#mindsplitter

It’s been awhile since I have been able to cover Miles Morales as enthusiastically as I want to. I am preparing for a move and being a good boyfriend that I have been reduced to chiming in on stuff instead of making these lengthy ass posts.

Sorry about that.

Regardless, I can’t necessarily blame my personal life struggles with my lack of enthusiasm in the comic. I could have made time to talk about this comic, but honestly, the comic has been going through a bit of a lull period since it has been embroiled in back to back crossover events in which Saladin had to juggle pushing his own narrative within MM:SM while servicing the crossover event that absolutely no one honestly cared too much about because it was undercooked due to the political climate at the time as well as the Pandemic(Outlawed) or it was just fucking terrible and basically hypermasculine fanfic self-insert porn(King in Black).I am just glad that Miles is allowed to return to the good old basics of just being Spider-Man.

The Prologue of the Clone Saga: What is Going on in Miles’ Life prior to it?

Aww Ahmed, you somehow managed to be topical without actually trying to be.

As someone who has dealt with Slum Lords and shitty Land Lords and living in Florida, this was cathartic.

But underneath this, there is this  overall point that Miles’ is succumbing to anger which was something he feared doing all the way back since Bendis was writing him. Miles’ is timid. He fears becoming like his father and Uncle and letting his temper go off. He restrains himself a lot versus Peter, who was generally an angry kid who was picked on a lot and might have gotten in fights. Miles isn’t some nerdy outcast recluse like Peter was. He didn’t want to be Spider-Man. Peter, on the other hand, was a pissed off misanthropic orphan who was angry at the world enough that once he got his powers, he immediately used them for personal gain until his selfishness came back to haunt him.

While Peter explodes into violent outrages from a place of hatred for his own inaction and taking collective responsibility, Miles hates that he is becoming like his Uncle the more he does this Spider-Man bit.

Keep this in mind that the struggle of Miles is the balancing of going too far in restraining himself or keeping in his shell and not dealing with situations and going too far expressing his rage.

I feel like I have to do some backstory because it’s been like, what, six issues since I covered this so I am going to have to backtrack to keep everyone who hasn’t been following along with the comings and going of this comic.

Alright, first, what has been going on in Miles’ social life. Where we last left off, Miles and Barbara broke up or were broken up. So how is the crew doing since?

First and foremost, Uncle Aaron Davis aka the Prowler is “dead” again or as good as dead. At worst, he got sent back to the Ultimate Universe with Ultimatum and the Maker. At best, he is dead.

Miles has a baby sister which I have covered, but she is important to the Clone Saga. Her name is Billie named after famous Jazz singer Billie Holiday, Yes, the naming convention of the Morales family to name their children after jazz musicians and singers.

And what about Ganke and his crew at Brooklyn Visions?

So during Outlawed, Barbara took a stand against the anti-teen vigilante law and conducted a sit-in. Judge and Ganke joined in the sit-in and ended up detained unlawfully. Luckily, their Congresswoman stepped in and called Captain America, a resident in her district, to sort out the Fascists. Ganke, Barbara, and Judge were released. And because Miles was dealing with his Spider-Man issues, he was too busy and not around. And Ganke took that as “great opportunity.”

I had this image under “GankeTheSnake.jpeg” lol.

Isn’t Ganke supposed to be dating Danika Hart? What happened to that? I swear if Ahmed reads this and puts a little aside in an issue instead a full blown appearance of Danika, I am going to be mad.

No, this has very little to do with bro code and a lot to do with general betrayal. First off, Ganke knows why Miles and Barbara broke up: Miles did not tell her that he was Spider-Man. This attitude towards revealing his secret was pre-imposed on him by Peter Parker and....wait for it...one Ganke Lee. It is snake like behavior because it’s like your best friend telling you to work super hard for that promotion and work extra hours. You take up that advice and you work super damn hard. Meanwhile, your best friend comforts your partner while you are out there grinding for that check. Your partner gets sick of it because they feel neglected, and your so-called best friend decides to comfort them a little too much. That is what Ganke did. 

