SPIDER-MAN III (Miles Morales)
Created By: Brian Michael Bendis & Sara Pichelli
First Appearance: Ultimate Fallout #4 (Aug. 2011)
Role: Minority Replacement
Group Affiliations: The Web Warriors, The Avengers
PL 9 (191)
STRENGTH 8
STAMINA 7
AGILITY 7/8
FIGHTING 7
DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 5
AWARENESS 1
PRESENCE 2
Skills:
Acrobatics 2 (+9, +14 Spider-Sense)
Athletics 4 (+12)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 1 (+8)
Deception 5 (+8)
Expertise (Science) 5 (+10)
Insight 2 (+3)
Investigation 4 (+5)
Perception 3 (+4, +8 Spider-Sense)
Sleight of Hand 3 (+5)
Technology 5 (+10)
Advantages:
Improved Critical (Venom Sting), Improved Initiative, Improved Trip, Ranged Attack 8, Takedown, Taunt
Powers:
"Proportionate Strength of a Spider"
Power Lifting 1 (12 tons) [1]
Leaping 2 (30 feet) [2]
"Camouflage" Concealment (Visuals) 2 (Flaws: Blending) [2]
"Does Whatever a Spider Can"
Movement 4 (Wall-Crawling 2, Sure-Footed, Safe Fall) [8]
Speed 2 (8 mph) [2]
"Spider-Sense- Warns of Danger & Boosts Agility"
Enhanced Agility 1 [2]
Enhanced Skills 6: Acrobatics 2 (+14), Perception 4 (+8) [3]
Enhanced Advantages 5: Agile Feint, Evasion, Improved Defense, Ultimate Acrobatics Skill, Uncanny Dodge [5]
Senses 1 (Danger Sense) [1]
Enhanced Dodge 1 [1]
Enhanced Parry 2 [2]
"Venom Sting"
"Paralytic" Affliction 8 (Fort; Dazed/Stunned/Paralyzed) (Extras: Cumulative, Ranged) (Flaws: Ranged Limited to With Connecting Materials) (20) -- [23]
-
AE: Venom Blast 8 (Flaws: Unreliable- 5 Uses) (8)
- AE: "Break Chains" Damage 5 (Flaws: Limited to Objects) (5)
- AE: "Repels Non-Ferrous Objects" Move Object 4 (Extras: Area- 30ft. Burst) (Flaws: Limited to Away, Limited to Non-Ferrous Materials) (4)
"Web-Shooters" (Flaws: Removable) [24]
"Webbing" Snare 7 (Feats: Split, Tether, Dynamic) (24) -- (30 points)
- Dynamic AE: "Here's Web In Your Eye!" Dazzle Visuals 7 (Resisted By Dodge & Strength) (Feats: Dynamic) (Inaccurate -1) (12)
- Dynamic AE: "Webline & Web-Net" Movement 2 (Swinging, Safe Fall) (Extras: Safe Fall is Affects Others Only +0) (Feats: Dynamic) (5)
- AE: "Web Spray" Snare 6 (Extras: Area- 30ft. Cone +1/2) (Flaws: Touch Range) (18)
- AE: "Stuff Made of Webbing" Create 6 (Feats: Innate) (Flaws: Permanent +0) (13)
Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+8 Damage, DC 23)
Spider-Web +10 (+7 Ranged Affliction, DC 17)
Web Spray +6 Area (+6 Affliction, DC 16)
Web in the Eyes +6 (+7 Ranged Affliction, DC 17)
Venom Blast +10 (+8 Ranged Damage, DC 23)
Break Chains +8 (+5 Damage, DC 20)
Paralytic Venom +8 (+8 Affliction, DC 18)
Initiative +7 (+11 Spider-Sense)
Defenses:
Dodge +7 (+9 Spider-Sense, DC 19), Parry +7 (+9 Spider-Sense, DC 19), Toughness +7, Fortitude +8, Will +7
Complications:
Responsibility (Human Life)- The Ultimate Universe's Peter Parker died while Miles sat at home avoiding the dangers of superhero life- this motivated him to actually use his powers for good.
Relationship (Family)- Miles's parents know his secret identity, and this causes him a great deal of strain in his personal life.
Secret (Identity)- Two or three people on the planet Earth still do not know that Miles is the new Spider-Man.
Power Loss (Web-Shooters)- Spider-Man runs out of Web Fluid whenever the GM demands it.
Total: Abilities: 78 / Skills: 34--17 / Advantages: 13 / Powers: 76 / Defenses: 7 (191)
The Blatino Spider-Man:
-Another in the long line of "Minority Hires" in recent years, Miles has the distinct advantage of being created to be the new Ultimate Spider-Man, replacing the deceased Peter Parker (who heroically died fighting) in his book. Also, he was created by Marvel's golden boy, Brian Michael Bendis. Of course, that's the kind of thing that also holds a hero BACK, as fan backlash can be tremendous (just ask Kyle Rayner). Equally-so, tooth-gnashing from the "Anti-PC Crowd" can be just as vicious, but Marvel was game to try. And really, they tried HARD- not only was he now the central figure to the "Ultimate" line, but he got appearances in the cartoon, cross-overs with the mainstream Marvel U, etc. And it seems to have worked out- the dude got teleported wholesale to the actual Marvel Universe when the Ultimate line folded.
