Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #12 (Marvel)

writer: Brian Michael Bendis

artist: David Marquez

I feel kind of snookered, and I really should have known better.  This was billed as "the epic conclusion," which I took to mean, Brian Michael Bendis's last ever issue of Ultimate Spider-Man after fifteen years, three series, over two hundred issues, and two different heroes under the mask.  The second being the eponymous Miles Morales from this iteration.

You know, every time a creator comes up with an alternate character to hold a famous superhero name, there are fans who think that replacement will stick around forever.  And sometimes they do, but we all know they will never actually replace the icon.  (And it does need to be an icon.  The Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern don't count.  Or any other example off the top of your head.)

And because as often as not it's a minority who gets the honors, there are fans who are desperate for that alternate to become a permanent replacement, or be the animated and/or live action Hollywood equivalent of said famous superhero.  There's nothing wrong with that, but there's probably a lot of disappointment involved, as when it was recently announced that the new big screen Spider-Man...will once again be Peter Parker.

Which means, not Miles Morales.  Or Miguel O'Hara, or even "Spider-Gwen," the latest inexplicable Marvel sensation.  Or anyone else you might be thinking of off the top of your head.  The thing is, the icons are icons for a reason.  Theirs was the story that set the ball in motion, and usually there's a much better story involved that way.

You really have Bendis to blame for this one.  After helping inspire the Samuel L. Jackson version of Nick Fury (via some of the most curiously circular logic in pop culture history), the Ultimate line pretty much became completely pointless.  A "more realistic" version of Marvel, it quickly disposed of icons left and right, starting with Wolverine.  Superheroes don't come back from the dead in the Ultimate line.  Which is why when Peter Parker was also killed off, he was simply replaced.  And whatever else Miles Morales is, he has always been a random replacement who merely allowed Bendis to continue writing Ultimate Spider-Man, which at times has seemed like it might after all be his lasting legacy.  So you can see why he's reluctant to move on.

And is he moving on?  Your guess is as good as mine.  This issue is not a goodbye at all.  That may be one considerable suggestion right there.  Bendis would not abandon something like this so flippantly.  The biggest development is Miles randomly exhibiting a new power, which might as well read like the Marvel version of Superman's recent debut of a new power.  It's basically the same.  It would not be below Marvel to steal something so blatantly like that.

I mean, this whole series is ending because Marvel is "closing shop" again in preparation for Secret Wars, which promises another Marvel "reboot" (Marvel has never yet done an actual reboot, just a window dressing alteration or two that freshens the landscape a bit).

(Marvel has made a wicked habit of ending series left and right, the way the Ultimate line killed characters left and right.  Always to get that fan-friendly "first issue.")

The thing that is ending, and I will qualify this statement - apparently ending, is the Ultimate line.  When Kitty Pryde pops up and announces the team with her as the Ultimates, which was this reality's version of the Avengers (until, and massive geek headache ahead, a team showed up literally calling itself the Avengers), and it has no more impressive membership than Kitty herself and the team of Cloak and Dagger (kudos if you have any idea who Cloak and Dagger are, Ultimate versions or otherwise), you know something has already ended.

To complicate matters further, the letters column went out of its way to solicit comments from creators and fans just as if this really were an ending.  Nothing from Bendis himself, mind you.  So chances are, Bendis fully intends to continue.  I just have no idea what else he has left to say, except...

Yeah, I have no idea.

Ultimate Spider-Man #200 (Marvel)

writer: Brian Michael Bendis
artist: Dave Marquez, David Lafuente, Sara Pichelli, Mark Brooks, Mark Bagley

via Inside Pulse

To reach this numbering milestone (as handily recapped in the back of the issue), Marvel counted: Ultimate Spider-Man #s 1-133, Ultimate Six #s 1-7, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #s 1-15, 150-160, Ultimatum: Spider-Man Requiem #s 1-2, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #s 1-28, and Cataclysm: Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #s 1-3 (plus this one).  Strictly speaking, it's kind of sad, and completely indicative of the shenanigans typical in today's comics (although Marvel also celebrated a Nova anniversary that combined...a lot of very deeply spaced issues recently, so there's that as well, and DC's Detective Comics celebrations, that speak to the need for anniversaries in general...while trying to look "fresh" to newer readers; and all the ridiculous fake anniversary issues...).

