Timestorm #2 saw Miguel O’Hara get his powers, and his origin is expanded on further here, whereby, after discovering his new powers, he quickly finds himself caught up in a battle against the new Scorpion 2099 with the original Spider-Man (who escapes from the Public Eye with embarassing ease).

The big problem is the reinvention of Miguel O’Hara.  This seems like a move designed only to push away those fans of the original 2099.

 In issue 1 I was praising how Brian Reed had taken the original comics and crafted a new world that was similar enough to the old 2099 to still be appealing while doing something new.   However, with Miguel O’Hara he’s scored an amazing own-goal, by completely ditching the original character in favour of turning him into a carbon copy of Peter Parker.  I really have to wonder what the point of that is?  The point of Miguel was that he was the exact opposite to Peter Parker.  When Peter got powers he was a kid, so Miguel was an adult.  Peter was quiet out of costume, mouthy in-costume, so Miguel was quiet in-costume and mouthy out of it.  Frankly this seems like a huge disservice to the character and is in danger of putting me off this whole Timestorm mini-series.

(Not to mention Miguel’s powers seem to have now changed to be more like the original Spider-Man’s.  He still possesses the organic webshooters of the original Miguel, however there’s no sign of his signature talons, aside from a scene where Miguel has managed to destroy his shoes which suggests they may be there, and this Miguel now has Peter’s signature spider-sense.)

I could’ve lived with Miguel now being younger if his character could’ve at least been recognisable, but sadly no.

I didn’t mind the way in which he and Kron got their powers.  The fact they were doing a school experiment in genetic alteration when caught in an explosion I thought worked quite well, managing to provide a way to explain their powers within a busy, 4-issue series, and also to give us a look at a genuinely futuristic approach to schoolwork.  Okay, it doesn’t beat the original, but then Miguel’s original origin had the benefit of 3 issues dedicated to it.

One thing about this I did enjoy though, was the elder, more experienced Peter coaching Miguel in the use of his powers.   Miguel has literally just discovered his new abilities when he’s caught by Spider-Man (during a failed web-swing) and then drawn into the fight against the Scorpion (the less-fortunate Kron Stone).  The scenes where Peter gives Miguel advice in how to sling webs more accurately and control his web-swinging I thought worked well and were quite fun.   Similarly I thought Kron’s transformation into Scorpion 2099 worked well played against Miguel’s own transformation.  The horror factor of Kron’s mutation helps underline how much worse Miguel could’ve had things.

I’m still onboard for this event, and I still think that overall this reimagining of the 2099 universe has some legs.  But there’s no denying that the character that was arguably the signature character of the 2099 universe has been mishandled for this reader.  The strength, for me, in what Brian Reed had done so far was to take the original and retell it while retaining recognisable aspects.  With Spider-Man 2099, there’s not really any aspect of the character other than the costume (which also lacks the explanation of the original – the fact that Miguel choses such a radically different costume to Peter’s isn’t really that well covered) that’s recognisable as anything other than Peter Parker.  And that’s a real shame.

Its so nice to see the 2099 universe back.  Well, sort of.  

This is a reboot of the 2099 universe, however it shares more similarity with the original than the reboot a few years back did.  Brian Reed has created a universe that contains a great many differences to the original, however still feels familiar, thanks to familiar sights and characters such as Alchemax and Tyler Stone.

The story finds Jake Gallows (familiar to fans of the original 2099 as the off-his-rocker Punisher 2099) sent back in time.  He thinks its by Thor, however we find out that its actually Tyler Stone, seeking to alter events for his own purposes, using a time sphere created by a Dr George O’Hara.  Jake has been sent back to kill off superheroes, however what he doesn’t know is that when he kills them, they’re actually being transported to the future world of 2099.  First to encounter him is Spider-Man, who ends up in the future, and quickly locked up by the Public Eye.

There’s a lot of differences in this version of 2099.  While Alchemax and Tyler Stone appear pretty constant, everything else has a different, if sometimes familiar, spin on it.  George O’Hara is now Stone’s top physicist, responsible for the time sphere Tyler is using, which was created so they could attempt to discover the missing pages from their history (a nice callback to the original 2099 which also had big holes in its history to allow for wiggle room with the present day Marvel Universe).   Miguel is present, but is only a teenager, which makes me wonder if this version of Spider-Man 2099 will be closer to the original Peter Parker Spider-Man, which I hope not.  

Familiar characters like Kron Stone, Dana (now Kron’s girlfriend), Xina (dating someone called Reilly) and Lyla (still a hologram, but no longer based on Marilyn Monroe and now Tyler’s hologram not Miguel’s) appear, and one reference which gave me a laugh was Rapture appearing as an energy drink, with an advertisting campaign fronted by Captain America.    

And that’s something interesting about this 2099.  The Age of Heroes in the previous 2099 was something of a curiousity and appealed to the scientific characters, however in this 2099 Superheroes are everywhere.  Not just the Church of Thor, but Iron Man appears front and centre on Stark Fujikawa posters (for armaments!), Cap is hawking energy drinks and Spider-Man himself appears on posters.  Even the Public Eye now bear very familiar Punisher motifs.   This is a world where the Age of Heroes is treated like we treat celebrities, with familiar faces, being resurrected for adverts.

I really enjoyed this first issue, and despite the differences, its really nice to see these (mostly) familiar characters back again, and while a reboot, its one that feels truer to the original 2099, rather than the last one which just used the name.   The only thing I’ve got reservations about is the much younger Miguel, but we’ll see how that pans out.   There’s an element of time-mangling going on here with Jake Gallows back in the present day zapping heroes, so that could cause this world of 2099 to change to become more like the classic one.   Interestingly there’s a profile of the original Spider-Man 2099 included in the book, which I found a bit odd, given the fact that this is a new take, so I wonder if that’s significant, or just a gift to the 2099 fans.

Revisiting the world of 2099, the solicit has events in 2009 causing the worlds of 2009 and 2099 to collide. Its something we’ve seen previously in the Spider-Man meets Spider-Man 2099 one-shot, but of course, that was a few years ago now, and Spider-Man specific. This time the whole 2099 universe is getting involved.

And Newsarama have a preview of the first issue here.

As I mentioned previously, I was a huge fan of Spider-Man 2099, so revisiting that character and world is something I’m really looking forward to.   Just seeing Jake Gallows (the mad-as-they-come, Punisher 2099) again really brought a smile to my face.