Miles tries his hardest to save everyone in Miles Morales: Spider-Man #27. Written by Saldin Ahmed, art by Carmen Carnero. colors by David Curiel, and letters by Cory Petit.
I have a brother. We share a father; we share a bald head and brown skin. We share our intelligence, interests, perspectives on life. We have much in common, so much in common for two people who were raised in separate households in separate, desperate circumstances.
I’ve always felt guilty about that.
I’ve been blessed to do some really great things. My brother, my flesh and blood who is so much like me, likely could have done much of the same, yet he was never afforded the opportunity. Who knows what would happen if he could have. Maybe a part of me feels like he should have instead of me.
Thus I live with the burden of my successes at the psychological expense of one I know better than most.
I wonder if Miles feels the same.
He meets his clone brothers here, in Miles Morales: Spider-Man #27. And while (conveniently) only one clone can talk, his words are sufficient to describe the suffering of all the cloned brethren. A negligent “father” (the AI known as The Assessor.) A youth artificially expedited, robbed of joy. Anger. Frustration. Jealously. And still, still, a desire to live.
I empathize with the clones. I empathize with Miles, who, feeling maybe a bit overwhelmed with guilt, tries unsuccessfully to bargain Selim out of his anger.
Yet I still do not empathize with this story as told.
There could be a really, really good mediation around nature vs nurture; around opportunity and expectation and success. About what it means to be free; about who bears the brunt of the anger of the emotionally incarcerated.
And yet we have a paint-by-numbers villain, seeking revenge on his own (biological) people, filled with as the same one-note quips and quotes as any other villain of the week story. We have pastiches of other stories, other characters (Gluurp = “I am Groot”) that mix to make a much less than satisfying whole.
I’ve said it before about Miles, and I’ll say it here about his clone Selim: they deserve better. Better rationales and logic and motivations. Better articulation and schemes.
At the least, they get better art than some of their contemporary comics. I’m officially a fan of Carmen Carnero; I’ve grown more and more to love how she balances action with how she creates emotion through facial expressions. This is really, really solid work. And to be fair, the comic is solid. It’s just that Miles (and Selim) deserve more than solid. They deserve excellence. This is pretty good, easy to follow, and smooth to digest. This is pretty good.
This is not at all excellent.
About a week ago my brother and I had a long sit-down talk. He’s helped me in ways I cannot imagine, and he’s done so by putting aside emotions I cannot begin to grasp. He is the better man. But only recently did I fully understand what it meant to have a brother who was such a good man: if what is in him, if what he’s able to mold into love and kindness flows through my veins, then I’m just as able to be just as good as he is. And while I’m not there yet, I’m glad I have the opportunity to keep trying.
And so I’ll see you here next week, as faith and hope implore me to see if the next comic, the next issue, the next thought bubble will finally yield the excellence Miles Morales is capable of instead of simply another lament of what could and should be.
A proud New Orleanian living in the District of Columbia, Jude Jones is a professional thinker, amateur photographer, burgeoning runner and lover of Black culture, love and life. Magneto and Cyclops (and Killmonger) were right.
Find more of Jude’s writing here.
