A New Type Of Hulk: Reviewing ‘What If?…Miles Morales’ #3

When it comes to Miles Morales the multiverse as a concept has just become a sort of anchor attached to the character’s back that keeps dragging him down, not allowing him to really reach the heights in comics that he should be swinging through regularly. A Marvel What If? series dedicated to the character should be exciting, but so far just putting him into the place of other Marvel characters wholesale has been a bit lacking.

Miles becoming the Hulk at least takes a somewhat interesting route with how it frames the whole issue.

Mental health and how various heroes/characters deal with it has become more and more common within a number of comic series these days. So, Anthony Piper choosing to frame this story as Miles having a therapy session with Doc Sampson (detailing origins through flashback) first allows for there to be more to the story than origins but also provides a good way to handle the Hulk very differently than Bruce Banner’s version.

At the same time, the constant focus on Uncle Aaron/Prowler and how that causes many of these transformations or provides foes or other drama both in this book and the current multiversal traveling ongoing Miles book is tiring. Yes, family (especially Uncle Aaron) are huge aspects of Miles backstory and what makes the character great, but it needs a rest. It would be like if every single Spider-Man arc or story was about him talking about Uncle Ben and doing flashbacks of Uncle Ben over and over. It’s like no matter the multiversal gimmicks at play, Miles is just stuck running in circles as a character.

Edgar Salazar and Chris Sotomayor do a good job here art-wise, bringing all these moments to great life. Some pages are a little average overall, nothing off-putting or special about them, but there are quite a few that are very striking. Such as the one where Miles pops up in bed with glowing green eyes that is powerful and very much of an iconic variety. Sotomayor does a great job at blending together the darker shadowy tones and the brighter colors into a great color marriage.

While the captions help, one nitpick is that it would be better if there was something a bit more to set apart the present-day and flashback panels.

Cory Petit does what he always does so well, bringing a great bit of energy in lettering. Doing all the things that showcase the different volumes, tones, and personalities behind various moments of dialogue and keeping it easy to follow.

Marvel Comics What If?…Miles Morales #3 is now available.