All New X-Men #32 Guest Starring Miles Morales

The displaced X-Men have found themselves displaced even farther forward in time and have landed into the Ultimate Universe.

While Beast, Iceman, and X-23 all have some interesting adventures ahead of them, the heart of the story is Jean Grey’s meeting Miles Morales. Being the writer of Morales’ Spider-Man series gives Bendis a distinct advantage in make this cross over something tangible by giving both characters time to shine as their interaction takes center stage.

This is Miles’ first interaction with someone from the 616 universe since last year’s Spider-Men event.

Jean knows that Peter Parker is kind of a big deal in her neck of the woods, so seeing Miles as a younger version of an iconic hero is almost like looking into a situational mirror.

The artwork is fun to look at and Mahmud Asrar did a great job of making the big moments count as they were stuck in different circumstances. These circumstances were illustrated nicely and called for different colors and change ups in character work. The two-page layout of Jean reading Miles’ mind captured the essence of an insecure teenager having all of his inner-most thoughts revealed.

I believe that someday, somehow, Miles Morales will takes permanent residence in Marvel proper, and seeing him interact with more of its characters is a good way to get fan used to the possibility. For those who are all in on all things X-Men, this series has truly been the definitive yarn for the mutant stable these days.

Bendis establishes an enjoyable and perilous tone setting up the characters against threats that they think they know but in this case, they really don’t.

Score: 3.5 out of 5