Written by: Saladin Ahmed
Art by: Javier Garron, David Curiel, and VC’s Cory Petit
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: December 12, 2018

With Brian Michael Bendis going off to “different” pastures we shall say, I was wondering how I’d take to this new Miles Morales book. I am no Miles scholar, mind you, but in a crazy deal, I have actually read more Miles Spidey than Peter Parker. Granted, we still aren’t talking about a ton of issues, but those are the stats. So, I was looking forward to seeing how this issue felt with Saladin Ahmed grabbing the reigns. Is it one of the books I will be looking forward to going forward? Let’s find out…

One of the reasons I love Miles so much is how smart he is…smart enough to not have a Spider-Man journal? Nope! The issue opens with him writing a ton of secret stuff for a school assignment. Yea, that won’t come back to bite him in the butt! It is a decent way for Saladin to catch people up on the character and that is pretty much the #1 priority here. Yea, if you already know about Miles, this will be recap time, but if you are a fan of the character, you can still enjoy it.

It’s all here…origin, family life, school, friends. Yep, Ganke makes a brief appearance (yea!) right before Miles is off doing Spidey stuff. The actual in suit stuff does take a backseat in this issue and I am fine with that for now. Saladin writes a really good Miles and after getting the classic late for class bit, he heads out to help Barbara babysit.

This is where the issue takes a bit of a political slant that isn’t bad in and of itself, it’s just that it comes out of nowhere, stays for three pages and goes away again. The way it happens made it feel forced in even if it actually wasn’t.

Things get rolling again when Miles comes across a bunch of cyborg/robot looking robbers who he mistakingly believes are being controlled by Rhino. There is an extended fight that feels like it’s supposed to show Miles powerset but ends up making Rhino feel like one of the biggest bad guys in the MCU and ends up all being a misunderstanding anyway. Rhino isn’t the bad guy here and is actually trying to find his kidnapped niece. The issue ends with a wraparound cliffhanger that ties with the earlier babysitting bit and sets up a pretty interesting story going forward.

This first issue may not have blown me away, but it did let me know that Ahmed knows the character and has his voice down. Ditto with the supporting cast as well. Everything is now in place and I am expecting more out of the second issue now that Saladin has everyone on the same page.

Final Thoughts:

This is a good first issue of Miles Morales that shows Ahmed knows the character and gets everyone up to speed. Javier Garron’s art is fantastic throughout and while the issue didn’t blow me away like I was hoping, it has me confident that the book is in good hands going forward.

7.5/10