Marvel’s Strange Academy is on summer break… and its students are getting into just as much magical mayhem as they did during their inaugural year. After the disastrous events of Strange Academy: Finals – which saw former heroic student Emily Bright turned into a Dormammu-level Big Bad – Academy students Doyle, Shaylee, Gus, Germán, and Toth along with their teacher Zelma Stanton end up on in a dangerous magical battle while teaming up with Miles Morales. Strange Academy: Miles Morales #1 is the first of a three-part team-up series, which will be followed by issues featuring the students working with Moon Knight and then Peter Parker’s Spider-Man, and the first issue starts out strong with hilarious writing from Carlos Hernandez and dynamic, vibrant art from Juann Cabal, Alvaro López, Guiu Vilanova, and Edgar Delgado.
Similar to Marvel’s recent Unforgiven event, a three-issue mini that featured the vampiric Forgiven teaming up with Spider-Man, the X-Men, and Captain America, this new Strange Academy event is an incredibly fun way to explore some underutilized Marvel characters in a new context. Carlos Hernandez, best known for his stellar young adult novel Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, brings a level of wit, cringe but hilarious millennial humor, and compelling character development to Strange Academy: Miles Morales that makes “Solve for X” a truly enjoyable read, regardless of if you’ve read past Strange Academy comics or not.
WARNING: Contains major spoilers ahead!
Strange Academy: Miles Morales follows the five bright magical students and their teacher as they venture to New York City to take part in the “Multiversal Math Bowl,” a math competition that Earth competitors have never won. After the brilliant NYC student Miles Morales introduces the Math Bowl’s guest speaker Dr. Erasmus “Equation” Dawnbright – an obvious but well-written and exciting new villain – a group of “Otherworld Fairy” projections assault the Bowl, apparently furious with Equation for his “Enchantimatics,” a way of utilizing math to create or negate magic. With the help of a mysteriously appearing Spider-Man, making for a fun version of a classic Marvel team-up, the students and Zelma fend off the Fairy projections and both the Strange Academy and the Brooklyn Visions teams win the Math Bowl, the first Earth contestants to accomplish the feat.
Marvel Comics
While the stakes are incredibly high for the students of Strange Academy this issue, particularly with Zelma, Gus, Germán, and Toth captured by Equation in his Enchantimatics book, it is nice to see a less intense adventure for the magical youth. Both Strange Academy and Strange Academy: Finals were chockfull of traumatic, personal, shocking battles and revelations for the students of Strange Academy, and especially after Iric’s tragic sacrifice in Finals, the students deserve an adventure that is a bit less personally traumatic. It will be exciting to see Shaylee and Doyle team-up with Moon Knight next issue, a character who rarely engages with children because of his brutal and antiheroic nature, while continuing to face off against Equation.
Some of the major highlights of Strange Academy: Miles Morales are the “cringe”-filled millennial jokes made by both Zelma and the students – who claim themselves a “no-cringe zone” – particularly the students chanting of “One of us!” and Zelma calling the students her “sweet summer children” (a quote that actually originated in George R. R. Martin’s 1996 novel A Game of Thrones). Plus, the art by Juann Cabal, Alvaro López, and Guiu Vilanova is beautiful and evocative, gorgeously capturing the heightened emotions of the characters (particularly Doyle’s immense sadness at the start of the issue), as well as the intense, magical filled action sprinkled throughout. Edgar Delgado’s color is vibrant, and his coloring of Equation and the Fairy Guards is incredibly stunning.
Marvel Comics
While I am happy that this three-part event is featuring some Strange Academy characters more heavily than they got featured in the first two series (particularly Gus and Germán!), I do wish that Zelma could continue to be involved as a central figure in the story. Granted, she might still be a part of the next two issues in some capacity even after being captured, but Hernandez’s characterization of Zelma speaks to me as a millennial reader myself, so I do hope she continues to appear. Plus, although I think the design and backstory for Equation is gorgeous and mysterious, it was pretty obvious from his first appearance on page that he was destined to be revealed as the villain, making Toth, Gus, and Germán’s confrontation with the twisted man less of a shock than it could have been.
This exciting one-shot delivers exactly what it promised: a fun and adventurous magical team-up between Miles Morales and several Strange Academy students, featuring witty writing and gorgeous art. Strange Academy: Miles Morales #1 is the perfect setup for next month’s Strange Academy: Moon Knight, as Shaylee and Doyle must battle against the conniving Equation to save their friends while partnering with the Fist on Khonshu.
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