Miles Morales: Spider-Man #1: Back In Brooklyn

After saving his baby sister from an alternate dimension, bringing abc origin boxes of unimaginable power, and being cured of his vampirism, Miles Morales is finally ready to go back to being a regular Brooklyn Spider-Man, but the life of a superhero is never that simple. When a destructive face from his father’s past comes back to haunt him, Miles will have to put his webs back into action to solve this mystery.

After Cody Ziglar’s critically-acclaimed and seminal run on the character, Miles is back home in Brooklyn after encountering Gods, alternate universes, vampires, hulked-out therapists, and break-ups. Where this story fits in the current Marvel timeline is a bit confusing as references are made to Ultimate Incursion and Ultimate Impact, but also a reference of the Spider-Verse movies as well. This may confuse readers a bit, but thankfully it’s only a small moment in an otherwise enjoyable opening issue.

Bryan Hill does his best to catch new readers up on the lengthy journey that was Cody Ziglar’s run, and despite being a bit messy manages to do a serviceable job of setting this new volume up. Hill has a good voice for MIles and seems to understand the overall rhythm of the character and how he differs from Peter. He’s a little bit more put together and stable thanks to his family and friends. The threat is also clearly established and how it ties to Miles’ father (while complicating the timeline) makes for a good mystery.

Nico Loen and Valentine De Landro team-up for art in this opening issue and overall they do a good job. Leon’s present day art is highly expressive and action-heavy while De Landro’s flashbacks are more detailed and subdued. Bryan Vlaneza also does an excellent job on colors to differentiate the two eras. There are some genuinely gorgeous pages here.