I don’t blame Barbara because, again, isn’t Ganke’s best friend. She was never part of the clique. She is not bouncing off or being a rebound other than putting the screws to Miles. Ganke is supposed to not fall for that. Would you call Mary Jane a violator because she also dated Harry and Mary Jane? No. Barbara is a free agent and even she was skeptical of that until the Snake did retract. What is underserved is that it frames Barabara to look like a manipulator which comes from this sexist interpretation that women are two sided or two faced about relations. But that isn’t Ahmed’s point. He is pointing focus towards Barbara which a thing in both Miles’ and Peter’s Spider-Man is that since they are both first person perspective titles’ you don’t get a lot of introspection from other characters. Especially so in MM:SM where everything is in a thought bubble writings in Miles’ journal. Barbara could very well have some bad intentions but Ganke is the asshole. People thought Mary Jane was just a promiscuous party girl with multiple lovers and it turns out that she was raised in a broken home and witnessed two failed and abusive relationships between her mother and her sister. We don’t know enough about Barbara to jump to any conclusion. We do know enough about Ganke to know what he did was foul. In fact, Ganke was the one who introduced Miles to Barbara. That’s the fucked part of it. At least, Harry asked!

Second, Miles still loves her.

He mentions her twice on his friend date with Kamala Khan, another girl that Miles has admitted that he has a crush on. He refers to Barbara as “my girl” and yeah, it’s clear, in spite of shippers leaving out the text of these panels, that Miles still has feelings for her.

Ganke the Snake is messed up. But I love it. I love the melodrama. I thrive in it because that is classic Spider-Man as hardcore fans like @traincat​ can provide countless examples of some soap opera shenanigans like this.

To continue on from that, Miles decides to reveal his identity to Starling after the whole ordeal in Outlawed where she and Miles were on the run from the government for being vigilantes under 21.Tiana worked with the Champions on the run and she earned Miles’ trust.

And for those who were expecting Starling to act like Black Cat...wellllllll...

There was no confirmation or anything because Zoomers don’t believe in making things official apparently as I learned from Euphoria. We don’t know if Miles and Tiana are dating or not or are they doing that “We are not going to put a label on it” thing.Regardless, Miles basically pulled a Jay-Z “On to the Next One.” I am proud of my boy.

Ganke is still a snake though.

And last and certainly not the least important factor in Miles’ Clone Saga is the Assessor.

The Assessor was able to basically roam free after Miles’ first encounter with it. I am so mad that Ahmed allowed Slott to write an annual basically solving all the mysteries of the Assessor in fucking Iron Man. But that is for another post. Anyways, after the Assessor tortured Miles, Miles basically was too traumatized that he stopped being Spider-man for a month. While this is understandable, it allowed for the Assessor to continue with it’s project and create Burner Clones of Miles. This is a character flaw with Miles. As soon as being Spider-Man gets too tough, he quits and acts like the world is perfectly fine and refuses to resolve things. It happened when Miles first got bitten and instead of reaching out to Peter, Peter dies and now Miles feels emboldened to be Spider-Man because he was too scared. He did it after his mother was killed in the Ultimate Universe when he decided to retire for two years and this allowed a criminal child trafficking network run by corporations to capture and experiment on kids and thus creating super teens. 

Instead of dealing with it immediately, he recluses and hides until the issue becomes so big that he has to deal with it.

And that is what happened here. The Burner Clones attack Miles at his home and kidnap him again. The Assessor now has clones of Miles running around wrecking havoc and because Miles decided to wallow and do nothing, well we have the Clone Saga.

I think that is everything so lets begin with the Clone Saga.

Part 1

Miles comes home to concerned parents with the news that Spider-Man is kidnapping scientists. The thing is that Miles did not do that. Gee, it must be a clone.

Apparently the news is flooding with Spider-Man running amok all over Brooklyn.What we get here is the above situations mixing into one page. Miles is getting angrier at the world and while most of these instances are untrue, the story about the real estate agent/slumlord comes up and he is forced to admit to his parents that that one actually happened.

