Marvel Comics’ Upcoming ‘Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Versity’ Series Proves They Have No Idea What To Do With Miles Morales
Despite Marvel Comics regularly positioning the original Ultimate Spider-Man as one of their central and most important heroes, their upcoming Spider-Versity event proves that the former House of Ideas still has absolutely no idea what to do with Miles Morales.
Penned by current Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 7 writer Joe Kelly in partnership with Predator: Bloodshed scribe Jordan Morris and featuring Spider-Man: Torn Vol. 1 #1‘s Pepe Perez on art duties, the five-issue Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Versity will center on Norman Osborn, who in recent months has taken it upon himself to stand-in for the wall-crawler following his sudden ejection from Earth at the hands of Hellgate, as he sets out to train the next generation of Spider-heroes to their full potential.
“Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen, Silk, Araña, Spider-Boy and Spider-Girl have one thing in common – THEY AREN’T READY,” reads the series’ official logline. “According to former Resolute Spider-Man Norman Osborn. So he and Spider-Woman are going to train them to meet the next threat – the only way the Green Goblin knows how. Because the next threat might well BE the Green Goblin!”
Speaking to IGN as to just why the young heroes would willingly put themselves under Osborn’s charge, Morris asserted, “The younger Spiders all have their own take.”
“Some of them are stoked, some are more wary (specifically the ones Norman has killed before). To a certain extent, they’re all students of Pete. Even the ones who haven’t trained with him specifically see him as a role-model. Since Pete has forgiven Norman, the other Spiders are willing to give him a chance. Even though certain members of the team are mwwwwore prickly, they all share the try-and-see-the-best-in-people ethos that is so important to Pete.”
“There’s a very cool big bad in the shadows that will put this new Spider-team to the test. The Spiders want to be on the level of teams like The Avengers and X-Men but that means going up against the kind of threats those teams deal with on the reg.”
Herein lies the problem with Miles’ enrollment in Obsorn-Kwon-Do: While such combat and field training definitely makes sense for the-new-to-the-scene Spider-Boy and Spider-Girl, while Gwen, Araña, and Silk could use some advanced pointers, the Earth-1610 transplant really has no business attending class.
Regardless of one’s opinion on the character, the cards as they’ve been dealt by Marvel show that Miles is already an experienced hero in his own right, his record filled with numerous victories over supervillains and world-ending threats (as expected for a character who first hit the scene in 2011, but also definitely helped along thanks to him being the ‘face’ of the publisher’s modern efforts).
During the course of his Earth-1610 career, Miles’ ‘advanced’ milestones included:
- Being recruited and subsequently trained by the Ultimates, in particular Captain America (Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Vol. 1 #14)
- Fighting alongside the Ultimates against the assembled forces of Hydra during the Battle of Wyoming (Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Vol. 1 #17)
- Teaming up with a cadre of multiversal Spider-Men to defeat the Inheritors (Spider-Verse Vol. 1)
- Felling a hell-bent-on-revenge Green Goblin, albeit with some help from a newly-revived Peter Parker (Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1 #6)
- Standing on the frontlines against Emperor Doom’s attempts to rewrite reality (Secret Wars Vol. 1)
Since his relocation to Earth-616 following the end of Emperor Doom’s reign, his further accomplishments include:
- Single-handedly taking down the demon Blackheart (Spider-Man Vol. 2 #2)
- Serving as one of Iron Man’s point men during the second superhuman civil war (Civil War II)
- Teaming with his fellow heroes to form an underground resistance to Hydra Cap’s plans for global domination (Secret Empire)
- Besting said evil doppelganger in one-on-one combat (Secret Empire Vol. 1 #7)
- Being the first hero, alongside Eddie Brock, to take on Knull upon his arrival to Earth (Venom Vol. 4 #4)
- Leading an entire faction of his fellow web-slingers in the final showdown with the Inheritors (Spider-Geddon)
- Successfully taking on Carnage during their own, Peter Parker-less conflict (Carnage Reigns)
- Travelling to the new Ultimate universe and rescuing his sister, Billie, from the clutches of a massively-overjuiced power vampire Emmanuel Da Costa (Ultimate Incursion)
Again, the quality of the relevant stories aside, these events and many more are still a part of Miles’ canon, and thus one has to ask: So which is it, Marvel? Is Miles a full-fledged hero who received Peter’s blessing to use the Spider-Man name, or is he still just a young, relatable upstart who has yet to grasp the realities of the superhero game?
Sadly, the answer is likely ‘Both’, as his aforementioned position as one of Marvel’s main marketing and merchandising opportunities limits just how far his character can stray from his popular image while also necessitating that he be given ever-cooler story moments to justify his constant hyping-up.
After all, heaven forbid a character see some actual growth or progress over a decade plus of appearances, because that would make things interesting and force the publisher to put some effort into their marketing pushes.
Ultimately, that Marvel continues forcing Miles into this state of limbo is a massive to a character they so profusely insist is one of their big headliners – But who knows, maybe next year they’ll give him another energy sword power-up.
