on a minor villain by the name of Turner D. Century. Century’s quickly defeated after a savage beating by Otto and the surprise appearance by Spider-Man, Peter Parker. Peter shows up at the request of Anna Maria and being one of the men who knows Otto best, he simply asks what’s wrong. Otto has been irritable, moody and angry since he saved the city and he obviously has no one to talk to.

He immediately spills to Peter that while he was able to keep San Francisco safe, thousands of people still died in the US, more abroad. He removes his mask and Hawthorne paints the face of a man that’s tortured by guilt and doubt. Otto feels that he’s the greatest mind in the world and that he should have thought of something. He doesn’t want to hear Pete say that he can’t save everyone, but it’s eating him up inside that he can’t.

By far, this is some of the best character work and advancement that we’ve seen from Otto in a while. He tried to become a hero, tried to be a good guy while he was inhabiting Peter’s body, but now that he’s doing it on his own and seeing the fruits and consequences of his labors, he sees how hard it is. He’s becoming a good guy and I’m here for it.

After Peter tells him that he’s doing the hero thing right, Emma shows up on the roof that they’ve swung up to and Otto breaks down in tears in front of her. He tries to posture that he’s a loner and asks if he looks like someone that needs anything from anyone before being held by her. He cries in her arms and they finally go on a second date with a surprising enemy spying on them.

I love it when heroes become good guys, no matter how brief it might be, watching Otto rise before his inevitable fall is interesting. I love the fact that he’s sort of mended fences with Anna Maria, I love that he’s found a near intellectual equal in Emma. He has a life and is using his smarts as a teacher and a hero in San Francisco. His ego is still huge, but he’s finally starting to see his faults, becoming Superior than Doctor Octopus.

Mike Hawthorne’s art is stellar. He has a talent for faces and body language. Otto expresses frustration, annoyance and grief; not only in his face, but with the slumping of his shoulders, the shaking in his hands and the tension in his fists. He even somehow finds a way to differentiate between Peter and Otto’s bodies given that Otto’s is cloned.

This Superior Spider-Man has far more emotion in this one issue than Otto’s had in the many years since the original run. It’s a joy to see the once horrible villain embrace his own good emotions for the benefit of others. This is a definite high recommend!

Best of Marvel: Week of July 10th, 2019

Runner Up: Miles Morales: Spider-Man #8 (Legacy #248) – Saladin Ahmed, Javier Garrón, David Curiel and Travis Lanham

Something about black people and being experimented on makes me uncomfortable.

In the last issue, Miles was captured by some sort of weird teleporting being after helping Bombshell fight off some ridiculously strong robots. This issue begins with him in some dark room, strapped to some kind of operating table with a heart beat monitor and only a creepy robot-thing to keep him company.

Miles looks absolutely terrified. Not only because he doesn’t know where he is or who captured him, but the robot interacting with him says that its boss, The Assessor, will target Miles’ family and friends if he doesn’t comply. Miles agrees to the experiments and tests if only just to keep them safe.

The Assessor tests his combat, speed and climbing abilities and pushes Miles to his absolute limits. He’s run ragged in a way that is seldom seen except in cases where the threat is life or death. It goes on and on for an undetermined amount of time until Miles wakes up in an operating room where doctors discuss his DNA and maybe kidnapping his family for more subjects.

This angers and scares Miles into breaking free, beating up the doctors and defeating the teleporting enemy from before to make his grand escape.

Only… it turns out to be another test.

Saladin Ahmed absolutely nailed this issue with his focus on the bleakness and fear in Miles and the situation he’s in. He made me genuinely terrified to turn the pages and see the next torture Miles would have to go through. Ahmed writes Miles like the scared teenage superhero that he is, he’s hopeful, but frantic in the face of an enemy that knows who he is and how to hurt him.

Javier Garrón and David Curiel do their best to nail the unsettling feeling of the sanitized experimental environment that Miles finds himself in and utilize panel layouts to make the book even more terrifying.

Every blank space around each panel is black compared to the normal white. Every panel is also small and feels claustrophobic, leaning heavily into the nature of the facility Miles finds himself in. In it’s own way, it’s clean and very structured to the point where it feels like you could be trapped reading the book.

I also feel like there’s something here in the fact that it’s the black Spider-Man being experimented on. Of course Pete has been poked and prodded every which way for years, but the way that the doctors and the robot were talking about Miles, made him seem less than human. He was never called a kid, just “the Subject.”

Truly there are three absolutely horrifying pages in this issue. The first is where Miles has been ordered to sleep and he’s shrouded in darkness aside from his face and the heartbeat monitor. The other is the double page spread of about 18 – 26 panels of Miles running, fighting, being scared, bleeding and all of the tortures he’s put through while captured.

This issue is a high recommend because it’s a well written and fantastically drawn chapter in this Miles Morales run. Saladin Ahmed draws heavily from his Black Bolt series in terms of storytelling and Garrón makes it all so real and visceral. As far as this run goes, this issue and the one prior are pretty good starting points if you’ve missed the rest!