What was an instance of rightful vindication becomes framed as an out of control vigilante/criminal and that is the theme of Miles Morales Spider-Man. Things that Peter routinely got away with turns against Miles. Miles can;t get too emotional or be too angry because his anger is perceived as more threatening because of whom he is.

Then Ganke, who Miles thought was there to inform him of the happenings, arrives to tell Miles’ something, but immediately cedes his mission once a bigger and more important issue comes up. That’s suspicious. Miles and Ganke go up to Miles’ room as the former gets suited up to investigate the case of his doppleganger destruction. Miles notices Ganke’s phone buzzing and hands it to him.

You’d expect the kid with a giant box labeled Empathy on top of his work desk would be totally understanding that his best friend is dating the girl who he still have feelings for?

He doesn’t. Miles’ gets angry and rightly so, but he doesn’t do what I would have done i.e. web Ganke from a tall building and make him hope that I cool off in time to get him before the web evaporates. Miles stops himself from careening his fist into Ganke and apologizes(more than I would have done), and heads out to be Spider-Man.

And this is the theme of Miles’ Clone Saga. He fears that anger in himself so when he meets the literal personification of that rage and unhinged violence, he gets scared as he does now. He is becoming violent like his father used to be. Like his Uncle was. Like his grandfather that Miles never met and was so bad that Jefferson cast away his surname.This anger in Miles becomes manifested in the personification of his selfish rage: Selim.And Miles deals with the hypothetical repercussions of if he ever were to break bad or just lose it.

This is a reminder for Miles that Peter will definitely come for his ass if Miles were to ever go too far. And while it was fun watching the two tumble, Miles in the back of his mind has to realize that Peter is not against using violence on his successor. And this isn’t a something I’d hold against Peter because he does stop when he realizes that Miles is his Miles and always believed that Miles was not behind the kidnappings. Peter always believes in Miles Morales even when Miles doesn’t believe in himself and honestly, while I don’t think of Peter as Miles’ mentor, I do like that Peter gives a shit about the kid enough to give Miles and automatic benefit of a doubt.

But I digress. After Miles explains the situation to Peter but gets interrupted when they find the imposter. Or imposters since both Peter and Miles get ambushed from behind by another Miles’ clone while chasing another. They scuffle with the clone who can apparently shapeshift his body and is shock proof and successfully tie him up but the Miles’ clone escapes with a built in bio-color smoke bomb. Peter gets incapacitated by the smoke bomb so Miles has to give chase alone.

While Miles’ gives chase, he finds his clones.

Part 2

The Clones names are Selim, Mindsplitter and Shift. Selim, other than being Miles backwards, means undamaged in Arabic which also means that he is a near perfect clone of Miles. As you can see, Selim is elitist and also hyperviolent. This is an important quality regarding Selim and I’ve seen people compare Selim to Kaine Parker to which I say it’s a little different. Kaine, from what I know, was a defective Clone who had issues with his identity. Selim is sure of whom he is and has no misconception about whom he is nor does he want to be Miles. Selim is just hyperviolent Miles. And we are going to the meta-commentary of Selim in Part 3 and why it is a bit more sinister than Peter and Kaine.

The clones beat up Miles and gang up on him until Peter comes to the rescue and makes the obligatory Kilometer Morales joke. The clones escape again which leaves both Miles and Peter time to discuss what is going on. Peter imparts Miles with some crucial advise in dealing with Clones.

Peter advises Miles not to act hastily when dealing with Clones and he also advises that Miles take some life stock and get some rest. Miles reluctantly takes up Peter’s advise and the two part ways.

