Miles Morales: Spider-Man #4: Hitstunned

Miles has a lot of questions for his father, but he might not get the chance to answer them as Revenant has attacked his school! In the midst of the chaos, Jefferson surrenders himself willingly to the villain, and worse yet Valentina has started asking Miles questions about his connection to Spider-Man!

So far this first story arc of this current Miles Morales run feels like its struggling to fit into a six issue format. That doesn’t mean it’s bad as there are some solid elements here, but it ultimately feels like its meandering to get to its payoff. A bulk of this issue is Spider-Man’s fight against Revenant, but as a consequence it leaves little for characterization.

Bryan Hill’s scripting is mostly fine, but the pace can be a bit too fast in this issue. Spider-Man and Revenant has fight, Jefferson surrenders, Valentina starts asking questions, issue ends. The broad plot is fine, but little details that would have better helped the pacing are missing. The issue opens with Miles and Valentina summarizing a conversation that was never seen by the reader. Last issue ended with Miles calling Valentina about his doubts about his father. Why he didn’t call Ganke I don’t know (especially since he hasn’t been seen since issue one), but the main issue is that we don’t fully know how that conversation went outside of this summary. How did Miles tell her without revealing his identity? This also denies us time with Valentina who is still painfully underwritten. As for Jefferson, we saw last issue that he told Rio about his history with Revenant, but we don’t see how he came to the conclusion to surrender himself. Obviously he wants to protect his son, but he knows Miles is Spider-Man and can handle himself so it comes across as boneheaded on his part.

Nico Leon is the star of the show here as most of this issue focuses on Spider-Man and Revenant’s fight in Brooklyn Visions, which has excellent panel layouts and flow similar to that of a shonen manga. Bryan Valenza’s colors are bright and exciting, and Hill’s fighting game terms for Miles also add to the pace. The action is easily the best thing in this issue.