Review by Frank Plowright
When invading the Beyond Corporation’s offices Miles Morales discovered a sophisticated holographic disguise concealing the way the building actually is, and a series of doorways to alternate universes. Beyond finished with Miles and Shift taking an enjoyable tour of some, but the fun ended when they found themselves confronted with old enemy Ultimatum. That’s where Empire of the Spider picks up, but it’s just an appetiser preceding visits to another dimension that’s Miles’ worst vision of the future.
Dystopian alternative futures are generally fun in superhero titles, and Empire of the Spider delivers a clever plot from Saladin Ahmed. Miles believed he’d dealt with his cloned alternates, but now finds himself in a reality where not only was the outcome of The Clone Saga his defeat and death, but his clones now rule Brooklyn with an iron hand. Some familiar faces are still around, and Ahmed gives a sense of how their lives are haunted and unfulfilled in what’s four chapters of desperation for the cast, but greatly enjoyable for readers.
Once again, Marvel haven’t scheduled properly, meaning different artists draw the core chapters. Alberto Foche is good, but Christopher Allen is the star turn. He puts greater effort into full backgrounds, and the viewpoints he uses for panel to panel continuity have a greater dynamism than Foche’s pages where figures are almost all seen as if the reader’s facing the action.
Several other artists work on sequences of a few pages for an extended final chapter closing the series. This is a return to earlier volumes where Ahmed’s plots were configured to accommodate different artists, and it’s achieved via looking at possibilities for Miles’ future via tarot cards. Ahmed doesn’t take him too far, just to the end of high school, and it’s sentimental, but in a good way, a way that readers will want to see things play out. All in all, if Ahmed had to stop writing Miles, then he does him proud at the end.
Of course, that’s been the case from the start, and all Ahmed’s stories are collected in an Omnibus. It’s an expensive format, but worth considering. Cody Ziglar begins a new series with Trial by Spider.
