Miles Morales Behind the Spider-Man Mask

Putting aside that Miles Morales has the super-strength and wall-climbing abilities that naturally come with a radioactive spider's bite, he's also fifteen years old. In the novel Miles Morales: Spider-Man (Scholastic, 2017) the author Jason Reynolds grounds his super-hero story in believable daily reality of a teenage boy of color, a scholarship student boarding at a mostly-white academy.

Yes, Miles can leap above the backstop to dunk a ball, but when he comes down, it's to his dorm room to deal with unwashed jeans, deodorant streaks on his shirt, stubble, eating, working while his friends go to a party, falling asleep over homework. He doubts whether the girl he likes can like him, and whether his poem for English class is any good.

[Photo: The cover of Miles Morales: Spider-Man, and the cover artist Kadir Nelson at work.]

But Miles deals with deeper self-doubts stemming from others' doubts about him. At age 13, applying for school, he wrote

...I know there are people who look at [me and my family] a certain way. The reason why is because my father wasn't always the man he is today. He was a person who didn't have anyone to steer him away from the traps of our community. Even though my neighborhood is a beautiful place to grow up, sometimes it can get complicated. And my father and his brother fell victim to the street, becoming teenage thieves, bringing problems to our neighborhood, and all of New York city. (101)

Miles writes how a life of crime caught up with his uncle Aaron. "This part of my family is also a part of me. The same fearlessness that led them to crime is what leads me to excellence." It's a sweetly earnest letter, weaponized to shame Miles when the principal accuses him of a petty theft.

Miles is not alone with his doubts. In nightmares, Uncle Aaron tells him, You're just like me. When, in his Spider-Man tights, Miles breaks a sneaker thief's wrist and beats him bloody, Miles is ashamed of himself for losing control, and haunted by his uncle's voice, You're just like me (127). He visits the county prison to meet a cousin he never knew existed, who also has nightmares in which the prison guard is "telling me I ain't never gon' be nothing," something the guard says during the day, only "in my dream, he got my daddy's voice [saying] 'You're just like me'" (195).


Finding the source of these self-doubts is the main action of the book. We're in the Marvel Universe, so there's a super-villain conspiracy involved; but we don't need to believe in magic when neighborhood men all share stories of being suspended from school. Had the teachers asked why a black boy might sleep in class, fight, or refuse to read aloud, they might have learned that he worked all night, that a white boy spit on him, or that he was ashamed of his poor reading ability (207).

The cousin in prison tells the same sort of story from his school days, tying school authorities to those that locked him up with men who all look like him, "if you know what I mean" (194). The creepy history teacher, who preaches that slavery benefitted both masters and "grafeful" slaves (117), opines that the American prison system is "the new, much smarter, form of slavery" (155).


While Miles's journey of discovery stretches out over the course of the novel, what keeps us turning pages is just the love of the characters. At school, there's Miles's jovial roommate Ganke and Alicia, the outspoken socially-conscious president of the school's poetry club. We enjoy the eccentric English teacher Miss Blaufuss, and the sympathetic librarian Mrs. Triplett. The dad is affectionate but demanding, making sure Miles learns "Helping your neighbors is the most heroic thing you can do," even if it's just cleaning up garbage left by careless sanitation workers (8). His mother, who doesn't know his secret, is wise but worried:

"I know," she said with a sigh.... "We know you're sorry. But what we don't know is what's going on with you." Her eyes glassed as she stared at Miles.
My uncle's death.
My school.
My teacher.
My newfound incarcerated cousin.
My superpowers.
"Nothing," Miles said. "Well, I mean, I guess I just feel so much pressure. But I'm ... fine."
"You sure?" His mother leaned in, her eyes lasering through the layers of him. Through the mask. (Reynolds 132)

Most of all, we love the vulnerable young man Miles that we alone can see behind his "mask."

[Photo from JasonWritesBooks.com: Jason Reynolds.]

Of course, Miles wears a literal Spider-Man mask, and poet Jason Reynolds sometimes uses literal elements of the story as metaphors. He sets the pattern with his novel's epigraph, a poem by African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar that begins "We wear the mask that grins and lies" -- true for Spider-Man, true for a young black man responding to white assumptions.

When Miles asks the librarian about spiders, she suggests "the symbolism of the web" (111). Miles may feel alone with his troubles, but the metaphor explains what we see, how he's integral to his family and community.

The supernatural source of Miles's nightmares is a metaphor for experiences that weigh down black teens of color in real life. 

Then, Miss Blaufuss's poetry assignments draw significant thoughts from Miles. Directed to discover the origins of his own name, he learns that miles means "soldier" and morales means "moral": he's a warrior for good. Given ten minutes to write about love in a Korean sijo -- three lines, each 14-16 syllables -- Miles thinks first of his mother, but "I love you, Ma" is only four syllables. He "finds his groove" recalling what his father said about the neighborhood, and he writes, "To my father, love sometimes means--" when time's up (57). An important part of the plot concerns Miles' effort to deliver Alicia the poem that expresses his feelings for her.


Jason Reynolds on his website addresses the many kids he meets who say they hate reading, when they really mean, they hate boring books. He promises not to write boring books. In a profile of the author for the New York Times (28 October 2019), Concepcion de Leon writes, "The best-selling writer ...wants black teenagers and kids to know that he sees them." He "attempts to portray the scope of their lives -- sometimes including guns and violence but also happiness and laughter." Reynolds says, "There's always a joke somewhere. You don't go through what black and brown people have been through in this country and survive without understanding how to tap into joy." He also shows boys "crying or feeling uncertainty" because "I need boys to know that's O.K."


I hope he reaches black teens. I hope the novel also reaches white teens, like those over the years who've told me that racism is over. We need to see what some classmates may be experiencing behind a mask.

[I wrote what I know about the experience of young men like Miles Morales from my side of the color line in a blogpost The Privilege is Mine (12/2017)]