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

[Miles To Go]

No, just no:

https://whateveraspidercan.com/2018/...spider-25/amp/

i don't know how someone can be in favour of a book like this.

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

How I feel about Marvel these days:

https://i.imgur.com/YprvaKt.png

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

No, just no:

https://whateveraspidercan.com/2018/...spider-25/amp/

That review is almost as bad as the book itself.

[Batman Begins 2005]

That review is almost as bad as the book itself.

Yep, a terrible review to go with the issue itself.

[Minerboh]

Peter David actually wrote this?
I thought that he was bound to restore Ben into his real self as a hero and not solidifying him as a Jason Vorhees rip of!

[Adset]

this whole series has been pretty bad. i love me some scarlet spider, but i'd rather have the hope of ben returning one day over everything we've gotten from clone conspiracy to present. just a bad, bad misstep from everyone involved from start to finish.

[Highland Chicken]

So this entire run has essentially been Ben trying to be a hero again only to find he can't because he got resuurected by an angel(?) after the devil orchestrated his death.
Oh and Kaine gets stabbed
Great comic, jfc

[Obsidian Spider]

So disappointing...

[ZeroBG82]

As far as I'm concerned, Ben Reilly is Spider-Man. My Spider-Man. When Clone Conspiracy happened, my first reaction was "Oh please god no, just let the man stay dead. Death is better than being brought back a villain."

Apparently, I wasn't the only one. Because now Ben Reilly himself has had that exact same thought. PAD being meta? I feel like there is editorial mandate afoot here, but we'll never know.

And I find myself of two minds on this issue. On the one hand, we finally got the real Ben back. For a few quick panels, Ben Reilly got to be a hero who would rather give his life than put others in danger. The man whose entire existence can be summed up with the phrase "sacrifice for others" finally returned, and got that one chance to be himself again.

Then that other thing happened. And everything he did to try and put things right ends up damning him. The road to hell truly is paved with good intentions after all.

I think, as an ending to a comic series about gray morality and the impact of the choices we make, for good or ill, this isn't bad. As an ending for Ben Reilly, it's mind numbingly awful. And we're right back to where we started, which is with a homicidal maniac running around calling himself Ben Reilly. Hopefully Spider-geddon kills him off again so fans of the character don't have to suffer through any more of this. I won't know, I have no intention of reading it.

Suffice to say, this pretty much soured my entire day. Thanks Marvel!

[Cmbmool]

What the actual F, PAD?!

This issue was just horrible. HORRIBLE! I really wish I hadn't been buying the trades now. Will try to sell them and hopefully get some of my money back.

Quick summary (SPOILERS!):

- Ben is taken over by some form of Abigail and beats Mephisto, then restores Ben to life despite Ben fighting against it because he doesn't want to turn evil
- Misty shows up for some reason and Ben punches a hole through her, revealing a robot. Misty was apparently never a real person. Ben realizes that his first instinct was to kill Misty, and he liked it
- Cassandra offers Aunt June a free room and food for life to make amends for accidentally killing Ben, since her memories were restored
- Cassandra goes back to Abigail's room to find her alive and well
- Kaine is agonizing over killing Ben when a hooded figure shows up, grabs Kaine's girlfriend's hook arm, and stabs Kaine multiple times with it, then threatens to finish the job if Kaine doesn't leave Vegas
- The hooded figure is revealed to be Ben, who laughs maniacally, then falls into a fetal position and starts crying
- The End

Not only did this issue defecate all over Ben Reilly, but the plot was confusing and rushed and the art was terrible. Worst Spider-comic since OMD.

What the ?!!?

I never thought that I would see the sense of OMD affect Ben Reilly, but alas here we are.

[Kurolegacy]

For the life of me, I can’t figure out who this ending was made for. It sure as Hell wasn’t for the Ben Reilly fans or those who were reading the book. This is literally an example of an ending that makes the entire series completely pointless as not only does it throw out all development Ben received, it makes him worse than he was at the end of Clone Conspiracy. It’s nothing but a colossal middle finger to the readership. I haven’t been this passed about an ending since ASM 700 and Superior Spider-Man 9. It spits in the face of the entire series and I see no way Ben’s character can recover from this. It’d be one thing if they presented that there was maybe a small glimmer of light left in his soul to show that he could eventually find his way back but no, there wasn’t even a glimmer of hope. Seriously **** Marvel with their monkey’s paw mentality.

[classicgmer]

Haven't read the book yet and with the responses here not exactly sure i'm looking forward to reading it.

[Jman27]

I was so confuse about the ending. I feel like the series wasted my time. Can I actually say there was character regression with Ben this issue?

[Huntsman Spider]

I was so confuse about the ending. I feel like the series wasted my time. Can I actually say there was character regression with Ben this issue?

He's laughing at first, and then it dies down into crying because on some level, he recognizes that he's done for and there'll be no redemption for him, after all. As Chester Bennington (R.I.P.) said, "I tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end, it doesn't even matter. I had to fall, to lose it all, but in the end, it doesn't even matter. . . ." And no, I am not being ironic, I am quite serious about this. That's how much of a tragic waste these last eighteen months have been.

[Flashback]

Guess I'm the only one who liked it. That's fine.

I wonder if Gabriel and co will ever show up again?