This is the last interaction for Peter in Miles’ Clone Saga. He is there to remind the reader that yes, his Clone Saga was a thing and he did go through it, but Miles’ Clone Saga is ultimately different because it is less about who is the original and grasping with the idea of identity and more about cloning as a means of weaponizing and tarnishing reputation. And while I am at it, it isn’t that the original Clone Saga was terrible but more of the fact that it was drawn out and melodramatic.While Miles’ is quick and painful, Peter’s confused audiences and red herrings of whom was the real Peter and had whiplashes out the  wazoo. And while it did produce fan favorites like Ben O’Reilly and Kaine Parker, Clone Saga suffered from inconsistent writing due to having multiple writers. Miles’ benefits from Ahmed seeing everything through and actively refusing to stick with one arc more than 4 issues at a time. It’s the classic Amazing Spider-Man pace. This isn’t to say that Miles is better. It’s say that Miles is allowed to take his spin on old Spider-Man stories and make them better because people can examine those stories and learn from them.

But I digress.

Miles goes back home and tries to take the advice, but can’t because Selim and the clones have chose to weaponize themselves against Miles in a different way.

While Ganke did immediately believe Miles, I think the important thing to note is how Selim chose to represent Miles in that text, but that is for part 3 because it is very intentional from his use of dialogue and his overall aggressive attitude. Regardless, made his point that Miles can’t ignore him. Ganke realized that Selim must have cloned Miles’ phone and sent texts so Ganke reverse engineered his phone to track where Selim sent those texts from. 

Meanwhile Miles reflects on what makes him unique as a person and how he used to think it was his family, but starts to question if that is true(he gets his answer the next issue).

Regardless, Spider-man heads out exhausted but with fire in his eyes hoping to resolve this Clone business once and for all.

This is about as close as to Peter’s Clone Saga Miles gets as he ponders what exactly makes him unique. And he likens it to his experiences and the people around him is what makes him unique. Speaking of which, I want to clarify something: I do not like Clones. I’ve seen people liken my dislike of Clones with ableism and honestly, no. If you want to create a little petri person, I am okay as long as that person is their own identity and is allowed to experience life on their own accord. But the moment that you clone someone without their consent, and then that clone insists on existing in that cloned identity, then I am taking the Dr.Octavious approach regarding clones in general. This is why I have an issue with Ben Reilly’s excuse to hijack Spider-Man from Peter in the current Beyond storyline. He says that Peter’s memories are his memories too so therefore the Spider-Man identity means the same thing it does to him as it does Peter’s. And that’s fallacious because I have read about Peter, but that doesn’t make me Peter Parker. Clone Existential crisis only come about because they are not trying to be their own person and are latching onto a self that isn’t them. What Ben did was wrong and is wrong especially since he is latching on memories that he did not experience. Does that also mean that he can marry MJ too? Aunt May is his Aunt too? 

Ben, like Selim, was created to pervert the life of Peter by a man who does not care about humanity and cares more about his obsessions.

And Selim is about to demonstrate exactly what I mean.

Ganke successfully reverse tracked Selim’s phone and got a location. Miles heads out to confront his clones. When he finally arrives to their hideout, Miles calls them out and then proceeds to let his anger dictate the situation.

And he pays for it.

Turns out Miles doomed his Clone brethren by destroying their lab as they were trying create a cure for their temporary lifespans. By not heeding Peter Parker’s advice, he has effectively killed his clones. And Selim is going to make sure that his swan song will be spent making his Clone template’s life a living hell.

ACT 3

Now I can finally talk about Selim. I have seen Spidey fans, usually white ones, make this haphazard comparison of Selim to Kaine Parker or Ben and that’s not exactly correct. Yes, Kaine is seen as the physically superior Peter Parker in that he has more powers, is stronger, and is well-aware of that. However, Kaine wasn’t manufactured to be weaponized by the public like Selim and also Kaine is cloned from a white Jewish man who has a history of going off and letting that anger flow. Kaine constantly goes through an existential crisis of not being the true Peter Parker in spite of being a “better” Peter Parker. Kaine is a reflection of personal identity and not necessarily public perception of your identity.

