The Not So Infinite Multiverse: Reviewing ‘Miles Morales: Spider-Man’ #37

All the way back in 2016 (a lifetime ago really) there was a popular Saturday Night Live skit featuring Tom Hanks as the ‘spooky’ character David S. Pumpkins and his beatboxing skeletons as part of a 100 Floors of Frights ride. After seeing this not-so-scary character on many floors one of the skit characters (played by Beck Bennett) asks, “Why did you go all-in on David Pumpkins?” I bring this up because as everyone has noticed various movie franchises, comic books, shows, and other things are seemingly all in on showcasing multiverses of some kind.

Someone really needs to ask, “Why did you go all-in on multiverse?” because it’s getting to be a bit much.

One character that suffers the most from a constant multiversal attachment is Miles Morales, who can’t seem to escape this storytelling anchor. Saladin Ahmed is a fine writer, he’s done some really great stories including earlier in this series, but it’s hard not to feel like right now Miles Morales as a character is not being done justice. Being stuck as the Spider-Man that is always dealing with the multiverse and basically all his school/family/friend/supporting cast stuff being cast aside is an anchor around the character. It’s like all the actual Spider-Man-like stories are being saved for Peter at this point and Miles is just off to the side doing the other stuff.

As a massive fan of Miles Morales (seeing a major hero that is biracial like me over a decade ago was a huge moment), it’s painful to watch as the characters is being distilled down to just Uncle Aaron, Ultimate Universe, and Multiversal stuff over and over and over again. Even in his current What If? Miles Morales series is about multiversal Miles.

Christopher Allan and David Curiel do a good job here, but the overall setting doesn’t do either of their art any favors. This inner space between dimensions is somewhat bland visually so there isn’t much for Allan to bring to the page and at times because of the weird physics less realm, the action feels a bit jumbled. Even the colors are this way too because again the overall setting doesn’t have a ton to really make it as visually appealing as one would hope.

One realm where Miles feels a bit failed comes within both the art and the story as a whole, the fact that leaving out all the other parts of his life means we mostly are getting fully masked Miles. Therefore, its fully Spider-Man stories and not really Miles stories. We only really see our Miles when he sees images of the other universe where (in another not really inspired choice) the recent Clone Saga goes wrong and Selim (Miles spelled backward…) murders Miles from behind as well as his clone brothers.

There just isn’t a ton to really draw the eyes with this issue as it’s a fight in a brown and black heavy space as an issue bridging the current part of the arc to the next part.

Cory Petit makes the lettering work per usual, making a large amount of exposition flow and sticking to depicting tone/volume with shifting font sizes and styles. All the emotions that can be found between the Miles/Shift and the other Miles are tangible in the moment.

There is good work and effort going here but at the end of the day there is so much more that should be happening for Miles Morales, and we’re seemingly going in the opposite/wrong direction.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man #37 is available digitally and in print from Marvel Comics.