Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man Appreciation 2022

[Huntsman Spider]

I think the overall issue is balance. Not every character necessarily needs their whole run dedicated to a singular, long-form storyline, but if you're going to go there, it would be wise to at least pepper in the occasional one-and-done for a breather here and there. In fact, I would argue that the longer and more involved and complex a major storyline in a character's ongoing saga is, the more "breather issues" it'll need for balance, so the character and the audience aren't too weighed down in the middle or by the end of it. That being said, while it is generally a good idea to have a firm idea for both the writers and the readers about who the character is and why they do what they do, the writers don't always have to make a big, dramatic event (in more ways than one) out of it, and execution ultimately matters more in the long run than intent.

[FFJamie94]

It really all depends on the quality and how long it goes on for.
Cates' Venom was great because it was essentially 35 issues telling pieces of a longer story. In fact, you could read the first 12 issues, Absolute Carnage and King in Black and understand the full run. The rest were filled with arcs which gave us some context for what is happening in those events and some nice character moments.
I believe the best structure for storytelling is weirdly enough in the first few seasons of the Doctor Who revival. Have your comic tell smaller more standalone stories which then build up into a bigger story arc.
Have a two issue arc where Spider-Man takes down Scorpion only for a mysterious company to take Scorpion away. Have that company show up in a few more stories to the point where Miles makes a connection and finds them. You have a smaller episodic adventure which ties into a larger story. Someone picking up that issue won't ever have to read who that Company is as it won't matter to them. They have a complete satisfying story. Meanwhile someone who is reading the full run would be rewarded later on for picking up on clues scattered throughout the run.

[Huntsman Spider]

It really all depends on the quality and how long it goes on for.
Cates' Venom was great because it was essentially 35 issues telling pieces of a longer story. In fact, you could read the first 12 issues, Absolute Carnage and King in Black and understand the full run. The rest were filled with arcs which gave us some context for what is happening in those events and some nice character moments.
I believe the best structure for storytelling is weirdly enough in the first few seasons of the Doctor Who revival. Have your comic tell smaller more standalone stories which then build up into a bigger story arc.
Have a two issue arc where Spider-Man takes down Scorpion only for a mysterious company to take Scorpion away. Have that company show up in a few more stories to the point where Miles makes a connection and finds them. You have a smaller episodic adventure which ties into a larger story. Someone picking up that issue won't ever have to read who that Company is as it won't matter to them. They have a complete satisfying story. Meanwhile someone who is reading the full run would be rewarded later on for picking up on clues scattered throughout the run.

That does make a lot of sense.

[dkrook]

It seems to often that in spite of Miles having such a good connection with the current culture, Marvel doesn't have much urgency, or deliberation with giving appropriate energy to his book.

[Huntsman Spider]

It seems to often that in spite of Miles having such a good connection with the current culture, Marvel doesn't have much urgency, or deliberation with giving appropriate energy to his book.

Which is a crying shame and something that I hope Marvel intends to address (or redress) when Miles's series gets relaunched in December. That, and a good buildup to what will eventually be a total of 300 issues of Ultimate Spider-Man.

[XenobladerX]

Better quality image of Stephanie Hans' variant for Miles' issue #2:


And here's a variant for Spider-Man #2 by Francesco Mobili:

[Frontier]

It's nice to have the suit back .

[Kaitou D. Kid]

It seems to often that in spite of Miles having such a good connection with the current culture, Marvel doesn't have much urgency, or deliberation with giving appropriate energy to his book.

It's surprising because Marvel is all about brand synergy, yet there doesn't seem to be a more aggressive push to fill his comics with ideas from ITSV and the Insomniac game. Ironic because it's one a rare instance where brand synergy would help a book for once, but Marvel isn't doing it.

IMO, a factor has to be liberal elite narcissism from the Bendis era. Marvel deserves props for letting Bendis do a black Spider-Man, but still... 2011 Miles was the safest move ever. A black kid from New York (like Peter), who is a nerd (like Peter), who quips like Peter, has the same villains and supporting cast, and lived in Marvel's Universe B instead of in 616 like everyone else... yeah, that's about the "safest" way Marvel could have gone about it.

Plus, it's not like the comics brought some groundbreaking stuff with race and being a black superhero. The Static Shock cartoon did bolder stuff (Virgil's friend's dad being a racist, Virgil's dad facing racism for being a single black dad, etc.). And that was a cartoon show that predated Miles by 10 years and was as mainstream as you can get (every Millennial I know watched it).

And yet, Marvel gave themselves lots of self-congratulations for Miles like they were a company of huge risk-takers or something, when in reality they went out of their way to play it as safe as possible just in case, you know, the racists are right that a black Spider-Man can't sell.

