Miles Morales: Spider-Man #8 Will Freak You Right Out
by James Ferguson
Miles Morales has been captured and hed against his will as a mysterious cyborg experiments on him. Tests are run to determine his strength, stamina, agility, and more, pushing his abilities to the limit, but to what end? The robot isn’t very talkative. Miles is left with little choice but to comply as it’s made very clear that if he doesn’t cooperate, everyone he loves will be put in danger.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #8 is a horror story through and through. Artist Javier Garron captures the stress and abject fear on the title character’s face as he wakes up in a strange place with no idea how he got there. Sweat and tears stream down his face as he struggles against restraints and the increasingly challenging experiments.
The layouts for this issue add to the experience as the images are centered on the page instead of extending out to the edges. This creates a claustrophobic feeling, like the walls are closing in on Miles, mirroring his captive state.
Miles’ captor is an inhuman machine, meeting the hero’s pleas for mercy without a lick of emotion. Colorist David Curiel presents the cyborg in black and white, as if anything even remotely resembling humanity has been washed out of it. Its eyes have no pupils. Instead, they’re just black seas of darkness. Letterer Travis Lanham leans into this with light grey word balloons that only add to the emotionless quality of this being.
Writer Saladin Ahmed pulls us deeper and deeper into this scenario, causing us to question everything we’re seeing. The hope is slowly drained out of Miles as he tries and tries to fight back, but to no avail. Every time he gets a glimmer of hope, it’s ripped away in brutal fashion, pushing him to the breaking point. This makes every panel pack an additional punch.
What makes this even more harrowing is how alone Miles is. This is the opposite of what he’s used to. He can’t lean on his friends and family for help. Ahmed has built up the supporting cast of this book to show how important they are to Miles and his life in and out of costume. The poor kid is completely cut off from them right now and is weaker for it.
We’ve already seen Miles overcome some pretty insane obstacles in his relatively short time as a hero. This issue challenges him in ways he’s never seen before, yet he’s still finding the strength to hold his head up and fight. Just like a horror movie, we’re cheering him on to survive.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #8 from Marvel Comics is currently available at your local comic shop and digitally through ComiXology and Amazon Kindle.
