Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #22

[cyberghostface]

So Venom (who is NOT Eddie Brock but some random guy from Roxxon who stole the symbiote) goes looking for Miles Morales' father who he believes to be Spider-Man. Miles is able to defeat Venom but his mother is fatally wounded protecting her son.









And according to Bendis in this interview, next issue jumps a whole year (which is presumably how long before Miles is pushed out of retirement) and in that time we'll see that he's starting to date the Ultimate version of Kate Bishop.

 

Comments

[turtlefu]

OH, yes. This is what we need! Another super-heroes mother must be fridged to give him ANGST AND DRAMA. Kill all the mothers! Characters aren't interesting if their mothers are alive!

[cyberghostface]

Well it was only a matter of time before something happened to Miles' parents. I figured it was going to be his dad though.

[nightauditguy]

Are there any super heroes who has parents that are still alive?

[cyberghostface]

Invincible (unless something happened, I haven't read it in a bit)?

Also I don't think Daredevil's mother is dead.

[donnblake]

I think she's a nun- or was. I know Bullseye threatened a woman implied to be Matt's mother in the same storyline where Karen Page died, but I think he only killed Karen.

[icon_uk]

Most of the New Mutants have at least one living parent (Sam and Berto's mothers are alive, Amara and Warlock have their fathers and Dani and Doug have both parent's alive)

[mercia]

For NOW.

(Don't you give Marvel any more ideas!)

[julian]

Jaime Reyes!

(But his book died.) (And I don't know about the New 52 version.)

[janegray]

The thing I don't get is, in a medium that has thousands of superheroes, and you need to make your character stand out as much as possible, WHY do writers keep resorting to clichè?

The near totality of superheroes either are orphans, or have evil parents, or are Batman's sons. It's extremely, extremely rare for a superhero to have living parents, let alone living parents who are not superheroes themselves (the only ones I can think of are Superman and Wiccan, and I think I heard that Supes is a orphan in the New 52).

If you want to make your character stand out, all you have to do if give him or her normal living parents. That's it, simple as that. So why do writers insist on killing off that source of uniqueness for short-term shock value?

[cyberghostface]

Well his dad's still around and apparently their relationship is going to be strained because of this.

[theflames]

That will be fairly unique situation i think...

[donnblake]

Well, Thor's parents are still alive, (well Odin was last I checked, but he goes back and forth, and I'm pretty sure his mother is Gaia), but while they're not superheroes, they are, y'know, gods, so that probably doesn't meet your criteria.

[nefrekeptah]

They don't. They don't do it for short-term shock value (well some do, but those are just bad writers), they do it to create conflict and develop the characters. The reason a superhero having a stable family is so unique is because a stable family is boring. If the main character doesn't have any issues with his parents, then there's no story about him overcoming those issues and therefore no room for character growth.

Which might also explain why stable parents are very rare in almost any form of fiction. Think about it; Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones, Oliver Twist (for an older example) - most famous pop culture icons are lucky to have one parent, and even if they do, it's often a very strained relationship.

Of course it's not impossible for the hero to have a stable family - the first Blue Beetle is a very good example of that done right - but it's not hard to understand why most writers don't bother.

[janegray]

I disagree as strongly as humanly possible that a stable family is boring, and I find it very annoying that such an opinion is constantly being presented as fact (Joss Wheadon is especially guilty of this, but he is just the most vocal one).

I have a stable family, and I still have plenty of conflict and issues with them. Just because people you know and love are alive and well, doesn't mean they can't provide a good foil for character growth (by teaching you things, by pissing you off, by supporting things you utterly detest, by surprising you with hidden depths you never suspected, etc etc).

I believe that killing off a hero's family is an extremely myopic way of creating drama: works for the short term, but in the long term it simply robs the character of good foils.

[mesmiranda]

Found the quote I was looking for!

"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy."

--Ursula Le Guin

[janegray]

http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4255

[onceaskrull]

Disappointed by this development, but the art is so good that it affects me anyway. Serious love for Pichelli's work. Bendis' work has never struck me as more than average at the best of times, but the art makes this one of my favorite marvel titles.

Plus I love Miles. Need to get a Miles icon.

[silverhammerman]

This is definitely cliche, but it could wind up being a neat inversion of the usual Spidey angst story. Peter lost his father figure due to his own inaction and began fighting crime to deal with his guilt, Miles loses his mother as a result of his superhero activities, so when he starts fighting crime again it could be a source of guilt rather than a way of alleviating it.

Seems like this is as good a place for a timeskip as any, it lets them establish Miles as being in mourning/retired for a full year without actually having to do a full year of moping around. Then again knowing Bendis' pacing we'll probably still get the better part of a year spent on Miles agonizing over being Spidey again, but still, seems like good use a the time skip. Also another example of the differences between Miles and Peter, classic Peter Parker could never walk away from being Spidey for that long, but clearly Miles can.

I'm curious why Miles mother would tell him not to let his father in on his secret though.

[nefrekeptah]

Probably because Jefferson is a huge ani-mutant bigot. For reasons more understandable then most, what with the whole "New York nearly wiped out by a mutant" thing, but still. And he knows that Spider-Man had something to to with the death of the Prowler, who may have been a crook but was still his brother.

[chrisdv]

The only reason they should doing a time skip is to bring Peter back, because THAT is a Spider-Man story worth telling - Peter come back over year after his death, and suddenly has to deal with Gwen, MJ & Johnny all being a year older/grade above him, everyone knows he's Spider-Man & there was a new Spidey whilst he was dead, and Captain America is now President.