Basically, to a lot of Marvel elites from that era, the success of ITSV and the game is a sign of how great they (the Marvel elites) are for creating Miles Morales, and not an example of the kind of bold risks they should've done in the first place. They don't give as much energy to his book because they think the energy surrounding ITSV and the game are coming from them (the elites) in the first place. From that perspective, there is no reason to add additional energy to the book.

[Mercwmouth12]

spoilers:

Last issue will be a bunch of short stories based off of tarot cards

end of spoilers
This issue should sell better than ASM 10. If not doesn't look good for new team coming in

[Tofali]

spoilers:

Last issue will be a bunch of short stories based off of tarot cards

end of spoilers
This issue should sell better than ASM 10. If not doesn't look good for new team coming in

That'd surprise me because last issues usually sell even less.

[Digifiend]

That's when they're cancelled though. This one is ending voluntarily and then relaunching with a new writer after a month off.

[Jaychance]

On the synergy problem, it was Saladin mostly as in interviews and on twitter when he was more active he said he didn't want to infuse what the movie or video game was doing with Miles, he wanted to do his own thing with the comic. You can see how long it took for Miles to use abilities in the main title compared to other titles where Miles used abilities from his game.People asked for Spiderman(Cat) or Phin to be in the book but he turned those down for his own characters and Saladin loved the game.(he was looking for a PS5 to play it for 2 months)

[Tofali]

I'm glad he didn't buckle to that nonsense.

[Huntsman Spider]

It's surprising because Marvel is all about brand synergy, yet there doesn't seem to be a more aggressive push to fill his comics with ideas from ITSV and the Insomniac game. Ironic because it's one a rare instance where brand synergy would help a book for once, but Marvel isn't doing it.

IMO, a factor has to be liberal elite narcissism from the Bendis era. Marvel deserves props for letting Bendis do a black Spider-Man, but still... 2011 Miles was the safest move ever. A black kid from New York (like Peter), who is a nerd (like Peter), who quips like Peter, has the same villains and supporting cast, and lived in Marvel's Universe B instead of in 616 like everyone else... yeah, that's about the "safest" way Marvel could have gone about it.

Plus, it's not like the comics brought some groundbreaking stuff with race and being a black superhero. The Static Shock cartoon did bolder stuff (Virgil's friend's dad being a racist, Virgil's dad facing racism for being a single black dad, etc.). And that was a cartoon show that predated Miles by 10 years and was as mainstream as you can get (every Millennial I know watched it).

And yet, Marvel gave themselves lots of self-congratulations for Miles like they were a company of huge risk-takers or something, when in reality they went out of their way to play it as safe as possible just in case, you know, the racists are right that a black Spider-Man can't sell.

Basically, to a lot of Marvel elites from that era, the success of ITSV and the game is a sign of how great they (the Marvel elites) are for creating Miles Morales, and not an example of the kind of bold risks they should've done in the first place. They don't give as much energy to his book because they think the energy surrounding ITSV and the game are coming from them (the elites) in the first place. From that perspective, there is no reason to add additional energy to the book.

Sadly, that would paint those Marvel higher-ups as a bunch of self-involved, self-congratulating oblivious hypocrites, content to rest on their laurels while others are doing the actual work to make characters like Miles as great as they can be and/or have been, which sounds about right. To put it in shorter words, maybe, "They want the props, but they don't want to put in the work." A real shame --- and also a real sham, which is again a shame because Miles deserves the same dynamic energy and effort DC put into Static (Shock) even 20 years ago, let alone now.

On the synergy problem, it was Saladin mostly as in interviews and on twitter when he was more active he said he didn't want to infuse what the movie or video game was doing with Miles, he wanted to do his own thing with the comic. You can see how long it took for Miles to use abilities in the main title compared to other titles where Miles used abilities from his game.People asked for Spiderman(Cat) or Phin to be in the book but he turned those down for his own characters and Saladin loved the game.(he was looking for a PS5 to play it for 2 months)

Interesting details there. Thanks for sharing.

[Dragonick]

On the synergy problem, it was Saladin mostly as in interviews and on twitter when he was more active he said he didn't want to infuse what the movie or video game was doing with Miles, he wanted to do his own thing with the comic. You can see how long it took for Miles to use abilities in the main title compared to other titles where Miles used abilities from his game.People asked for Spiderman(Cat) or Phin to be in the book but he turned those down for his own characters and Saladin loved the game.(he was looking for a PS5 to play it for 2 months)

He didn't even use Danika and she wasn't even from the game originally.