COMIC BINGE: Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man, Vol. 1: Revival & Casanova, Vol. 1: Luxuria – The Complete Edition
This week I took a look at a book that I thought already existed, but I guess it didn’t. For those who are still catching up on events during Peter Parker’s absence, you may not know that there have been a few other Spider-Men who have taken his place. I’ve touched on the Superior Spider-Man a few times here at Binge Media, but now that that run is over I’m glad to get back to a young boy, and not a creepy old dude, being Spider-Man. The Ultimate Spider-Man is now a teenage boy named Miles Morales, who first of all, obviously represents a different culture in the books. This is one of the cool things I like about the new Spider-Man is that he is not a white kid, who’s polite and proper, and follows the same mold as Petey pie. Miles is your average boy. He’s not popular at school, but he has his certain friends. He’s not the smoothest operator, but he makes do in talking to some of the girls. But the other cool thing about Ultimate Spider-Man, is that Miles Morales has a lot of interaction with characters of Spider-Man old, such as Aunt May or Mary Jane. These interactions really quickly put Mr. Morales’ responsibility into perspective not only for the reader, but also for our new hero in the Spider-mask. I don’t know too much about what the verdict is on Miles Morales out on the streets, but I for one enjoy him just as much as I enjoy Peter Parker.
Ultimate Spider-Man was born out of the fallout from Peter Parker’s death, in the Ultimate Spider-Man comic. This comic has kind of zig-zagged away from its original purpose and became something else, which is why I suppose it was rebranded into a new title. Though, the title is the same for the most part, except now it is Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man, and I suppose it’s appropriate that the first volume is entitled Revival. I find myself relating to Miles much more than Peter Parker, because he’s not super smart and doesn’t particularly shine in any sort of skillset. What Miles does have, is the ability to come across as human on the page, and really draws more empathy that Parker ever did in my lifetime. Miles does what all of us would have done when we became Spider-Man, and he tells his best friend. This interaction between him and his friend about Spider-Man things is always entertaining, and thus it puts extreme stress on the reader when Miles is considering telling yet another character or two about his secret. All in all, this comic was pretty impressive, and I hope Miles Morales is a character that’s here to stay. I would love to see the black and red Spider-Man swinging around my comic book cityscapes for years to come, for he’s a phenomenal addition to the Spider-Man canon.
RATED : ( PG-13 )
STORY : ( 9 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 8 / 10 )
COVERS : ( 8 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 9 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 9 / 10 )
I got my hands on a reissue this week of Matt Fraction’s Casanova. Published in 2008, the first book has shown up on several lists of comics to read. I finally was able to get in a copy of the new Complete Edition of Casanova’s first volume, Luxuria. I don’t have much to say about the story or the characters in the book, but more about the quality of the book. This Complete Edition is totally boss, and has plenty of additional artwork and story in the back after the 8-issue main part of the book. It kind of has a Mignola feel, as the art style is reminiscent of him, but also has the signature Gabriel Ba look. For this reason alone, I really enjoyed the book, but then you get into content. It’s definitely an adult book, and though it doesn’t come close to shocking you quite like Saga or something would, it definitely has its moments. The art is beautiful, and the story is wacky, but the book is definitely something worth picking up and reading. I kept getting flash memories of reading Transmetropolitan while reading this book, though it’s not quite the same at all, the universe has that same sort of futuristic, dystopian technoworld feel. I would recommend this to adult readers, and I’ll be looking for the Complete Editions of the other two volumes as well. I’d like to include that typically I hate Matt Fraction (Hawkeye, various Marvel titles), but I was pretty impressed with this book and now see why they’ve tapped him so many times to write.
RATED : ( R )
STORY : ( 8 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 8 /10 )
COVERS : ( 6 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 7 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 7 / 10 )
And speaking of canon and continuity (see first review), I just want to touch base about the proposed plan to yet again reboot the Marvel Universes for comic books. I read yesterday that an announcement was made about the upcoming Secret Wars mini-series, that it is basically an attempt at ending the Marvel Earth-616 Universe, as well as the Ultimate Universe, in order to present to us an entirely new universe. It’s proposed, or believed, that the universes would sort of be melded together into this new universe, where heroes of the same name but of different universe, can co-exist together in one Universe. Can I just say, what a dumb fucking idea this is? I mean, we just rebooted both Marvel and DC like 3 years ago, and it’s obvious which of the 2 has been more successful. But what did Marvel choose to do when rebooting into Marvel NOW!? They kept on with stories they wanted to, and didn’t downsize their lineups. Marvel suffers from having entirely too many characters, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But there’s like 5 X-Men books, 5 Avengers titles, and then there’s the gems like Thor and Deadpool. Most everything in Marvel NOW! has been mediocre, and I think Marvel may finally be realizing it. I don’t know how sandwiching two universes together to create a new one is going to go over with fans new and old, but I really think they should stick to their guns and just try to turn NOW! around. There are some quality stories out there, but once you reboot again and give it another title, you’ve shown that you were incompetent the first two times. It’s also likely that this reboot will change nothing but the title of your next Spider-Man series. The Secret Spider-Man maybe? A new, possibly gay Spider-Man perhaps? That would actually be interesting, come to think about it… Keep an eye out for more news on Secret Wars and the next Marvel reboot, and let us know what you think down in the comments!