We've been discussing lately what is the origin of Miles Morales in the Marvel Prime Universe (Earth 616) on a thread drift thread that Mister Mets created about Miles remembering or not the events that happened in the Ultimate Universe. The character's creator, Brian Michael Bendis, has gone on record on interviews saying that the character "remembers everything", but at the same time never mentions anything about Miles knowing that he came from an alternate Earth where that world's Peter Parker died and he took over the mantle and the Spider-Man's name from there. Bendis reasoning for not mentioning is a good one, he feels the character that there won't be "fish out of water" stories of the characters, a reasoning that I wholeheartedly agree with: mentioning the Ultimate Universe and most of the events that Miles endured during there would just overcomplicate things for the character, instead of broadening his appeal.
With that said, with that comes a dilemma. A dilemma that Bendis or whoever is writing the character and his old fans will have to face: the character as it stands right now doesn't have an in story origin that works. I've been accused by some of his old fans of hating the character, and what they don't seem to understand is that I don't hate the character, what I hate is how he has been handled so far, and I'm hardly the only one. Washington Post's Afro-Boriqua writer David Betancourt summed up on this article recently most of the reasonings that I have why I think the character could be handled better:
While that above is my biggest problem with the character, I want to repeat what I've said countless times to deaf ears around here: I do see the potential of the character. I do think he plays an important role, and that he should become a key spider related character in the Marvel Comics Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I think he has more potential than either Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Gwen and even more so than Silk, but I like all these characters better than him right now because all of them are more consistently better written than him. And that's why I criticize Miles portrayal: not because he is an "objectively bad character", because I don't really believe that even exists such a thing: he's a character with great potential that I feel it's very poorly written on his solo, and it's going through some "entering the Marvel Prime Universe (Earth 616)" growing pains that need to be addressed, rather sooner than later.But just as I reluctantly admit that Morales, in his historic run as Spider-Man, hasn’t done anything outlandishly Puerto Rican (no dominoes, no wondering why that last Menudo group never came out with a full album, no eating abuela’s arroz y habichuelas, no mention of the debt crisis) or black (no debating being a superhero of color — one who has his skin color covered up, granted — in the Black Lives Matter era), I have to assume that same feeling of a lack of authentic voice will come over me when I read Riri.
Bendis’s heart is in the right place. And for those who don’t know, he is proudly the father of black children, and he’d have an invested interest in making sure the company he works for reflects his diverse family.
Marvel at some point is going to have to realize that these announcements of diversity can only be halfway celebrated if the diversity isn’t behind the pages and not just in the panels. Somewhere there is a half African American/half Puerto Rican kid that would love to write Morales. (Heck, there’s a half African American/half Puerto Rican guy writing this story. They’re not hard to find, especially in New York)
What I mean is that the character has the opportunity now in the main Marvel Comics Universe of playing the big league, he has been an Avenger and he's about to become a Champion alongside Ms. Marvel, Nova, Amadeus "Hulk" Cho, Viv and Cyclops. But there's also an opportunity to make a revision of his origin story and make it fit with the Earth 616 Universe. Spider-Man never died at hands of Green Goblin in Earth 616 revealing his real identity in the process. Spidey did reveal his origin in the first Civil War but all of that was revised with the help of Doctor Strange, Tony Stark and Reed Richards. So what I'd like to see is Marvel Comics tackling the fact that Miles doesn't really have an origin story that works in universe right now, and it seems that they might have already start doing just that:
This is a Marvel 101 video published on Marvel's Official Youtube, Twitter and Facebook pages. They are designed to give a basic character rundown on their origins and powers. Notice how subtly different it is from the one currently published with Miles Morales comics:
"Bitten by a radioactive spider, he gained spider-like abilities and donned a colorful costume to fight crime and injustice. But wait! Miles didn't want to be a super-hero. He wanted a normal life as a normal teen-ager, but inspiration from the first wall-crawler illuminated his destiny, and the new Spider-Man hit the scene. Gifted with web-shooters, and guided by Peter Parker, Miles uses his abilities to stick to walls, sense immediate danger, produce a venom strike and camouflage himself to be a different kind of Spider-Man. Maybe the world's not ready for him, but he's proving his worth as an Avenger, a fighter and a winner". Outside their comics, that's how Marvel is presenting Miles to the world. Those with an attention to the details will get that instead of a "genetically altered" spider, they are saying that he was biten by a "radioactive" spider, which falls perfectly in line with how Spider-Man came to be in Earth 616. Also, instead of any mentions whatsoever about Miles taking over after Peter Parker's death, it's said that he's "under the guidance of Peter Parker". All of this seems very much more aligned with Earth 616 than the Ultimate Universe, and it's a great start. But it would be nice from Marvel to give us some sort of "Miles Morales: First Semester" storyline, with the basics of how he got his powers. I'd say that's an opportunity to directly link his impulse to do the best of his spider powers not just out of admiration for Spider-Man, but also to directly link his motivations to his Uncle Aaron evil deeds, basically doing a "reverse Uncle Ben" type of cautionary tale. I even suggested how that could happen, but that might be just me. Marvel doing an effort to make sense of Miles on this video is a great start, but at the end of the day completely meta. It would be good to finally see this addressed on his books, mostly because right now it makes very little sense what his motivations even are to putting on the costume and risking his life day in and day out. "Being Spider-Man is cool" is just not good enough for my tastes.
What about you, do you think Miles Morales origin should be revised to fit the Marvel Prime Universe (Earth 616)?