Miles Morales: Spider-Man #13 // Review
There’s nothing more disappointing than wasted potential. An early issue of Miles Morales: Spider-Man featured Miles and his friends zipping around New York City playing hooky for a day. It was delightfully and ingeniously rendered by Javier Garrón and was a real highlight of the series. When the issue #12 ended with Miles and his uncle Aaron stranded in Washington Heights with no web fluid and a need to get to Red Hook, it seemed like readers were in for another, similar treat. Alas, it was not to be.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #13 features Miles and Aaron’s journey from the Heights to Brooklyn. Because Miles stopped Aaron from carrying out a hit, there’s a price on Aaron’s head, which means that Miles and Aaron fight with a handful of supervillains before Aaron can plead for his life. Miles finally gets to the hospital to join his parents and meet his new baby sister.
Writer Saladin Ahmed has hit many issues of this title out of the park. He understands these characters intimately and has a facility for putting them in interesting situations. It’s a real surprise, then, that this issue is just a series of lame supervillain fights followed by a pat ending.
Javier Garrón, the regular artist of the book, is generally excellent as well, and his work in this issue meets the standard of his previous installments. Unfortunately, Garrón’s work on this issue is only seven pages worth. The other eleven pages are drawn by Kevin Libranda and Alitha E. Martinez, whose efforts to match Garrón’s distinctive style come up short. The coloring, by David Curiel and Protobunker, and the lettering, by VC’s Cory Petit, are fine, but they don’t manage to smooth over the inconsistency of the art.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man was for a solid few issues, one of Marvel’s most consistent, strongest titles. Lately, however, replacement artists and other chapters have lowered their quality dramatically. Hopefully, the simmering Ultimatum subplot and Miles’ new status as a big brother will lead the book back to its former heights.
