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Although Assessor isn’t Miles’s most powerful villain, the ability to affect him on a psychological level makes them one of his most dangerous enemies.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Miles Morales: Spider-Man #33, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
Since becoming Spider-Man, Miles Morales’ life has become a teeter-totter of triumph and tragedy. Although Miles has made many friends amongst his fellow heroes and earned the acceptance of the people of New York in both his native dimension of Earth-1610 and his current home on Earth-616, he’s also made some very powerful enemies who have caused him a great deal of suffering. A rogues gallery that includes the likes of the corrupt Roxxon Energy Corporation and his own uncle, Aaron Davis, the Prowler. However, despite everything they’ve done, none of the previously-mentioned foes have caused the Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman of Brooklyn as much pain as the Assessor has.
In the short time since their introduction, this mysterious villain harmed the optimistic young hero in ways that no other supervillain had before, torturing him to the brink of madness. Miles was ultimately able to thwart the Assessor, but the scars that the villain left on him have lingered long after their last encounter ended. After discovering that the Assessor is once again harming the citizens of New York in Miles Morales: Spider-Man #33 (by Ahmad, Michele Bandini, Erick Arciniega, and VC’s Cory Petit), Miles makes it clear to his friend Genji that he’s ready for a rematch with his most-terrifying enemy.
First introduced in Miles Morales: Spider-Man #8 (by Saladin Ahmad, Javier Garron, David Curiel, and VC’s Travis Lanham), the Assessor is an artificial intelligence created to “test” the abilities of its unfortunate subjects. They act as a sort of freelance researcher, and the Assessor offers their services to anyone willing to pay its exuberant fees and puts up with their less-than-ethical methods. The Assessor is a ruthless and uncaring entity, devoid of any empathy, that follows its programming to the letter. It pushes its subjects through grueling tests to gain a complete understanding of their strengths and weaknesses and inflicting harsh punishments at the slightest sign of disobedience.
After being hired by Ultimatum, the villainous Miles Morales native to Earth-616, the Assessor had their Space Stone-wielding henchman Quantum capture Miles and bring him back to their lair. Once there they quickly prove their ruthlessness by threatening Miles’ loved ones, including his parents and his newborn baby sister Billie to force him into compliance. Over the next three days, the Assessor puts Miles through a series of gruesome tests that drive Miles to his physical and mental breaking points. He is forced to climb a seemingly endless wall and thrown into a hallway full of automated turrets to test his strength and reflexes. When Miles’ father and his recently-reformed uncle were finally able to track down his location and rescue him, Miles isn’t able to tell what’s real anymore.
Miles’s body quickly recovered thanks to his enhanced healing but, the psychological damage the Assessor inflicted on Miles took much longer to heal. Under the Assessor’s “care”, Miles was completely dehumanized, referred to as a number, and treated like a lab rat. The Assessor then went on to use the data it gathered from Miles to create multiple clones of him that Ultimatum used to orchestrate a variation of the “Clone Saga” that ultimately ended with Aaron sacrificing his life to save his nephew. Although the Assessor was not directly involved in Aaron’s death, his role in the events that led to it has made him one of the most influential members of Miles’ rogue’s gallery.
Not long after Aaron’s death, Miles’ life is once again thrown into turmoil when the powerful Beyond Corporation files a cease-and-desist order against him over his use of the Spider-Man name. Miles battled the mechanical villain Rhizome soon afterward and realizes that their technology is the same as that used by the Assessor. When Genji asked how he felt about the idea of confronting the Assessor again, Miles revealed that he wanted to go after them. He admitted that he still feels traumatized by his time with the Assessor, and hopes that finally stopping the villainous machine will allow him to move past the pain and regain his confidence as a hero.
Although he continued to use the Spider-Man name, Miles has done everything he can to establish himself as his hero, and that fierce determination to be his person is easily one of Miles’ greatest strengths. Despite the Beyond Corporation’s insistence to the contrary, it’s Miles’s strength of will that truly makes him Spider-Man, not any legal documentation. Through his willingness to take on the Assessor, Miles is once again proving that he’s not defined by the actions of others, but by his own will and the choices that he makes.
Although the Assessor isn’t Miles’s most powerful villain, the ability to affect him on a psychological level makes them one of his most dangerous enemies. But no matter what, Miles’s will to push forward is more powerful than the villain could throw at him.
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