This? Seen it done with Spider-Man numerous times before, not interested. Hell, as far as I'm concerned all this does is make Miles even more like Peter.

[nefrekeptah]

Yes, because a story about Peter Parker coming back from the dead has never been done before.

As far as I'm concerned, bringing back Peter Parker is the one thing that Bendis should NEVER do, because it's the one thing you can do in the ultimate universe that could never realistically happen in the 616 one.

[chrisdv]

Only one that comes to mind is "The Other", which was a complete mess, was when Perer was an adult, had him be dead for all of half an hour, and was just an excuse to give him a power boost.

Which is completely different to the story I just described.

[cyberghostface]

And it's funny in that pretty much NO ONE except for PAD actually bothered to follow up on any of the new powers or the ramifications of the arc. Any semblance of a conclusion -- Miss Arrow being the "Other" that appeared at the end -- happened in a tertiary title.

Nor was there any explanation as to how he lost all his new abilities (including the organic webbing which he got in an unrelated storyline) during BND. They at least tried to give a decent explanation as to how Harry was alive even if -- once again -- the most important moment, Harry returning and seeing Peter again, happened in a tertiary title.

[nefrekeptah]

Which doesn't change the fact that Peter apparently dying and then coming back has already been done. Hell, it's being done right now in Superior Spider-Man, where he appears to be dead and then works his way back. It's just been taking longer then normal.

There's already been stories where Peter gets thrust into the future after a long absence - the Fantastic Four crossover comes to mind, where Peter was gone for a month and had to deal with some huge changes, like Jonah becoming the mayor of New York. Spider-Men had something similar happen when regular Peter went to the Ultimate Universe.

I want to follow what happens to Miles. I do not want to get Peter back and find out the last twenty-two issues where just an interlude until the original's triumphant return. That would be awful.

[seisachtheia]

I agree. That is hard for me to say in some ways, because ultimate peter parker is my favorite peter parker and my god, I do so love ultimate may parker and she deserves nice things, damn it. But it would be cheap and bad storytelling.

[flash_fan]

As cool as Ultimate Peter was I have to disagree with you on this. I like the fact that there is a book with an alternate Spider-man with new and interesting stories. I like the new cast. I'm exited to see his relationship with Ultimate Kate Bishop. I don't necessarily think killing his mom was the best move but it wasn't the worst either. It was a gut punch it carried real weight and I can't wait to read the next issue with Miles who is currently my favorite Spider-man.

[thehood]

It does the opposite, Miles and Peter are two different people and two different Spider-Men.

And bringing back Peter would be less original and it's the worst thing they could do.

[silverzeo]

Wait... US comics are doing manga time jumps too now?

[chrisdv]

Psh, DC did it 7 years ago.

[angelophile]

The X-titles did a 6 month time jump in the late nineties/early noughties too. It's more commonplace than you'd think.

[bj_l]

They've been doing time jumps for a long time.

[espanolbot]

Silly Miles, you're meant to dump it in a trashcan and sulk away while a giant costumed version of you glowers from the sky. Haven't Peter's friend taught you anything!

[cyberghostface]

That's actually the next cover. :)

[blunderbuss]

Oh for fuck's saaaaaaaake --

[theflames]

Best comment I've seen all day.

[stolisomancer]

I didn't think we really spent enough time with Rio Morales to make this death as meaningful as it should be. That said, it's still a hell of a gut punch.

[stolisomancer]

Also, whatever else is said: she went out like an absolute badass.

[thatnickguy]

Comics! Where the only good parent is a dead one!

Also, for the uninformed, why is Miles upset to see his best friend? I've only read the first storyarc in the series, so I'm missing something there.

[cyberghostface]

I think it's less that he wasn't happy to see his friend and more with the confirmation that his mother is dead (since he wakes up and asks for his mother like it was a bad dream). He and Ganke are still close.

[thatnickguy]

Gah, that's what I get for skimming through the pages and not paying attention. Didn't even see him saying "Mom?" Whoops.

[blunderbuss]

Oh for the love of god, why would you say that to your son as your dying words?

"Oh god, I'm dying. My son's going to be scarred for life. Must use last of my strength to force a permanent wedge between him and his father that will be a source of angst and guilt for years to come!"

It's one thing for Miles himself to think he should never tell his dad, but for his DYING MOTHER to say it? I thought a mother would try to tell him not to blame himself or pass along the message to her husband not to blame Miles, but apparently comic book mums are different.

[theflames]

lol, that would do no good, Mile's mother knows her husband well enough to know that these new developments, along with the information of Mile's being Spider-man could destroy their relationship, she's trying to look out for Miles.

Plus, dying people don't always know they're dying... she was just trying to talk to her son.

[silverhammerman]

It's weird enough that I think there must be something more to it. Like, Miles' dad really hates superhumans or is secretly evil or something, though I feel like that sort of stuff would have come up earlier if it were the case. I feel like it's either something like that or she was delirious when she said it.

[thehood]

It's the not liking superhumans part. They had a conversation about that in an earlier issue.

He's not evil though.

[blackruzsa]

I hate the cliche but I like the "morning after" handling of it, it kind of hurts 10x more but I don't think I've ever seen it done this way.

[thehood]

It's not really a random guy, we saw Dr.Marcus back in the first issue of this run. He's responsible for the Spider that gave Miles his powers.

[cyberghostface]

Huh I guess I didn't put two and two together when I saw him.