Bought it but haven't made the time to read it yet. So I assume that this will be Miles' status post Secret Wars. I hear Miles also appeared in today's issue of Secret Wars.
Bought it but haven't made the time to read it yet. So I assume that this will be Miles' status post Secret Wars. I hear Miles also appeared in today's issue of Secret Wars.
Pull List:
Marvel Comics: Venom, X-Men, Black Panther, Captain America, Eternals, Warhammer 40000.
DC Comics: The Last God
Image: Decorum
No we can't not when Bendis is running around doing interviews patting himself on the back for creating a Spider-man that black children can relate to and he especially can't do that when he made it a point to have police officers kill his mother in front of him.
Mind you i'm not saying every issue of Spider-man needs to be "Woe is me eyes duh black Spiduh-man" but Miles at least needs to be an authentically fleshed out character. He has no cultural depth whatsoever.
As I said before, this is what separates Miles from Kamala. Kamala is just a teenage superhero just like Miles, but G Willow Wilson makes sure that her gender, race, ethnicity an religion inform how she interacts with the world and how the world interacts with her. They're not the sole characteristics of the character but when put together with everything else it creates a fully realized character.
I'm cherrypicking, but this is kinda the problem.
The wishy-washy mutant metaphor presented in the X-books has always been wrong. It's not about multiculturism in any form, but about sales. The XMen are hated and feared, but other than their power, you never understand why. Quite frankly, they should be hated and feared because, to paraphrase Warren Ellis writing Excalibur, everywhere they've been is in flames. The multicultural theme is window dressing, even by by superhero comics standards. It is not Strontium Dog for "mutants", which might as well mean "others". It is not Enigma for LGBTQ readers. It is not Scout for Native Americans. It is not Shamanism. It is not Morrison's Doom Patrol for the disabled, or The Invisibles for the transgendered. It is not Freaks Amour. It is not Blood Syndicate. It is not Quantum and Woody. It's middle of the road handwashing occasionally elevated by great artists. It pretends towards conciliation while rarely acknowledging the path to get there. Bendis' run has done nothing to challenge readers. In fact, its most progressive moment-- Jean telling Bobby Drake that he's gay, which he may have or may not have accepted on his own terms-- reads like the most ham-fisted reveal ever. I'm not saying that a revelation like that can't be used to tell great stories-- and I'm the guy always arguing for more diversity-- but that there's no narrative development there. It's just plopped down, and yeah, you should accept it because the ultimate goal of more diversity is met.
X-Men, in any of its forms, is about comics readers feeling good about themselves. Actually, since around 1986, it's about sales, but the idea of any misfit might just be a mutant has always been at the core of the concept. Sadly, it's rarely been expressed that way through the comics itself, characters like Strong Guy, Madrox, and Quicksilver withstanding-- all written by Peter David-- or any member of Milligan's X-Force/X-Statix. It's easy to be an outsider like the X-Men-- they're a glamorous superteam; it's hard to be Cliff Steele, Middenface McNulty, or Tike Alicar.
Not to mention a "real" person like Hopey Glass, but she doesn't count because she never wears a cape or teaches Galactus how to play bass (poorly).
Last edited by FanboyStranger; 10-07-2015 at 10:30 PM.
I completely disagree. One does not have to have a complete relation to reality in order for people to relate to that character. If that was the case, every hero would be regular joe smoe that's experience is entirely based off of real life instances. This is akin to the lower powered characters vs the higher powered characters. People relate to batman and spider man because they're supposedly the every man, but if every character was like batman and spider man, comics would be a very boring place. You will need the Thors and the Supermen to balance things out to create variety, otherwise everything becomes one note. The same applies with here. If every character was centered around social exploration, there would be no variety as mentioned before. One of the biggest advantages of comics is the fantasy element of it and as such, if comics is fine with a megaton being eating planets, they surely can make do with one character that based around social exploration. Balance is key.
So yes, that is one key aspect that separates Miles from Kamala, but it's definitely not a bad thing, and nor does it make Miles any less relatable just because it doesn't delve into those issues, as indicated by the major fandom that miles have since his following. So yes, Bendis can definitely pat himself on the back for Spider Man, he created one of the few successful new characters in comics in the last decade, At the same time, while that is what separates Kamale and Miles, that's what put Kamala in the same group as Luke Cage, Blue Marvel, Black Panther as etc. Especially among the fact that she's among the first if the not the first muslim character, of course it was going to be important. That's like Black Panther not dealing with race as the first african hero in comics. On the other hand, when a new Asian female character is introduced, due to how many there are, (which isn't a lot, but a lot more than muslim characters), you don't have to have every character focused on social exploration, and there's plenty of Asian female characters that doesn't.
I think one of the problems with Miles-- and this may be why he's such a good character overall-- is that he's based on Bendis' foster son. Bendis gets the kid through and through, but he scrambles to develop the rest of his story, which is outside his experience. Any attempt to make Miles an engine for culturally relevant stories fails because that's not the world that Bendis pictures his kid in. Lord knows we don't need any more struggling, but talented writers and their struggling, but brilliant wives stories.
At a certain point, you have to wonder when Miles Morales actually becomes Spider-Man rather than Brian Bendis' Spider-Man
I didn't say that Miles wasn't relatable, I said Miles isn't a fully realized character and that he lacks any sort of authenticity or depth. I also said every Miles story doesn't need to focus on race or social issues. The issue is these things aren't even so much as acknowledged in the slightest bit. I'm not even talking about deep stories that delve into political issues, it could be small things such as Miles occasionally using a Spanish word here or there to acknowledge his Latino heritage.
A good example of this would be how Bendis often writes Kitty Pryde. Every issue featuring Kitty isn't about how Jewish she is, but her being Jewish IS a part of her character and informs her back story and how she reacts to certain things. It's not a continual ongoing thing but it does happen from time to time and helps make her a more fleshed out and realized character.
I've read every issue featuring Miles as Spider-Man and I genuinely couldn't give you a description of Miles as a person beyond his physical appearance. He's just blank character that gets caught up in events.
The crazy thing is Bendis did a good job of fleshing out his dad and uncle. Hell Ganke is more fleshed out character than Miles. Same goes for Bendis version of Cloak and Dagger.
Again, I use Mega Man as an example. Ian Flynn takes the time to explore Rock's humanity, sentience, and feelings. He also explores how alive the other robot masters can be, if reprogramming a robot erases its identity, if taking them offline is equivalent to killing them. Dr. Light talks about how important it is for robots to feel, and how they can work together to make the world better.
He does all that deep thought provoking stuff, and still makes fun stories along with a couple of really nice crossovers with Sonic The Hedgehog. The female characters are pretty well written as well.
It would be nice if Bendis tried that with Miles. Or had a co-writer, someone to tell him that he's wrong, and how he can improve the story somehow. Something tells me he's surrounded by yes men.
And lost in the shuffle in all this is Hobie Brown being Pete's stand in as Spider Man.
A development that I think gets that character killed in the long run.
I'm glad to see Hobie back as well. I haven't agreed with everything Slott's done, but this is one of those things I can get behind.
Hope he gets more attention. I'd love to see him in one of Marvel's Netflix shows.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw Reportedly Set for Star Wars: Episode VIII
http://www.themarysue.com/gugu-mbath...tar-wars-cast/