In the few years Brian Bendis spent developing him, Miles Morales has become a member of a small pantheon of endearing, young superheroes that represent the best of the genre for millenials. After Secret Wars, the news that he would be spared from the death rattle of the Ultimate Marvelverse (which has been on life support for at least the past five years, let’s face it) and brought into the regular 616 continuity was expected but still a little awkward. I mean, come on….this is yet another addition to the Spider Family at a time when there are no less than four Spider people populating Marvel with as many books to account for them all. However, the fact that Bendis is still writing him bodes well for this particular title so far.

Issue #2 catches Miles with his spider pants figuratively down after a shockingly one-sided throwdown with an old school Marvel baddie. It didn’t take long for Bendis is toss in the obligatory appearance from Peter Parker, but I’m willing to overlook that considering Bendis is easily one of the most fun spider writers of the past 15 years. The more, the merrier. People that have followed Miles’ exploits from the Ultimate U might find this brief introduction to Miles and Peter’s relationship a bit redundant, but for new readers, it comes across as lighthearted and to-the-point so there’s no dwelling on it and we can carry on with the business of telling a new story. At first, it’s a little awkward that Bendis decided to start this series off with Miles’ new life in this new universe as being so shitty since we had such a good time watching him be so level headed and well adjusted in his previous series. However, you start to see that it makes sense because a). things really should be different for him since this is a different universe and b). it’s a fitting counter to Peter, who is apparently having the time of his life as a new age captain of industry. Art wise, Sara Pichelli hasn’t lost a single step. Even with the ridiculous amount of detail packed into every page, everything from the cover to Miles’ dust-up with supervillain dust-up (easily the visual highlight of the issue) looks insanely gorgeous and easy to follow from page to page.

Bottom Line: Okay, so maybe old readers didn’t need a refresher course in the Spider hierarchy. So what? This book is so well paced, sweet looking and entertaining overall, it’s easy to not give a damn.

4.5 Donald Glovers out of 10