Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1:
Summary: We start things off 11 months ago with Norman Osborn in one of his secret laboratories trying to recreate the spider that gave Peter Parker all of those Spidery powers he wound up with. Fast forward several months where we find a thief sneaking into the now closed Osborn lab to steal some mystery item. While the thief is swiping the item, one of Osborn's experimental spiders crawls into the thief's bag. From there we meet Miles Morales and his parents, who were attending a lottery to see if young Miles would get selected to a new charter school. As luck would have it, Miles' number gets called, meaning he'd get to attend the fancy school, hopefully giving him a way out of his neighborhood. While Miles' folks are happy, Miles isn't quite as thrilled as he feels bad for all the kids who didn't make it. From there, Miles heads off to tell his Uncle Aaron's apartment to tell him the news. Aaron is happy for Miles and goes to get the kid a popsicle to celebrate, at which time Miles begins to admire the item that was stolen from Osborn's labs earlier this issue. While Miles is checking out the mystery item, the spider from the lab crawls out of Aaron's bag and bites Miles, causing the boy to pass out. Miles eventually comes to, much to the relief of his worried uncle and angry father, who had been called by Aaron after Miles collapsed. It seems Aaron and Miles dad don't see eye to eye, and the two men begin to argue. While they are arguing, Miles slips out of the apartment and is surprised to learn that he had gained some sort of camouflage powers.
Thoughts: Yep, that was this entire issue... I have to say, I was kind of expecting something more here. Instead we got a basic introduction to Miles(who Brian Bendis was trying REALLY hard to make likable, as evidenced by the scene when Miles was accepted to the charter school), the obligatory spider-bite(really? We couldn't get a different origin?!), and that's pretty much it. I guess I should be glad Miles' Uncle Aaron wasn't an uber-goody-goody who started lecturing Miles on great power leading to great responsibility... Now here's the thing. Although nothing much happened here, I was never REALLY bored with this comic. I mean some of it was a bit eye-rolling(come on, ANOTHER spider bite leading to powers?!), but I never wanted to stop reading. As a bonus, Bendis' at times ultra-wordy dialogue style never reared it's ugly head. So yeah, while this issue WAS a bit boring, and the fact that Miles received his powers in a near identical way as Peter Parker DOES leave me wondering why Peter was killed in the first place, I didn't hate this one. I'll definitely pick up the next issue due out at the end of the month, but I'll be hoping we get a bit more action to make things a tad more interesting.
Score: 6 out of 10.
Damn those radioactive spiders and their constant biting of teenage boys!!!
Lol, nice review. I enjoyed this issue a bit more than you, and of course it was predictable with the Spider bite but yeah, what else can they do short of him mistakenly eating a spider or something dumber. :P But yeah, I enjoyed it and it wasn't boring either, it was a fast read too, and I mean that in a good way.
ReplyDeleteWait, why did you laugh before saying "nice review"?? Regarding how Miles got his powers, there were dozens of different ways he could have received them... I mean did we necessarily NEED a spider bite involved at all? Couldn't he have developed spider-like mutant powers, been zapped with some weird beam during a Spidey battle or something along those lines? The way he got his powers just seemed so uninspired... And yeah, this issue did fly by(I was shocked when I got to the last page 'cause I was expecting more!), but there really wasn't much meat between the covers. IDK, I was expecting a bit more for a rebooted series as important to the Marvel U as a Spidey book.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Maybe they could of done it better than a spider bite. I just liked that his powers didn't seem like they came out of left field. Throughout the entire Ultimate Spider-Man books Osborn has been trying to recreate the situation that gave Spider-Man his powers. So it would make sense that there could be some of these experiments left around that happen to come across this kid.
ReplyDelete