Free Comic Friday: Marvel Must-Haves featuring Spider-Men, Avengers Twilight and G.O.D.S.

Free Marvel Must-Haves: August 2024
Cover: Humberto Ramos & Edgar Delgado

I started my #FreeComicFriday posts as a way to make use of and finally read all those books I'd snagged on Free Comic Book Day over the years. But I haven't limited it to just freebies dispensed on the first Saturday in May. There was Halloween ComicFest, which seems to have fallen by the wayside although Marvel still produces Trick or Read books. DC has given out free issues honoring Batman and Wonder Woman's debuts. Dark Horse has celebrated Hellboy in similar fashion.

Marvel went a step further last year and started releasing Marvel Must-Haves, free publications featuring three complete issues. They're usually for fairly recent comics that tie in to recently or soon-to-be released trades. Naturally, I started snatching them up.

I had several to choose from, but I decided to kick things off with the August 2024 edition because it features three comics I hadn't read before.

Spectacular Spider-Men #2
“Arachnobatics Chapter 2: Community”
Writer: Greg Weisman
Penciler: Ramos
Inker: Victor Olazaba
Colorist: Delgado
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Production: Gabriel Mata
Assistant Editor: Kaeden McGahey
Editor: Nick Lowe
Editor-in-Chief: C.B. Cebulski

One of my go-to, get-off-my-lawn, grumpy-old-comic-fan arguments is that there are too many characters these days with the same codename. I'm not talking about legacies or time travel; just two heroes, operating simultaneously, with the same name. Wolverine is Wolverine, but so is X-23. Sometimes. We've got Aquaman, but we have to promote Aqualad, so he's also Aquaman.* And then there's Barry Allen and Wally West, and is Jay Garrick still a Flash too?

At least Peter Parker and Miles Morales sharing the Spider-Man moniker makes a little sense. Not in-story, mind you; at least not that I've seen. But Peter is the original Spider-Man, and Miles made the name his own in the Ultimate universe. When Marvel decided to put the kibosh on the original Ultimate line, Miles was still pretty popular. In-story, he's in the 616 because he gave Molecule Man a hamburger.

So I roll my eyes slightly less at this title sharing. And I do like the setup of this series, which we get handily in a title page recap as they featured the second issue in this collection instead of the first. Peter and Miles meet for coffee once a week, and stuff happens from there. It very non-specifically fits this series in with others, while a lot of books that share characters just ask you to accept that this is happening too. I'm of the opinion that continuity should enhance but not hamstring a story, so I'm fine with not every detail being perfectly ironed out. But I appreciate an effort like this to show it's part of the overall story.

The Spider-Men are dealing with a clone of the Jackal and a dead body found at his old lab. Plus some folks that I found out later Miles knows are getting into trouble with their wildest dreams coming true. And Vermin, or someone like him, is chasing somebody in the sewer.

When the Spideys follow Miles' acquaintance Cedric after he appears to have lost touch with reality, they come across Vermin clones, and Miles' own clone Shift, in the sewers instead. And two more folks from Miles' circle appear to get ensnared in the too-good-to-be-true web.

Story-wise I have read a lot more comics with Peter Parker than Miles Morales, so only about half of this was familiar to me. But Ramos drawing Spider-Man feels like coming home, and Weisman does a great job making you feel comfortable with dropping in on the story. I don't know the specifics, but I understood enough to follow along. And even if I was lost, the Marvel Must-Have includes a digital code for not only the three stories it contains but the issue preceding or following them.

Avengers: Twilight Book One
“The Best of Us”
Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Artist: Daniel Acuna
Letterer: VC's Cory Petit
Cover Artists: Alex Ross; Acuna
Designer: Zdarsky
Assistant Editor: Martin Biro
Associate Editor: Annalise Bisa
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Cebulski

As the title suggests, this series focuses on the love triangle between She-Hull, her on-again-off-again beau John Jameson, aka Man-Wolf, and Morbius, the Living Vampire. Or, wait, should one of them be Batman?

Clearly, I didn't plan that joke out very well. But this Twilight is a familiar setup inasmuch as it involves a possible future where today's heroes are mainly retired and things aren't quite right, in the vein of Earth X, Kingdom Come and the like. But I like Zdarsky as a writer, so I've been curious about this one. A familiar story can still be good if executed well.

Our POV character is Steve Rogers, now without his super soldier serum and happily married to someone named Rosa, who I feel like I should recognize.** He gets together with Luke Cage and Matt Murdock to lament the state of the world, where superheroes are a thing of the past and the government maintains what on the surface seems like a peaceful society with constant surveillance.

A documentary suggesting the Red Skull was actually an unsung hero working to undercut Hitler from the inside spurs Steve to step into the spotlight again, setting him at odds in a televised debate with James Stark the son of Iron Man and the Wasp. We get a look at the downfall of the heroes, when Ultron manipulated the Hulk and enhanced other villains, resulting in many deaths, including Spider-Man's.

After a run-in with some armored law-enforcers harrassing kids out skateboarding just before curfew and making their own videos – which is now illegal – Steve winds up in the headquarters of a group of masked Defenders led by Cage. He informs Steve that Murdock has been killed and the government and S.H.I.E.L.D. are manipulating the media. Cage suggests Steve could make a difference if he becomes a super soldier again. So he does.

Oh, and Iron Man's head is floating in a tank at the Raft super-prison, and that's where James gets his tech ideas for the government.

It feels familiar, right down to Acuna's art creating a distinctive atmosphere. And yet, there's enough contemporary touches, with the questioning of perception created by the media,*** to make it stand on its own.

G.O.D.S. #2
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Valerio Schiti
Color artist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: VC's Travis Lanham
Cover artist: Mateus Manhanini
Design: Jay Bowen
Assistant editor: Biro
Associate editor: Bissa
Editor: Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Cebulski

This is a series I couldn't help but be curious about since Marvel promoted the crap out of it and it was a post-Krakoa project for Hickman. Usually, I'm a “Marvel’s-gods-are-all-cosmic-beings-below-the-one-true-God” kind of guy, but that doesn't mean a good story can't be told in the realm of how this fictional universe works, especially in the familiar superheroic realm with cosmic figures we have met before.

I’m not going to give a detailed summary here, lest I reveal how little of the story I followed. Hickman at times approaches Grant Morrison territory in that I feel confident he knows what he’s saying but I am not personally keeping up. Dr. Strange is working with representatives of The-Powers-That-Be and The-Natural-Order-of-Things to deal with the fallout of a magic user named Cubisk Core trying to free an elder god and causing something called a Babylon event. That sounds bad. Meanwhile, Natural Order avatar Aiko is introducing a young woman named Mia to her magical potential because the various forces are seeking more people for their cause. I think.

The idea of order and science versus magic and at least apparent chaos and how the two co-exist is an interesting theme, basically modern mythology. Schiti’s art is strong as always. And with the series only lasting eight issues, it won't be too big a challenge to see how it played out.

Overall, I think these Marvel Must Haves are an excellent way to let readers sample series they might not otherwise check out. The digital copies and the general exposure could entice some more freebie-grabbers to become paying customers, or at least get them talking about the series being highlighted.

* - Or he was. I think Arthur's swimming solo at the moment.

** - But no, the Marvel Fandom wiki tells me this is her first appearance.

*** - As a local journalist, I can assure you we are not trying to manipulate, but merely inform. There are decisions made by larger entities, plus those that try to act like journalists but have a definitive agenda, that it's certainly fair to question. Even if there's not a big conspiracy, it's good to consider the sources of information.