Throughout Miles’ Clone Saga, we have seen Miles’ anger leading him to making mistakes and how his tendency to lash out violently and aggressively be used against him and people’s perception of him. Miles knows that his family on his dad’s side has a history of criminality. His father used to be an enforcer for the Kingpin, his Uncle was a career hitman/thief for the rich/assassin for the wealthy, and his granddad was a selfish drunk who would beat his kids if they did not steal him his favorite alcoholic beverage along with the candy they took. Not to mention the fact Miles’ fears the anger boiling inside of him that one day, he might just go crazy and do something rash like kill Captain America(Civil War 2) or become just like his Uncle(Ultimatum). People forget that if Miles did not get bitten by the spider, he’d become the next Prowler and be like his Uncle. Not to mention in every other universe, including Spider-Gwen’s, Miles or his family has either been bad guys, criminals for even badder guys or etc. For you movie oriented motherfuckers, recall that scene from Into the Spider-verse when Miles meets Peter for the first time and their Spider-senses tingle together. Notice how Miles background changes from Purple and Green(Prowler’s colors) to Red and Blue(Peter’s colors). That is visual storytelling at work.

Selim represents those darker tendencies Miles. Selim lashed out at Ganke for dating Barbara just like Miles did. Selim is targeting greedy, rich, and powerful people violently just like Miles lashed out at the slumlord in the prologue. And Selim is aiming to destroy Miles’ life like Miles’ doomed his. The difference is that Selim takes up a notch because he knows that he won’t ever have to deal with the repercussions of his actions, personally or societally. Selim doesn’t just get annoyed with Ganke. He whoreshames Miles’ ex-girlfriend. Selim does not just get aggravated with the rich white people. He kills them and leaves his fingerprints everywhere so it will blowback on Miles. Selim does not just target Miles. He targets everyone even remotely related to Miles because this nigga has no fucking sense.

But this is just on a personal level. Selim, on a macro-level, invokes racial imagery and caricature. Selim is literally created by an AI of a literal white man to weaponize copies of a black teen and prioritizes the copies to be violent and aggressive.That above cover intentionally evokes racial imagery such as a white man’s perception of black men versus the reaction of black men towards a violent act. Both are angry but one is fabricated and the other is evoked. Selim evokes something so much more sinister than Kaine because he is racial aggravation. To Jewish folks, Selim is the ‘shande’ that embarrasses all Jewish people. To Asian people, Selim is the banana. And to black people, Selim is the coon that is so ignorant or indifferent to the perception that his actions reflect on all of us as a whole.Because Selim is created by a white man, he has no respect or care for the societal persecution that his actions his actions could evoke upon black people in general. Which isn’t so weird in a society in which mass incarceration and criminalization of the black man are founded on Jim Crow-esque ideals of protecting white women from black savages, and the like.

Kaine was terrifying to Peter Parker and only Peter Parker. Selim could get Stop and Frisk reinstated. So no, Selim is not the same as Kaine. Perception of violence in this country racialized. While no one gives a shit about the riots that happen after white people’s favorite sports team win a game, but will raise a stink and evoke Martin Luther King when police unjustly murder a black person.

Back to the comic.

Selim corrects Miles in that he and his clone brethren aren’t exactly clones, but modifications of Miles without the sustaining ability of a clone like Ben Reilly or a Kaine Power. While both clones do have clone degeneration, they both typically last longer than a few days. They are burner clones. And Selim was hoping to alleviate that condition, but Miles unintentionally fucked that up. Miles apologizes and states that he had no idea what the Clones were doing and it wasn’t his intention and that he can help them all, but the Clones don’t belive him and opt to torture their clone template for revenge. Miles gives up and declares that he isn’t afraid of torture since Miles has experienced worse which Selim asks if he is referencing the Assessor.

