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Miles Morales makes his mainstream Marvel debut in this week's top comics

This week brings a change in format to our weekly comic book column. Instead of pitting the two big publishers against one another, it's time to even the playing field. From now on, we'll put up whatever's worth your read, rather than what's come out.

And this week is a big one.

In terms of Marvel news, we're drawing ever so closer to the release of Deadpool, Fox's take on the Merc with a Mouth, on Feb. 12. Also on the X-Men front is some casting news for Legion, an X-Men television spinoff set to debut on FX. Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey), Aubrey Plaza (Parks & Recreation) and Jean Smart (Fargo) join the cast of what's looking to be a smaller, more intimate look at some of the X-Men's lesser known heroes.

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DC also got the multiverse talking this week when it announced CBS' Supergirl will be joining The CW's The Flash in May. Could Crisis On Infinite Earths be on its way? Probably not.

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And lastly, Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen's glorious space opera Image Comic, Descender, is one step closer to the silver screen as Sony hired Jesse Wigutow to pen the script. Unfortunately, Wigutow's previous writing credits include a sequel to Tron: Legacy and a remake of The Crow, both stuck in development hell.

No matter which side you're on, here are some must-reads for this week.

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Spider-Man #1

It's been more than a longtime coming. Love him or hate him, writer Brian Michael Bendis knows how to make a statement. And Miles Morales, a half-black, half-latino kid from New York, is Bendis' golden child. The best part? He's Spider-Man now. He's not Ultimate Spider-Man or Miles Morales: Spider-Man, he is the Spider-Man, picking up where Peter left off. And in this issue, Miles makes his debut in the mainstream Marvel Universe and comes out swinging, literally.

Miles has grown up since the last time we saw him. He's a high school student, an Avenger and a friend. Bendis promises to continue showing us the human side of Spidey as he deals with his powers, crushes on girls and attempts to stay out of trouble. And just in case you'd forgotten, Miles has the coolest Spider-Man suit yet. Welcome home, Miles Morales.

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Vision #4

Who would have thought that a series about a humanoid robot could be so, I don't know, human? Writer Tom King (Grayson, Omega Men) gave The Vision an entire family, and in every issue he writes from the point of an outsider looking in on society. How does a family of robots communicate? Do they feel emotion? These questions are all answered, but this issue brought everything to a head.

This story is as much Vision's family's as it is his. His two twin children, Vin and Viv, have trouble fitting in at school and his wife, Virginia, has a dark secret she's been keeping from him. They fight like any other family, though their choice of words is a bit exuberant. With Vision now a star from Avengers: Age of Ultron, expect things in this title to get even heavier as King continues to write one of the best series running right now.

Action Comics #49

We're almost there, Superman fans. As the Savage Dawn saga continues, Superman has emerged from his Kryptonite cocoon to the surprise of his powers. Well, sort of. You see, the Kryptonite is still killing him, but his returned flight and strength should be solid enough holdovers until he can find a real solution and take down baddie Vandal Savage. But the real winner this week was Supes' brief interaction with Wonder Woman.

While the super-powered couple is far from the greatest pairing in comics, it makes the most sense. But to see the humanity in the two's interaction is something else. Despite the green, varicose veins bulging out of Superman, he still finds a moment to crack a joke at WW before flying off. And they've never played to the couple stereotype, either, each doing their own heroic thing before worrying about each other. As we draw ever closer to the return of the Superman we know and love, it's nice to revel in these small moments.

Midnighter #9

With rumors flying this past week that Midnighter might be getting cancelled, it was probably the perfect time for a team-up. To be fair, I'd imagine this series would only get cancelled because of sales, not quality. I mean, it was just nominated for a pretty big award. Anyway, this issue pits Midnighter against the Suicide Squad, and one of them has a brain computer similar to M. That's not good.

For such a complex and previously obscure character, it's a surprise Midnighter doesn't have more ties to the overarching DC Universe. He'd be right at home in the Bat Family if it wasn't for the killing, and his sort of friendship with Dick Grayson makes that evident. But hey, who knows? If it turns out the Suicide Squad aren't really the bad guys, maybe he'll join up. Anything for an eventual live action version of M.

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Paper Girls #5

Paper Girls is the kind of series that doesn't come around all that often. Well, unless you're writer Brian K. Vaughan and you have all of these crazy ideas just floating around in your head. Anyway, Paper Girls is about a group of newspaper delivery girls who, in the late '80s, run into some weird stuff on Halloween night.

Aliens? Galactic languages? Curse words? It's all here. Oh, and time travel. This issue has a lot of that. But in all honesty, this series continues to be great because of how well Vaughan understands these characters and worlds he creates. There's an entire language here that's even being deciphered by the Internet. Paper Girls is best described as one-fourth Goonies and three-fourths Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.