Review by Karl Verhoven
Stranger Tides is the second Miles Morales graphic novel from the creative team of Justin A. Reynolds and Pablo Leon, and as the first hit the highspots, more surely follows.
Reynolds left a couple of matters open at the end of Shock Waves, but they’re not immediately addressed in the wake of a new plot, although when Reynolds picks up on them again it’s to supply a nice surprise. He starts with the massive televised launch of a new game going seriously wrong, leaving large amounts of Brooklyn’s population living, but immobile. That then spreads around the world when anyone tries to play the game. As Spider-Man Miles was present at the launch, but was teleported away before the disaster by enemy Trinity, introduced last time. The story she tells is incredible, concerning Earth being targeted by an alien called the Stranger who wants to set one half of the world’s population against the other.
That seems like a threat even beyond the ability of Spider-Man and a reformed teleporter to stop, and life takes an even worse turn for Miles when he learns his uncle is among the frozen.
In Shock Waves Pablo Leon had someone credited as Geoffo providing the layouts, but there’s no mention of Geoffo this time, and the art isn’t as interesting. Left to his own devices Leon favours drawing people in close-up and while Leon’s still good with expressions showing what they’re feeling, the action pages aren’t as thrilling as before.
It’s not only down to Leon that Stranger Tides isn’t as much fun as Shock Waves. Reynolds sets up the Stranger as an incredibly powerful alien with technology well ahead of early 21st century Earth at his disposal and a fine line in judgemental pompous dialogue like “in three days you will meet your reckoning. The end is nigh”. Yet at the end he’s stopped with a traditional punch to the face. It’s as if Reynolds suddenly realised he’d reached the last page and couldn’t come up with anything better.
All in all a great disappointment after the engaging Shock Waves.