I don’t think I did much justice on just how bad the Assessor is, but honestly, Miles Morales: Spider-Man #8 is only 3.99 and I did a review on it anyway so search those tags. To sum it up, the Assessor is an AI that assesses any and everything. He is GlaDos except none of the charm or sass and a bit more unnerving. The Assessor tortured Miles for weeks. The Assessor drilled him to exhaustion, beat on him with his machinations, vivisected Miles, waterboarded him, and several more things that you can see for yourself in MM:SM #8. Why did he do this? As of this writing, we don’t know yet, but we hopefully will find out in the current Beyond Arc. Anyways, if the Assessor did this to Miles, you can only imagine what the Assessor did to the clones.

I am not going to let you imagine. I am just going to show you.

Just pure evil. Also, this is the first time I think the Clones’ names and abilities were mentioned. Selim is just a deadlier Miles. Shift is an unstable mess of biology and barely is able to maintain his physical form. Mindspinner has become more Spider like and has grown four more arms and also has 8 eyes and psionic powers. 

Back to the comic.Selim and Mindspinner leaves Miles with Shift to kill Rio and Miles has a heart to heart with Shift, who is rather reluctant about what his clone brothers are doing. Miles noticed that Selim referred to Rio as “our mother” and took that to heart that they are like his brothers in a way. After a little pleading, Shift releases Miles.

More on Shift since he has become a bit of a recurring character after this arc. Shift is coded as neuroatypical in that he cannot speak and is somewhat deformed(couldn’t find a better word to describe him, but did not mean to offend those). But compared to his Clone brothers, he is the most like Miles Morales in heart. He has a sense of right or wrong that was not eroded during the Assessor’s conditioning. Shift is hopefully a mainstay for Miles, although I doubt it, because his entire character reeks of tragedy in the making.

Miles immediately goes to the hospital where Miles’ mother works only to find the hospital a mess and staff frazzled.

Mindsplitter meets his “mom” Rio and terrorizes her. Rio, showing where Miles gets his selflessness from, shoos away potential victims while she deals with clone of her son.

I love that Rio gets really foulmouthed when it comes to defending her children. Like yes, she is sweet and kind, but people forget that she knew Luke Cage back when the Rivalz were a thing and she resided in Spanish Harlem. She is with the shits and will drop the kind sweet mother act as soon as her family is in danger. Rio is not an Aunt May, although even Aunt May poisoned a batch of cookies and fed them to Chameleon when he impersonated her nephew so she don’t either. Rio gets vulgar and I find it hilarious that Miles inherited this aspect from her and not Jefferson.

So Miles and Mindsplitter fight throughout the hospital and with a timely assist from Mama Morales, Miles overpowers and defeats Mindsplitter. Miles asks where did Selim go and both Rio and Miles realized that Selim went after Jefferson and Billie.

Well fuck.

Part 4

The final part in Miles’ Clone Saga which also shows that unlike Peter’s it is brief, coherent, and direct. 

Selim has Billie and he has called out Miles to come to Brooklyn Bridge. This is somewhat an important location for Miles and would have been for Spider-Man mythos. You see the Brooklyn Bridge would have been the bridge that was depicted in the Night Gwen Stacy Died, but the text states that the bridge was the George Washington Bridge. It is actually hilarious to imagine Green Goblin carrying a white girl across Upper Manhattan past Harlem and into Washington Heights from Lower Manhattan near where NYU is. Just imagination a flying green man carrying a screaming white girl above millions of people across the island and you kind of understand why everyone in New York remembers the night Gwen Stacy Died. It’s because everyone saw it. Ahmed opted for Brooklyn Bridge which was also the location that Miles’ Uncle used to take him as a kid as a mini-field trip.

This is from Absolute Carnage: Miles Morales #2. Also written by Saladin Ahmed.

The bridge is technically an important location for Spider-Man mythos in spite of Gerry Conway erroneously naming the wrong bridge in TNGSD. To Miles, this place was a location filled with nostalgia. For Peter, this place is a moment of one of his greatest failures. And now Selim is evoking TNGSD with Miles’ baby sister, Billie. It’s a pivotal moment that Miles has to face a potential baby killer with his face wearing his mask.

