Brian Michael Bendis On Miles Morales Being THE Spider-Man & More

With the powder keg of the Secret Wars finale primed and ready to explode, the Marvel Universe gears up for a new Spider-Man to be swinging around it’s neighborhoods – Miles Morales. The All-New All-Different Marvel Universe allows the creative team of Brian Michael Bendis, Sara Pichelli, Justin Ponsor & co. to tell all new stories for the character they brought to comics.

We were lucky enough to spend some time talking to Brian Bendis about the new series, what his hopes fans will take from the book and why now is the perfect time for Miles to star in the mainline Marvel U.

Bringing Miles into the All-New All- Different Marvel Universe must open up a ton of new doors for a ton of different story lines. How do you decide essentially on where to start first?

Brian: Its interesting because I at one point had given my resignation on the book. I said “All right, I’m going to bring Miles to 616 and then I guess I will walk off into the sunset with a 16 year run on Spider-Man.”

You have to leave eventually. At the same time I really didn’t want to. It was like “I guess I should go?” That kind of thing. It was much farther than I thought I would get to take the character. When publishing lines go away at any company you just have to go away, that’s it. You know what I mean? It was strange because for a while I had no idea the plans for Miles post Secret Wars. I did not know Miles was going to be an Avenger. I did not know at the time that Peter Parker was going to become a billionaire. With Peter’s story changing so much, it allowed Miles this opportunity to be the traditional Spider-Man figure in the Marvel Universe.

There is still Peter Parker, but he’s almost global whereas, like the classic Spider-Man stories, Miles would be wrestling between being a teenager and a superhero and staying in the boroughs doing what he can. Boy, that got f—— exciting. You know what I mean? That got “Oh, my God I didn’t realize there was going to be so much to do.” I said “Can I take back me not doing this book?” Someone said “Yeah, no one asked you to leave.” Then another person said “No, we didn’t take you seriously.” It was very funny. My pitch was that I think we should just call the book Spider-Man, not Spider-Man*. You know what I mean?

Yup

Brian: This is Spider-Man. The message of Miles that the fans and the world took for itself is that anyone can be Spider-Man and anyone of any color can be Spider-Man. So the title of the book should be Spider-Man, flat out Spider-Man. Not Miles Morales: Spider-Man, not Spectacular Spider-Man, Teenage Spider-Man or Spider-Boy. Unanimously everyone in the room said “That’s a fantastic message to put out there.” It takes us to the next level with him and off we go. Then we had a long talk about “okay, this character will come from one dimension to the other dimension and I was not interested in any kid out of time, fish out of water story.” You know what I mean?

He was already a fish out of water. You’re a fish out of water in your own skin so I don’t want to have to explain what the Ultimate Universe was every issue. At the same time I don’t want to lose all the cool stuff we had in it. We decided that we’re going to open the story with him in just the hero suit, status quo, and here is what he’s worried about and here is what he’s up against. We pretty much took all the stuff from the Ultimate Universe that really worked and wasn’t broken at all and had a lot more story in and anything that was repetitive, stuff that was already in the Marvel Universe we said goodbye to sadly.

Can you elaborate on what Miles knows, or remembers from Secret Wars or his Ultimate Universe life?

Brian: I got to be cool with that, it will be in the story.

Okay.

Brian: He survived an event. You know what I mean?

Right.

Brian: His perspective on that is be unique and it speaks to some choices that he’s been making. I think people know 8 months have gone by since the end of Secret Wars. We’ll see immediately we will see the fall out of the choices he has made because of that.

At this point I’m just so desperate not to ruin Jonathan Hickman & Esad Ribic’s story.

This is not just Brian doing a continuation of the Ultimate book? This is Miles, dropped in a new world, with all-new adventures, with new trials and tribulations all viewed through that lens.

Brian: Absolutely.

As far as the extended cast is confirmed are you able to tell us who’s stays and goes?

