Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #9

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis/ Artist: David Marquez / Publisher: Marvel

Brian Michael Bendis is to character development as what Jonathan Hickman is to world building…beastly. Bendis has an ability to give supporting characters hints of depth that when their story comes to fruition, you find yourself realizing you just read a whole issue that saw little of the main protagonist and the shit was still dope game. In the concluding issue wrapping up Jefferson (Mile’s father) stint as an undercover informant for Nick Fury. We see Jefferson talking about how menacing and cold Wilson Fisk was back in the day. How everything Fury was saying would happen, was indeed happening and how he was caught in it all. Be clear, this was the ultimate universe version of “In Too Deep“. Jefferson was getting his Omar Epps on hard. We see him having to muscle folks as well as the crew he was running with.

The best scene is probably how monstrously grimy and classy the Wilson Fisk looks under Marquez’s art. The appearance reminds me a lot of Alex Maleev’s depiction of the kingpin when he was running with Bendis on their godly stint of Daredevil.

miles

The difference being that Marquez’s kingpin looks more like that dude you passed by on the street a bit back and thought to yourself, “I definitely don’t wanna get into it with him.”. He look so monstrous and intimidating but his speech shows how educated and business savvy he is. This is why kingpin is such a great villain. The dude got so many fucking layers to him man. We also see that Jefferson wasn’t a fucking punk man. He knew all about the Wilson but was still testing him and not taking orders blindly. He was a true kings hand in this crime shit.

In present day when we see Miles and his father talking the art is clearly different, softer, smoother than the rough rugged past Jefferson was remembering. A great freaking touch. They discuss S.H.I.E.L.D. and those that kept their mouth shut about Jefferson as well as discussing what Norman may know about him. The culmination of this issue resides in Jefferson having to tell Miles what pushed him away and why it did. Lets get this shit the proper credit it needs cause we are not seeing black men talking to their children like this in the mainstream comic game man. Lets talk about how endearing this is to see. Last time we saw black men talking like this was in Mighty Avengers when Luke Cage and Blue Marvel had their discussions. This goes back to what I sad about character development and the lawd’s work that Bendis be putting into his craft man.

This book is important and will be even more important in the years to come. Honestly I think about the comics i’d give my children to read when they come of age? This is def on the list. In the age where representation is on the demand and folks wanting it in quality… this team been delivering the supply.

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  • Omar Holmon is a content editor that is here to make .gifs, obscure references, and find the correlation between everything Black and Nerdy.

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