Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #25. SPOILER WARNING.

[Kurolegacy]

Next steps: Have Ben be the Jackal again in Spider-Geddon and then finally put him and his fans out of their misery by killing him off for real this time.

What’s worse is that Spider-Geddon is gonna be the first time Mayday gets to meet her uncle Ben, the man who she honored for years by wearing his costume and he’s gonna be a total psychopath who both her father and uncle Kaine hate. GG Marvel.

[Tuck]

What’s worse is that Spider-Geddon is gonna be the first time Mayday gets to meet her uncle Ben, the man who she honored for years by wearing his costume and he’s gonna be a total psychopath who both her father and uncle Kaine hate. GG Marvel.

Don't anyone tell her about Phil.

[Pav]

Don't anyone tell her about Phil.

I thought about Phil yesterday, too!

He and Ben teaming up against Joystick back in the day is still my favorite team-up ever, and I've wanted another ever since Ben returned.

Maybe Ben can resurrect Phil and do some damage together

-Pav, who won't hold his breath...

[Scarlet-Spider]

What’s worse is that Spider-Geddon is gonna be the first time Mayday gets to meet her uncle Ben, the man who she honored for years by wearing his costume and he’s gonna be a total psychopath who both her father and uncle Kaine hate. GG Marvel.

The way things are going i wouldn't be surprised if neither Ben nor Mayday or Kaine for that matter survive Spider-Geddon.

[Huntsman Spider]

The way things are going i wouldn't be surprised if neither Ben nor Mayday or Kaine for that matter survive Spider-Geddon.

Kaine is on a suicide mission, according to Christopher Priest's Spider-Force solicits. The others . . . maybe Marvel's just determined to trash everything related to Spider-Man in the 90s that they thought was a mistake, in which case I wouldn't be surprised if they brought back Black Tarantula just to have him killed off or irreparably ruined, too.

[Mister Mets]

Exactly my thoughts. Peter David used to be a good writer but people change and he changed for the worse. Maybe he just needs some rest and take a break from writing. I am still shocked at just how bad this issue and the whole run was.

Disliking one story doesn't mean someone has completely lost their touch. Writers should take risks, and sometimes those don't pan out.

Peter David has become one of the worst writers in the comic industry. This whole run had bad writing but this issue takes the cake. Even at the lowest points of the 90s clone saga the writing wasn't this horrible. What the hell was this issue? I am still completely shocked at the writing...

What other work of his do you dislike? And what specifically do you dislike about the writing?

You're saying some rather aggressive stuff, but being vague about your objections.

[Blunt Guy]

The way things are going i wouldn't be surprised if neither Ben nor Mayday or Kaine for that matter survive Spider-Geddon.

Yeah, you need to take a break from Marvel. So, don't let the door hit you.

[Pav]

Kaine is on a suicide mission, according to Christopher Priest's Spider-Force solicits. The others . . . maybe Marvel's just determined to trash everything related to Spider-Man in the 90s that they thought was a mistake, in which case I wouldn't be surprised if they brought back Black Tarantula just to have him killed off or irreparably ruined, too.

I hope not! Then how would I ever write a Web of... series in which the Black Tarantula tries to take command of the Web of Life by gathering spider spirits like Doppelganger and The Thousand, thus gaining favor with the Harrah Harrah Spiderdemons -- and Spidey caught in the middle of it all?!?!

-Pav, who loves Bride of Nine Spiders too...

[Huntsman Spider]

I hope not! Then how would I ever write a Web of... series in which the Black Tarantula tries to take command of the Web of Life by gathering spider spirits like Doppelganger and The Thousand, thus gaining favor with the Harrah Harrah Spiderdemons -- and Spidey caught in the middle of it all?!?!

-Pav, who loves Bride of Nine Spiders too...

That sounds like a great idea for an epic Spider-Man story, although how would he bring back the Thousand? Last I saw, he was reduced to one spider instead of one thousand and that spider got squished by some random passerby. Hmm, considering Bride of Nine Spiders is a walking hive of spiders herself . . .

[Kurolegacy]

Don't anyone tell her about Phil.

Least Normie is okay.

[Orbus]

This.

The book failed spectacularly because old school fans could not get over the colossal character assassination of Clone Conspiracy, and new fans had no reason to support him.

This Ben started off as a Machiavellian schemer who had betrayed everything the original Ben and Peter stood for. He was depicted as someone so uncompromisingly slimy that there was no chance any fresh reader would back him for the first time. I liked a lot of the ideas Peter David used in this, but for me this title would have simply benefited more being a relaunch for Kane and not Ben.

You could take every 90s clone saga fan still buying monthly books and it wouldn't make big sales. Spider-Man in a hoodie is not going to get people buying in 2018, the book needed a hook and bringing back Ben as a villain and then spinning him off into his own book were he seeks redemption is one that has a proven track record of working for similar characters. I know you have a very strong dislike for Dan Slott and we can debate the merits of The Clone Conspiracy as a story but the premise for a Ben Reilly book was solid.

To be fair PAD did not fumble the ball so much as he worked an entirely different play to what fans and I suspect even Marvel wanted out a Ben Reilly relaunch. Ben was broken be his experiences portrayed in the Clone Conspiracy (being repeatedly killed and resurrected) but still wanted to do good in his waped own way and seeing it all blow up in his face realized that wasn't the way. This left the wide open for any kind of characterization PAD wanted. What fans assumed we'd get was a damaged Ben trying to redeem himself. What we got was what if Spider-Man was a complete jerk and insane and amoral (charging victims of crime to rescued, working with gangsters, lying about having a cure for a sick child).

What we should have seen was him being more harsher with criminals particularly those endangering lives (since he had a thing about death), less social but over several arcs gain new friendships and relationships which help to soften him so he becomes more like the Ben Reilly of old. Cliched but it works.