Brian: Ultimate End #5 came out so we have seen that Ganke makes it over. More people were worried about Ganke than they worried about Miles. Ganke is fine. Ganke and Bombshell, who was an original character that there was no Marvel Universe equivalent of, was one of Miles’ buddies are still in this story. His gang of friends remains intact, and added on to that gang of friends is Kamala Khan, Sam Alexander and the people that he’s in the Avengers with already. There is a pretty solid group of new characters from this last few years that have all found each other in friendship and adversity. That’s cool.

Also, we find out that Miles has his Mom back for his effort in Secret Wars. He made some pretty spectacular heroic moves at the end of Secret Wars, thanks to Jonathan Hickman and in return when the universe got put back together he got him Mom back. With that comes the struggle to be Spider-Man behind her back when so much is going on. Its near impossible, and anybody will tell you when you’re trying to live whatever life you’re trying to live outside of your parent’s umbrella, while you’re still living under their umbrella is very, very hard. No matter what you are or what you do. For Miles its Spider-Man.

You get to work with Sara Pichelli again how is that? Is that like getting the band back together for a reunion tour?

Brian: It absolutely is. Sara and I, have talked about this. We have a baby together and that baby is named Miles. We are very proud of our young child, and bringing him here to this place together is very, very exciting for both of us. I know that as much fun as we’ve had on other projects I could always tell that Sara was missing Miles and worried about him, like a mommy. I said “Hey, listen we’re bringing Miles to the Marvel Universe and we should do this together.” Yes. She didn’t even question.

There were other things we had planned, we had other plans for other things, but this one jumped to the front of the line. Hopefully we’ll get to the other stuff too.

It was fun to have her come back into his world and he’s a little older and things are a little different. There would be no Miles without Sara. Sara’s ability as a designer, both as a page designer and a fashion designer are just staggering, just unbelievably staggering.

I honestly think she is one of the greatest artists in comics on the planet Earth right now. I think Miles will be one of the great jewels of her crown. I’m glad to be here and be part of it and give her things to challenge her and things to do.

One more question for you. What is the reaction you’re hoping for as fans reach the final page of the first issue?

Brian: It’s the reaction you always want which is “Damn!”

Miles has a lot of readers. People panicked that we weren’t going to get to this book. We had to wait until Secret Wars was over. What I want is to reward those fans for their commitment to the character. You have no idea how intimate and passionate people’s reaction to Miles is. It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever gotten in comics. It’s just unbelievable. I want to reward that with this experience and at the same time, for people who are going to pick it up with “I’ve heard a lot about this, Okay, what the hell is this?”

I wanted to state our case for what a modern Spider-Man would be like that isn’t Peter Parker. I think the first issue absolutely does it. It also sets the stage for the story lines to come, which there are so many. That’s the other good news, there is so much story. That’s always like “How much story do I have here?” It’s always a writers thing, but every page reveals more story and more story and more story for future issues and that’s exciting.

This is just the start of another 16 year run then, right?

Brian: I would love to. The third thing and not in any order, but I would love, like people do every time we have worked together, people write me and go “Holy shit, Sara Pichelli.” That’s my favorite thing in the world.

I’m immensely proud of our collaboration together, and next chapters of collaborations as I get older that ends up being even better than the first time. You go “Oh, wow we are kicking ass together.” Then you take a break for a year and come back and go “We are still kicking ass together and we’re better at what we do.” I have this with Alex Maleev and I have this with Mike Oeming. Its stuff that, some of it, the naked eye won’t see, but I see it and that’s exciting.

Every page that Sara designed in the first issue is so different from the way she handled it a few years ago. That’s exciting to be part of, the evolution of an artist and to write into. That’s just the best.

That’s awesome.

Brian: I would love, my goal in life now is that Miles isn’t the diversity Spider-Man, he’s just Spider-Man. The conversation completely goes away because it’s so normalized that no one even notices. I think more and more that’s happening, I really do. I don’t think most people read Miles because specifically they want to read the African-American or Hispanic Spider-Man.

They just want to read a comic book by people who give a shit.

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So what do you think ComicBook.com readers? There is still time to pre-order a copy of Spider-Man #1 at your local retailer so make sure you do so!

Spider-Man #1 hits comic shops and the Marvel Comics App, February 3rd, 2016.