The Miles Chronicles: Spider-Man Issue 239 – Sinister Six Reborn (part 2?)

Hello true believers! This week we look at Miles’ adventures in stopping his Uncle Aaron aka The Prowler! And we get some progress (finally) with the story line that has been spanning the past few issues plus a fight scene?!

 

Title: Sinister Six Reborn (part 2?)

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artist: Oscar Bazaldua

Color Artist: Brian Reiber

Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit

Cover Art: Patrick Brown

Editor: Nick Lowe

Published: April 4, 2018

 

Overview:

The Prowler, Aaron Davis, along with the Sinister Six have stolen a SHIELD Helicarrier. They deliver it to Lucia Von Bardas in Latveria. Spider-Man and the Champions show up, they fight some, Spider-Man and the Prowler fall off of the Helicarrier, and it ends with the Champions getting shot at with multiple machine guns.

 

Highlights:

THERE WAS FINALLY A FIGHT SCENE!!!

 

What was lacking:

Pretty much everything else. The pacing was off and felt jumpy, character actions felt erratic, the fight wasn’t even resolved, it would randomly switch to earlier without telling you making it jarring on the first read through, Sandman didn’t feel like the same Sandman we’ve been reading, Lucia Von Bardas just said the same stuff over and over again (which can be summed up to “Get off my ship”), younger Bombshell was completely useless, and the scene with Ganke did not matter to this story.

 

Let’s break this down a bit. The jumpiness and erratic actions: Spider-Man is swinging through the city. Fine, right? Except the last time we saw him, he was fighting Red Hulk and was knocked off of a flying Helicarrier into the ocean. Are we just going to ignore that? What happened to Red Hulk? He was venom-blasted inside of his throat and left to drown by Miles. But anyway, Miles is then at his uncle’s house and here is where we get flashback after flashback after flashback and only half of them tell you that it’s a flashback! Not to mention that in one, it’s supposed to be 10 years earlier and they use Miles’ face as the pivot to try and show that he is now younger in this scene, yet HE DOESN’T LOOK ANY DIFFERENT!

The only difference is that the younger Miles has his mouth open

 

Miles punches through a safe, says ‘ow’ a lot, compares himself to Batman, then it switches over to the Sinister Six bragging about how great they are. First of all, it did not need to take 4 pages for him to break open a safe. Second, how can he compare himself to Batman? Does DC comics exist in Marvel? That would be strange considering that in Amalgam they confirmed that DC is an alternate universe, so does that mean that these comic book writers just write about the happenings of an alternate universe? Did they just see the superheroes from DC and decide to write about them after they left? If that’s the case, what’s stopping some writers in the Marvel continuity from making a Spider-Man comic? Or maybe it’s just Bendis making a reference that he’s moving over to DC comics and I’m overthinking it.

 

So we go to the Sinister Six and spend a page listening to them pat themselves on the back, and then Sandman just punches Hobgoblin. And everyone is okay with it. Then they just throw Hobgoblin off the side of the Helicarrier. Why? What point did Hobgoblin serve? Yeah sure, he ratted the Sinister Six out, but why have him even do that? There was no point in even having Hobgoblin in the story. He never fights, he didn’t really help steal the Helicarrier, and then he is promptly disposed of. I have to assume that he is going to come back later. Otherwise, what’s the point in having him be there at all? Also, I was shocked when i found out that this Hobgoblin is supposed to be Kingsley. This does not act like Kingsley at all. Kingsley is cool, smart, tough. This Hobgoblin is an utter joke who can’t take a punch and it’s really disappointing what has been done to the character.

This happens randomly after a page of congratulating themselves. It’s terrible timing.

 

Then we jump over to the Ganke page. This didn’t need to be here at all, whatsoever. It didn’t add to the story. All it did was make it feel more incoherent. And some of you may be saying “But Grant, Ganke’s relationship has been a side focus of the Miles comics for awhile now.” And, even though it’s very rude of you to interrupt me like that, you would be right, it has been. But do you know what else has been a side plot? Mrs. Morales and Cable, and that wasn’t even mentioned in this issue, so clearly the side plots don’t need to be in every issue. This bit with Ganke could have been better if we had more than just this one, random page.

 

Then after Ganke, we go back to the Sinister Six as they find out who they were hired by. I’ll be honest, I’ve never even heard of Lucia Von Bardas until now (Apparently, she was a professor at UNC! Go Tar Heels!) yet the comic makes her look like she is the most important villain that has ever been. Then the Champions randomly show up. They have never been mentioned in the Miles books before now. Never. I haven’t been reading the Champions comic either, so I was a little confused when they just pop up out of nowhere. Anyway, they get their butts whooped while Bombshell does absolutely nothing. Here’s a short compilation of her uselessness:

Apparently ‘No!’ is the only word in her vocabulary. She’s like the new Groot.

 

What’s that?! It’s time for another Misleading Covers?

So are we supposed to believe that Uncle Aaron is going to die? The only time he and Miles interact is when they’re fighting. At no point does he seem like he is going to die except for when he and Miles fall off of the Helicarrier at the end, but even then, Hobgoblin fell off of it and he’ll probably be fine (I mean, it’s supposed to be Kingsley, they’re not killing off Kingsley in a Miles book), Red Hulk fell off and he was fine, Miles fell off before and he was fine. Everybody who has fallen off of the Helicarrier has been fine, so there’s no reason to believe that Aaron would not be. Unless he was shot, but there was nothing to indicate that he was.

 

This comic was bad (though might I say, not nearly as bad as some of Slott’s work). Jumpy, misleading, actions that don’t fit the characters, irrelevant sections left in for no reason. It’s disappointing and just reinforces that Miles needs a new writer. Bendis’ exit cannot come fast enough.

 

Final grade: D-