Selim’s lack of humanity and his little microaggressions lead us to this moment. Miles is facing the person that he fears that he could be. Where those little bouts of anger and hot flashes are embodied in Selim. Selim is a major vibecheck for Miles. And Miles has to do a little soul searching to see where he ends and where Selim begins.

This is about as close Selim begins to act like Kaine. This is what is driving him. Is he a better Miles Morales than the original. And Miles baits him with it because the one thing Selim values or was conditioned to value was strength. It is not about whether he is like Miles. It’s about being better than Miles in reference to his own values. Spider-Man vs Spider Clone with a knives.

Miles and Selim fight across the Brooklyn Bridge deciding the fate of Miles’ family. There are few scenes in comics that convey action well and I think Carmen Carnero did a very good job displaying the choreography in a few pages. If I had to rank her among of Miles’ best artists, she’d be four behind Javier Garron, Sara Pichelli, and David Marquez in that order. In terms of fight scenes in this series, this would be well behind anything Garron has done as he did a fantastic job panelling fight scenes such as Miles versus Green Goblin II and IV. There is also the multiple fights with grunts and the two with Tombstone. Carnero is better with designing Miles to look more realistic while Garron prefers depicting action as more fluid and engaging. And this is not a diss at Carnero. Miles has had fantastic artwork and some of the best comic artists in the industry depicting him. She is still one of the best comic artists today. She is just in a company where in this series, it’s a rare thing when Miles is depicted poorly.

Was there ever any doubt that Miles would whoop Selim’s candy ass? Miles physically is one of the stronger characters in Street Level Marvel. Peter could handle Miles, no problem, but Miles is a problem when he is appropriately focused and motivated to hand you a can of Spider-whoop ass.

So of course, Selim cheats.

Say what you want about Kaine, but Kaine was capable being in love. He was capable of being in love. There is no love or humanity in Selim. He is calling an infant who is as close to him as a sister that he can get, a thing. In spite of looking exactly like Miles of his brothers, he resembles Miles the least of them.

Both Shift and Mindsplitter intervene and stop their homicidal brother from collecting bodies, Shift on behalf of Billie and Mindsplitter on behalf of Shift. Selim feels betrayed and attacks Mindsplitter while Shift cradles Billie from danger. Miles watches as his two clones engage in a final clash that ends with an electric explosion off the bridge.

Miles gets Billie from Shift and realizes that Billie was sleeping soundly in the web cradle that Selim placed her in. So the baby slept through the explosion. Miles is grateful for Shift and the two with their sister get away from the bridge to avoid the cops A safe distance away from the bridge, Miles and Shift have a heart to heart. Miles says that he understands that Shift didn’t have much of a say in being created and he understand that he was used by Selim. He then tells Shift that he has a choice now and Miles with be there to help him. Shift seems elated with the news so he spontaneously paints this.

Awww and in hindsight this will probably will be tearjerker inducing when Shift eventually and most likely dies. I can imagine Miles officially taking up grafitti lessons in commemoration of his brother because we know he has it in him and now it means something to him.

And yes, Miles considers Shift to be his brother.

And it ends in a positive and endearing note.

Summary and Final Thoughts

I enjoyed this arc. Obviously as spent months writing this up well after the arc has ended. You can get this entire arc in one volume as it is available in stores as Miles Morales: Spider-Man Volume #5 Clone Saga or any online comic distributor of your choice.  

Saladin Ahmed is recreating the feel of those classic Spider-Man stories like Romita or Conway with Miles that aim to focus on Miles’ struggle under the mask and this arc really tests Miles in all fronts. It is a benchmark for the character in terms of development and while nothing traumatic happened to him, Miles struggled and he triumphed. He certainly strained his relationships as  following this, his image has been tainted due to Selim going buckwild, but I think having witnesses attest that there were multiple Spider-Men kind of allowed Miles to save face. Miles has a new responsibility and brother in Selim that he has to look over and help.And I am sure Miles’ parents are certainly stressed out with the bullshit that Miles’ time as Spider-Man bring to their front door.

In other words, it’s a Spider-Man story.