What we got was big cosmic story lines about the fate of Ben's soul. I know that fans loved when Death healed his scars and took away his insanity because they thought it was an insta-fix but he still acted like a jerk at times but it also set the template of all these dark cosmic forces playing with Ben. I get that PAD was trying to be meta and show how the character is subject to the whims of the higher powers but what does any of that have to do with Ben Reilly?

It might have been been palletable for longtime readers if he'd mixed in some classic characters. Janine is generally regarded as Ben's #1 interest and as someone who took a dark path herself she could have been a good character to have around. Instead we got a lot of callbacks to PAD's previous work and even bizarrely the Slingers who got a comeback that built on their last story. We didn't even get a proper conflict with Kaine, we should have gotten something which is a surprisingly deep brotherly relationship by 90s comic standards. PAD got that they had something of a twisted familial bond but instead of the relationship they had we got two childish jerks that are frenemys.

Peter David has done some amazing work over the years and has probably earned Marvel giving him a book that will last twenty or so issues to do what he wants. I just wish he didn't do it with a character that has been unfairly treated enough already.

[boots]

It was terrible and frankly the whole run was terrible.

Bringing back Ben as a villain wasn't really an issue for me. A book about a character like Ben Reilly needed a hook to grab people in people that either never read the 90s clone saga or didn't care for it the first time, simply being Spider-Man but in hoodie just wouldn't cut it. Characters that have a very similar status like Bucky and Jason Todd were brought back as villains and their journey for redemption and becoming heroes/anti heroes made them much more popular than they were and every indication pointed that Ben could have had a similar path - heck they did it with Kaine they could easily do it with Ben.

The problem was that it never felt like a Ben Reilly book. I understand that to new readers who don't know or care about what little history Ben Reilly had overloading the book with references and characters that build on Ben Reilly's 90s stories would alienate them but they should have incorporated slowly over time. Other than the inclusion of Kaine not a single story had anything to do with Ben Reilly Scarlet Spider. We could have had a spiritual sequel to Redemption, we could have brought back Janine to give Ben a proper love interest maybe she as someone who went down a dark path herself could stir Ben in the right direction. Maybe bring back some of Ben's rogues like Carolyn Trainer but instead we got Ben put into situations that had zero to do with him. Heck the Slingers were given a story more meaningful to them in the pages of Scarlet Spider.

I appreciate Peter David's modern Marvel work is often taking characters in completely new directions like X-Factor becoming a private investigators, Spider-Man 2099 being in the present day etc but since they are characters he either created or defined you could say he earned the right to do that and since they were his characters they still felt like the originals and his stories still drew upon their histories. With his Scarlet Spider we got him putting a Spider-Man-like character that was a little crazy into bizarre situations that wouldn't suit the main Spidey books. It could have been a completely new character or Spidercide for all it had to do with Ben Reilly.

It's not even that Ben "failed" in his quest for redemption. As others have said it isn't his fault, he's been manipulated by forces way beyond his control and the window is still open for his soul to be saved but that the journey had zero to do with Ben Reilly.

i'm with you on some of this. i feel like ben as villain/anti hero/path to redemption might have worked...it just never felt earned.

for the character or the audience.

the character just returns after 20 years in a totally different state and it was too hard for audiences to bridge the gap between the iterations. a 1 page explanation in clone conspiracy just did not cut it. Even if we were able to understand his "fall from grace" logically, we couldn't empathise emotionally.

something like what waid did in "irredeemable" would work. a series of flashbacks, showing ben's struggle with his mental illness and to fight the degredation of his character over time...snippets that build into a full picture of what brought ben to the state he's in today.

otherwise it's a big black hole that nobody can fill in.

[Kurolegacy]

That sounds like a great idea for an epic Spider-Man story, although how would he bring back the Thousand? Last I saw, he was reduced to one spider instead of one thousand and that spider got squished by some random passerby. Hmm, considering Bride of Nine Spiders is a walking hive of spiders herself . . .

Let us never speak of the Thousand again. That guy was literally horror incarnate and I’m glad he’s gone.

[boots]

One thing I just thought of now: When Ben died this time, he didn't disintegrate.

in universe: different clone body that isn't subject to the same rules?

irl: his turn to dust in the 90s was editorial BS.

[boots]

Honestly, I can't really be of the same hope based mentality on this one as you guys. See difference between this kind of thing happening to Ben Reilly and characters like Spider-Man, Batman, Captain America, Iron Man,Wolverine, Hal Jordan, etc is that while those characters are basically A-listers and are guaranteed to have appearances beyond such an ending whether it be in a team book or a relauched solo to continue/fix the character, Ben doesn't have that luxury. At this point, all we know is that Ben is in Spider-Geddon but beyond that nothing. When Superior happened, it was angering but given Peter's A-lister status, there was no way such a thing was going to last. With Ben, this kind of thing could stick and even if they do one day reverse this, until then he's basically at the mercy of when a writer wants to do a Spider-Man story with Ben Reilly in it. This is why it is a terrible idea to leave the character off in what is basically him at his lowest because unless Spider-Geddon is gonna somehow reverse it, this is pretty much it for Ben Reilly at the moment.

i had a flick through in store...it was a really abrupt ending. it felt like it should have a "to be continued" there.

i agree with pav that PAD obviously wanted us to know ben was under the thumb of greater forces than he could control...whoever that cassandra or whatever was on the last page.

it seems...logical...to me that ben will at least be used as a pawn by these dark forces in future. which means he may stick around long enough to free himself from it all.

orrrr....they kill him again.



my only point with hal (who was also killed a few times, and committed bigger atrocities than ben) is that comic book redemption is possible for anyone. as to whether marvel want to? that's a different question