Written by: Saladin Ahmed
Art by: Javier Garron, David Curiel, and VC’s Cory Petit
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: January 9, 2019

I liked the first issue of Miles Morales enough. Yea, I was hoping it would be a little more fun, but Ahmed to a good job of getting everyone up to speed on the character and while the mystery and cliffhanger weren’t earth-shattering, they made me interested in continuing on. Plus, a hint at a Miles/Rhino teamup? Yea, that sounds good to me. Well, is it good? Let’s find out…

The issue opens with Miles waking up to find that Rhino has been looking after him. It was a decent opening, but the problem with this issue is that not much happens. Not much at all. After wasting a lot of time on an extended fight scene the last issue, there is a lot of standing around in this one. The biggest thing we find out is that Rhino doesn’t text. Good for him!

We do get Miles in class where it’s revealed…he doesn’t get enough sleep. Then it’s off to Barbara’s to remind us her cousin is missing which were already reminded about more than once in the beginning. Seriously, almost everything in this book is just a recap of things we already know.

Finally, Ganke gets things going by finding out where the little kid cyber armor was sent to using the Dark Web and Spidey and Rhino are off to save some kids. Throughout all this, Ahmed seems to want to push the Rhino angle of “nobody sees me as anything other than a monster”, but it feels really forced.

When Miles and Rhino get to the bad guy warehouse, Miles goes stealth, runs into Tombstone and is saved by a tag team effort with Rhino. The issue ends with the duo saving some kids, but not the ones they really wanted to and being joined by an awesome character for a cliffhanger that is the best page in the book and again, has me wanting to read the next issue…but only barely this time.

This issue treads water and while it’s fine every now and again to get a total setup issue, it stinks when it’s the second issue of a series. Plus, not a whole lot happened in the first issue! Oh well, the art is really good, but I need this to pick up a bit because I can already see that I am losing interest quickly.

Final Thoughts:

I love Miles and want to love this book but after a recap heavy first issue, Saladin Ahmed hits readers with a setup heavy #2. This book looks really good thanks to Javier Garron’s art but it just isn’t fun…yet? I hope that changes real soon because if not, I will drop it and that’s a shame.

6.0/10