When it started, Ultimate Spider-Man was a remarkably long-lived partnership between Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley that lasted a hundred-and-eleven straight issues (just breaking the Stan Lee-Jack Kirby streak in the original Fantastic Four).  Bagley returned for a number of additional issues, but soon gave way to other signature collaborators in Bendis's remarkable (and most and only remarkable Ultimate) run with this alternate Spider-Man saga.

Sara Pichelli has fifteen previous appearances, David Lafuente sixteen.  The only one missing from this reunion is Stuart Immonen, who logged in twenty-three issues but is perhaps tied up with another Bendis collaboration at the moment, All-New X-Men (which is kind of too bad).

David Marquez, it should be noted, is the one going forward.

Such are the other vagaries of this run that it celebrates a different Spider-Man than the one that's currently on record, Miles Morales, the ethnically diverse wunderkind who has been building his own legacy (and stars in the latest relaunch, Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man).  The one you may know better, obviously, would be Peter Parker.  Except he's been dead since the Ultimatum event that basically radically broke the Ultimate line from the mainline Marvel universe (even more so, anyway).  

Bendis gets a lot of credit as far as his worth to Marvel in general is concerned, but he's rarely considered to be as good a writer as he is dependable.  Most of what you'll hear critically about him isn't all that flattering.  I've been somewhat guilty of that.  I haven't read him nearly as much as his DC rivals Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison, but he's as important as either of them, and his legacy is equally comparable.  The thing he has on them is his dedication to this title, no matter what form it takes.  

Every now and then, I try to make good and check in on what he's been doing, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity.  Once again Bendis pleasantly surprises me.  While Morales certainly gets the short straw, Parker's enduring legacy is greatly exhibited, everything he accomplished just in these adventures, the remarkable supporting cast that surrounded him.  

A series of monologues reveals how each of these characters still remember Peter.  In a lot of ways, this is almost an ideal Spider-Man comic.  Peter Parker dead but living in the memories of those he left behind, with someone else struggling to follow in his footsteps (it should be noted that left out of the celebration numbers is a tie-in comic between Miles Morales and the "616" Peter Parker, Spider-Men, which is referenced here).  Peter, another boy who never grew up, which has certainly been a matter of some controversy elsewhere.  Bendis has been making as strong an argument as anyone ever has that Marvel could weather a reboot and be the better for it, although perhaps no one could do it as well as he has.  

Some of the art fails to distinguish characters from each other (notably dueling brunettes).  Maybe this is a problem for someone who hasn't been following the whole thing.  It doesn't really matter, though.  The impact is still considerable.  Unlike, say, Superior Spider-Man #30, you don't really have to have read anything else to fully enjoy and appreciate the proceedings.

If you've never read a single issue, just to make it clear, this would be a good place to start.

Swear to Bendis, I'm Not Becoming a Convert

BATMAN AND ROBIN #9 (DC)

I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of this book recently for some reason, don’t know why…Anyway, this particular issue is the newest one and is a tie-in with the “Night of the Owls” event inspired by events in Scott Snyder’s BATMAN, and features young Damian Wayne getting to exert himself against a Talon and a bunch of army officers he’s attempting to rescue, one in particular who has become a target of the Court thanks to some unresolved business from centuries ago, the American Revolution to be precise.  If anything, Peter Tomasi helps make clear that the Court of Owls is basically a Freemasons type of secret society in this episode, even if he kind of stumbles in the few scenes not dominated by Damian (any scene with Damian is dominated by Damian).  Nothing overtly connected to previous issues occurs, but there are subtle connections.  Patrick Gleason will be back, and hopefully the regularly scheduled storytelling will also resume next issue.

CHARMED #21 (Zenescope)

My sister is kind of obsessive about CHARMED, the TV show, though she enjoys the comic book, too.  My access to the comic was severed last year when I backed out of my subscriptions with Midtown, so I jumped at the opportunity to resume access to this book, along with some others.  My sister seems content to read the trade collections (there are now three), so I’m actually wondering if I should even pass these individual issues to her anymore.  The comics tend to be a little less about the Halliwell sisters and more about the big stories, which I suppose might simply be a difference of the mediums.  Another difference?  Prue can finally return, as has apparently happened.  Prue was the sister played by Shannon Doherty, who left the TV show at the end of the third season, never to be seen again.  Hopefully Paul Ruditis nails this opportunity.  The current big story?  The sisters have lost their powers, while everyone else in the world now has them, and disaster has resulted.  And yes, this is when Prue returns.

