How would it have affected the franchise if Ben Reilly remained the Sensational Spider-Man and replaced Peter?
How would it have affected the franchise if Ben Reilly remained the Sensational Spider-Man and replaced Peter?
My understanding of the situation is that the vast majority of the 90's Spider-Man fans hated the idea that Ben Reilly hated would replace Peter permanently as Spider-Man, and the sales cratered.
I've read stories that it was so badly received that when the X-Men comics introduced Joseph they called him a copy of Magneto instead of a clone of Magneto because Clone Saga had made even the word clone toxic.
Cant say this with 100% certainty because I wasn't reading Spider-Man at the time.
So my guess is that Spider-Man may actually have been canceled. Or at the very least eventually suffered from an even harder reboot than what actually occurred.
I'm truly sorry, Ben fans. I'm just saying what I believe the majority of Spider-Man fans felt at the time.
Jemas has famously claimed that the sales were catastrophic by the time it wrapped, but checking around on the data we can look at like Comichron doesn't really corroborate that and shows a steady line from the beginning points to the conclusion for mainline books like Amazing and adjectiveless.
Glenn Greenberg, who was also involved in editing the books at the time, has gone to the bat that not only did the sales remain steady but managed to improve during this time as well (in the "Life of Reilly" series of articles).
The short-notice reversion of the status quo was more involved with editorial upheaval, as a new editor (Bob Budiansky) had basically inherited an in progress storyline from his predecessor, and he always had misgivings about it (also per Glenn Greenberg). When more people began to get involved, and even industry heavyweights like Dan Jurgens joined the books and began voicing their concerns, Greenberg says that factored in overturning Budiansky's mind for good - who seemed to not want to mess with the current storyline out of respect for the creatives, since it was already an in-progress storyline, but then his mind was changed.
This is true, Marvel decided to bury anything remotely clone related in short order - you have creative talent from the times saying as much like DeMatteis, and I believe DeFalco and Mackie also said in separate occasions it was the case. The proof is in the pudding as well and you could see it in the books.I've read stories that it was so badly received that when the X-Men comics introduced Joseph they called him a copy of Magneto instead of a clone of Magneto because Clone Saga had made even the word clone toxic.
Cant say this with 100% certainty because I wasn't reading Spider-Man at the time.
Marvel was having some pretty dire financial troubles at the time, which necessitated the "volume 2" we got after "The Final Chapter" and linewide "volume 2's" as well as a myriad cancellation of books at the time shortly before these relaunches, so Ben's tenure would likely have been cut short there.So my guess is that Spider-Man may actually have been canceled. Or at the very least eventually suffered from an even harder reboot than what actually occurred.
Even for creative talent of the time, like DeMatteis, they figured they could get a "good five year run" out of that status quo. That's probably what we'd have gotten.
Discovering/CONFESSING! the nature of evil... one retcon at a time.
Personally, I like Ben Reilly as a character, but I prefer him as the Scarlet Spider. I also think that the SS costume looks better than the Sensational one.
That's interesting. The initial Clone Saga story arc (that ends with Peter giving the mantle to Ben) made it abundantly clear that Peter really was the clone (at the time, I mean). There was no doubt about it if we simply went by what was established in the story itself.
But if you are correct, that means that even the writers themselves may not have actually bought into that idea.
Well, that quote needs to be framed in the proper context which I didn't give - DeMatteis said that in a very recent interview, promoting his Ben Reilly book that came out the same time Beyond did. At this point in time, we know how things work and how the reset button is an ultimate inevitability, so he has the benefit of hindsight.
Reading "Life of Reilly", you can tell that the writers had every last intention of moving forward with that direction, so I would say that they did buy into it. But a writer buying into his or her idea is always only ever step one, and it's a business, so if things fail to click with the audience or cause a mass exodus of sales, you need to damage control. DeFalco recounts he has Peter be distrustful of Seward Trainer in the exact issue he's revealed as a clone precisely to root a bit of a back door in case they'd need one (boy, were they going to, at that). But nothing so disastrous happened in the short term - the reversal came because of the editorial shakeups.
Discovering/CONFESSING! the nature of evil... one retcon at a time.
People weren't upset so much that Ben was replacing Peter as they were that the Spider-Man they'd been reading about for 20 years wasn't the "real" Spider-Man,
"He's pure power and doesn't even know it. He's the best of us."-Matt Murdock
"I need a reason to take the mask off."-Peter Parker
"My heart half-breaks at how easy it is to lie to him. It breaks all the way when he believes me without question." Felicia Hardy
Let's say that they stuck to their guns with the reveal that Peter was the clown all along and got written out of the book along with Mary Jane. Thing there is I doubt Marvel would've let sleeping dogs lie and have the new Spider-Man still be Ben Reilly. They would've wanted to have their cake and eat it too so I think the Peter Parker clone would've died, probably in a role reversal of what did end up happening, and "Ben" would've returned to being Peter Parker proper. And Mary Jane probably gets written out for real this time.
The artist formerly known as OrpheusTelos.
This would likely have required a different reception to the Spider-Man comics.
One way to do it might be to have both Peter and Ben be Spider-Men. I think fans could've been okay with that, and it fits the spread of superhero families in the 90s (Flash had Impulse, Superman had Superboy, Steel and Supergirl, Batman had Robin, Nightwing, Birds of Prey, Batgirl and a handful more.)
Different stories will affect fans in different ways. Maybe that world led to Spider-Man classics that shape the series going forward.
Sincerely,
Thomas Mets
You're right about that - one of the things talked about in "Life of Reilly" is that things were in absolute chaos at one point because there were already plans to have Ben assume the Peter ID, and it was impacting all the other projects they had coming out in short notice like DeMatteis' "Redemption" mini series because no one could figure out what the end point of the arc would be. Regardless, the way creatives talked about it before full-on chaos happened, they wanted Peter to ride out in the sunset with his family but still be "on reserve" if need be, so instead of killing him off and somewhat 'perma'writing off MJ, they'd probably just have Peter hand off the Peter Parker ID to Ben Reilly with his blessing.
When they decided they were undoing the switcheroo on short order, this exact same idea was thrown around as a misdirect to throw readers' off - if Peter assumes a new identity, like, I dunno, Portland's Richardson Palmer and he's happily married with MJ, a kid on the way, and Ben Reilly now has become Peter Parker for the world at large... then Ben isn't getting killed off, they've literally committed to the bit full stop. But that'd be the entire point, and that'd be why they'd even do it on the first place.
It's also probably why they didn't. It'd be too much of a rug pull to happen all at once (similar to how many proposals not only wanted to get rid of Ben and baby May, but also MJ in the process - either miscarrying because she married a super hero being the last straw for her, or because she, too, was a clone and melted? Fair game, man, we've went through so much trouble and we're getting our single Spider-Man no matter what! And he better be called "Peter Parker" at that!)
Discovering/CONFESSING! the nature of evil... one retcon at a time.
I believe in 101 Ways to End the Clone Saga, one of those 101 ways was claiming that the last few years of stories had actually occurred in some kind of virtual reality setup that Peter was trapped in, which would have also negated his marriage to Mary Jane Watson, if not tried to argue that she never actually existed.
The spider is always on the hunt.