Miles Morales vol. 7: Beyond

With “Beyond” as a subtitle to this volume, some of you may be wondering if this has anything to do with the storyline in the same name that was running over in “Amazing Spider-Man.”  The answer to that is “yes” as this picks up in the wake of Miles’ team-up with Ben Reilly against the one-off villain known as Rhizome.  After examining the villain’s tech with his friend Ganke, Miles makes the connection that it belongs to the Assessor – the malevolent A.I. that kidnapped and tortured him a while back.  Teaming up with his clone-brother Shift, Miles tracks down the Assessor’s home base in order to take the fight to the villain itself.

This results in a solid three-issue fight scene as Miles and Shift battle their way through the Assessor’s base in a less than straightforward fashion. I mean that in a good way as there are some reality-warping effects to keep them at bay, in addition to Quantum, the A.I.’s personal bodyguard.  While artists Michele Bandini and Luigi Zagaria handle all this in capable fashion, it’s writer Saladin Ahmed that gives the stakes a personal feel, reminding us of Miles’ anger against the Assessor, while also showcasing the character’s empathy in a key moment during the fights.  This all leads into a final issue that sends Miles and Shift into their own multiversal quest that seeks to tie up a loose end from a couple volumes ago and does so in enjoyably chaotic fashion.  At least until the final page, which had me going, “Ugh.  Not this guy again…”

That isn’t all there is to this volume.  Vol. 7 wraps up with the inclusion of “Annual #1” written by Ahmed with art from Luca Maresca features the Muslim-American superhero known as Amulet originally seen in the writer’s “Ms. Marvel” run.  It’s nothing special as it features Miles and Amulet teaming up to fight some monsters spawned by cursed objects and the man who’s trying to manipulate them for his benefit.  I get that Ahmed is trying to boost Amulet’s profile with this story, but that would’ve been better achieved by putting him in one that’s actually interesting.