DEMON KNIGHTS #9 (DC)

I’ve been investigating exactly the background Paul Cornell enjoyed before entering the exciting world of comics, and it was usually summed up with, “worked on DOCTOR WHO.”  Turns out he started out as a fan who got to write some fiction, book-form, and some of that led to work on the actual TV version of DOCTOR WHO, and he’s also got a few pieces of original fiction out there, but it may be safe to say that his name has gained greater recognition as he’s begun his career in comics.  Since coming to DC, Cornell has truly blossomed, certainly in his Lex Luthor arc in the pages of the pre-New 52 ACTION COMICS (must-read material), and now in the pages of DEMON KNIGHTS, a fantasy series that functions much in the same way as his acclaimed CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI:13, sadly cut short before its time.  DEMON KNIGHTS is what that series would have been like had Cornell been given complete creative control (one of CB&MI13’s most notable arcs was a tie-in with SECRET INVASION), and in many ways feels like what Grant Morrison’s SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY would have read like as an ongoing series.  Most of the characters involved have their own agendas, but their common destinies (as of this moment, since characters like Jason Blood/Etrigan and Vandal Savage are active in modern times as well) are currently involved in the continuing legacy of Camelot.  The famed wizard Merlin is a virtual stand-in for Walter Bishop from FRINGE, which I find utterly fascinating.  It’s Cornell’s ability to make anything fantastic to be relevant that marks him not only to be one of the best writers in comics today but arguably a threat to be the best writer of tomorrow.  If that’s not enough reason to read him now, I don’t know what is.

GREEN LANTERN #9 (DC)

The secret origin of the Indigo Tribe is exploded by Geoff Johns in this issue, and as usual, he manages to tie it in with the intricate mythology he’s both inherited and greatly expanded on within the Green Lantern mythos.  If you’re a fan, you know who Abin Sur is, and how he helped set BLACKEST NIGHT into order; now it becomes clear that he was looking past those events, too, and that’s why he helped create the Indigo Tribe, under circumstances and with a partner you’ll have to read this issue to fully enjoy.  Suffice it to say, but this is probably the most important issue so far in the New 52 era, and is probably the one that finally links the work Johns was doing previously with the soft reboot that “War of the Green Lanterns” helped usher.

MOON KNIGHT #12 (Marvel)

One of the things referenced in the letters column substitute from BRILLIANT #3 was this wrap-up of the series Brian Michael Bendis improbably agreed to do, handling one of Marvel’s problem children, a character who’s had multiple chances at ongoing series and pretty much failed at all of them, for decades now.  Bendis, so far as I can tell with this issue, seems to have concluded it makes sense to make Moon Knight actually seem crazy and isolated, given that his tenuous grip on reality has always suggested that.  If I’d known this earlier, I might have sampled the series earlier, but for many years now, I assumed Bendis was a Marvel stooge the company’s fanboys embraced simply because he was ubiquitous and seemed to write every other title for them.  Granted, a lot of his Avengers work (and there was an avalanche of it) definitely seemed to support that theory every time I sampled it, but there was other stuff that suggested he was more competent than that.  BRILLIANT nailed that for me, and so now I’m free to approach Bendis from a new perspective.  This is one of my rewards.

ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #10 (Marvel)

This is another.  I sampled the first issue of this second reboot of the Ultimate Spider-Man adventures (the first to not feature Peter Parker), featuring the introduction of Miles Morales as only the third new Spider-Man in Marvel history (I’ll give you a nickel for naming the other one, and I’m not referring to clones who may or may not answer to the name Ben Reilly).  It’s amazing how vividly inspired Bendis has been by his long tenure with Ultimate Spider-Man.  This alone has secured his status in comics history, and I’m kind of hitting myself for not reading another Morales adventure until now.  But this is a good one to jump back into with, as he finally learns the truth about Uncle Aaron, which is another of those brain-numbingly obvious superhero stories that few writers have actually done it.  Treat yourself and discover it for yourself.

WASTELAND #37 (Oni)

Another issue!  Concluding “Under the God,” Michael and Abi finally get to leave the Cross Chains town of Godsholm, sort of like THE BOOK OF ELI but with less Denzel Washington, and shev off back along their journey to A-Ree-Yass-I, along with Gerr, who will soon help all of us better understand what exactly is going on.  This is an epic adventure that may finally find its audience once it concludes so that there can no longer be any doubt concerning its brilliance.  Christopher Mitten may be working on other stuff, too, but this will be his legacy.