A new ruler is coming to New York City within the Marvel Universe -- an evil Miles Morales clone who may have a bone or two to pick with Spider-Man.
In the June 2022 solicitations for Marvel Comics, the publisher provided a preview for the upcoming Miles Morales: Spider-Man #39. The issue sees Miles and his friendly Spider-Clone, Shift, continue on their multiversal adventure only to find that New York City isn't quite the same as when they left it. The preview reads, "Miles and Shift's hunt through the Multiverse has landed them back in New York City, but it's not the NYC they know – it's the Empire of the Spider! And evil Miles clone, Selim, has crowned himself emperor! To defeat the oppressive regime, Miles will need the help of rebel leaders General Ganke Lee and Captán Billie Morales, who has grown up in a world without her brother and where Spider-Man represents only pain and suffering. And if Miles fell to Selim, what does that mean for the fate of Peter Parker?!"
In Miles Morales: Spider-Man #8, Miles was kidnapped, tortured and treated as a human test subject by an evil algorithm called the Assessor. The Assessor took DNA from Miles' body and used it to make a trio of clones -- Selim, Shift and Mindspinner -- that Spider-Man then had to face off against later in the series. In Miles Morales: Spider-Man #28, Selim and Mindspinner are both seemingly taken out by an energy blast following a battle on the Brooklyn Bridge, while Shift turns against his fellow clones and becomes Spider-Man's new "brother".
Miles and Shift later break into the Assessor's facility to unplug the algorithm once and for all, which they're only able to do thanks to some help from Quantum -- the former assistant to the Assessor who was forced to go along with the bot's schemes for the better part of two years. Following the Assessor's defeat and Quantum's departure, Spider-Man and Shift discover that Miles' Uncle Aaron may still be alive in a different Multiverse. The two characters then enter a portal in an effort to find and rescue him.
In the current Spider-Man run, Ganke Lee is Miles' best friend and Billie Morales is his infant sister. Neither of them has shown any signs of having superpowers up until now, which suggests that Miles and Shift will meet different variants of the characters when traveling through the Multiverse. Whether Selim somehow survived the Brooklyn Bridge blast and then seized power of New York away from Kingpin or if this is a Selim from another dimension remains to be seen in upcoming Miles Morales: Spider-Man issues.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #39 comes from writer Saladin Ahmed, artist Christopher Allen and cover artist Taurin Clarke, with variant covers by Russell Dauterman and Paco Medina. The issue goes on sale in June from Marvel Comics.
Source: Marvel Comics