-Naturally, he's a Minority Hire- meant to increase the number (and prominence) of minorities in the comic book world, which have struggled for a lot of reasons (perhaps the largest is that they were all created after the 1960s, which means they're not "classic" characters, and thus tend to get dumped for whatever writer's OTHER favorite minority character, meaning that few ever get consistent pushes for years). Plus, as Marvel's top top names (Joe Quesada & Alex Alonso) are of Latino descent, the appeal of a guy named "Morales" being Spider-Man is obvious. He's also something I like- he's multiracial! Black AND Latino, not only covering two bases, but showing that- *gasp*- sometimes people breed with someone of another race... who ISN'T WHITE. This has long been something I've found odd- you see a lot of "mixed" couples, but it's usually "Not Too Black" situations where the non-"ethnic" one is white (Japan does the same thing- a HUGE number of "ethnic" (in this case, non-Asian looking) characters are actually Half-Japanese. A lot of characters in my OC-verse were meant to be bi-racial with mixes you don't usually see (Blasian, Blatino, Bliddle Eastern... actually I keep just mixing black with other things now that I think of it. BIRACIAL PEOPLE ARE HOT, DAMMIT!) for the same reason.
-So we get the eternal question: Does Representation count? Well, the majority of people in the U.S. remains Caucasian, but to MINORITIES, it definitely seems to. So it ain't just white-guilt sufferers on their blogs crying about it. And really, it's the Ultimate Spider-Man. It ain't like they killed off the regular guy and tried it.
Anyways...:
-Miles Morales is a Peter Parker-like smart kid with an uncle who excercized bad judgment and was a career crook. He ends up being bitten by a second genetically-engineered spider, and loses his own uncle, in one of those coincidences that KIIIIIIIIIIIIND of stretches things, but why not? He first decides NOT to become a super-hero, judging the dangers of the lifestyle, but is guilt-ridden by the public death of Peter Parker, realizing he could have helped. He decides to become the new Spider-Man, putting on a BITCHING "reverse color" version of the Spider-Man outfit (EVERY INCARNATION OF THAT OUTFIT LOOKS AWESOME. I've said it before, and I'll say it a thousand times- there has never been an outfit that looks THAT GOOD in every incarnation... except the silver metal one. And Ben Reilly's blue sweatshirt look).
-Miles undergoes a lot of "Everyman" stuff, and has the bouts of bad luck that plague the Parkers of both universes, including having about a thousand people figure out his Secret ID, and getting negative reactions for wearing the uniform of a dead hero- it takes some pep-talks from Peter's loved ones (Aunt May, MJ, etc.) to really convince him of what he's doing. Apparently Peter Parker returns to life somehow, and Miles gets a rebooted book (written by someone other than Bendis, who'd been writing
Ultimate Spider-Man for one of comics' longest uninterrupted runs). However, it was in 2015 (only four years after his debut) that the Ultimate Universe was finally merged with the Marvel one (which had adopted a few Ultimateverse things anyways, though thankfully stepped back from some of them, like their increasingly-hostile version of Captain America). Miles became central to this whole thing, as he was declared one of the few things "worth keeping" (too much of
The Ultimates had been ruined with time).
-As a result, the
Secret Wars storyline ends with "God Doom" defeated by Earth's superheroes, and the Ultimate universe being evaporated along with everything but the "Mainstream" one. Miles fears the loss of everyone he'd ever loved... except his entire personal world was saved, because he gave the Molecule Man a hamburger (which is possibly the best part of the entire thing- Miles going all "Oh no my world is dead" and then we get that shot of Owen Reese looking at him in gratitude and going "... I OWE you one").
-Miles joins the new Avengers squad (alas, it was my least-favorite of the three
Avengers books, which is odd, as Mark Waid has the best pedigree of the three writers) and gets his all-new Mainstream Marvel solo book, in which he acts as the "Spider-Man of New York" while Peter Parker does Spidey stuff around the world. This creates an uncomfortable situation for me, as this is YET ANOTHER example of the "Dilution of Supers" in the Marvel Universe- the Hulk has already been diluted to barely-green "nothing" by this point thanks to all the different Hulks out there, but now SPIDER-MAN gets stuck to this? Bad enough there's four Spider-Women (though the fourth one really doesn't count), but now two Spider-MEN? At the same time. That's some DC shit, yo- but even they manage to pull it off a little better than Marvel's been doing lately (Six Caps! Eight-thousand Hulks!). In any case, a thousand more people discovered Miles's secret identity, he quit the Avengers and joined the all-teenage Champions, and here we are. I've read only a handful of comics featuring him, and he seems... pretty much like Ultimate Spidey- the Everydude Super-Hero who cracks jokes and acts like a real human being. But I like him- it's good to see the occasional hero who FREAKS OUT when he sees something freaky. I get that impression of him.
The Powers of Miles:
-Miles is pretty much like a 1970s-era Spider-Man- skilled and with great powers, but not as elite as Peter Parker is as of today. His Spider-Sense is a little weaker than Peter's, but he gains Camouflage (even while wearing clothes), and a "Venom Sting" that works as an Unreliable Blast or a Paralyzing Touch attack, giving him a different set of options than Peter (which I kinda like- it separates them a bit, rather than making Miles a mere clone). Otherwise, he's PL 8-9 in range, as he's less-experienced than Peter is by a WIDE margin.