Have writers become lost on what Ben Reilly should be?

[Orbus]

Azrael and Cyborg-Superman both came back in DC Rebirth (though Azrael was reintroduced in Batman & Robin Eternal, before DC Rebirth) and were written fairly well, though, at least in my opinion, so it is possible for elements and characters from the "X-Treme 90s!" to be redone well, or at least better than they were presented originally.

I don't really view Ben as being part of 90s extreme other than maybe his costume with it's extra pouches and all but as a character he didn't fit the mold of 90s x-treme.

That being said I do think fans who are unfamiliar with the character assume that's what he is and that makes him easy dismiss. I wouldn't be too surprised if Ben's look in Damnation with the big guns was PAD giving fans what he thought they wanted. As in Ben is a character that originated in the 90s when everyone was a Cable wannabe so his fans will appreciate this.

Both Azrael and Cyborg Superman have stuck around but I think DC is better than Marvel about not throwing these kinds of characters away and they can't really step on Batman or Superman's toes since Azrael is an anti-hero and Hank Henshaw is flat out villain.

In truth Ben probably has more in common with Steel or Kon-El (both are clones) although Ben was a much better character from the get-go whereas Superboy took a while to get there or Wally West and Kyle Rayner. Like I said DC is much better at keeping these characters around even when they are not in the starring role and for the talk of Marvel having multiple Spider characters around characters they still prefer one definitive version and a big part of Ben's story was the mystery of whether he was the real Peter Parker. I do think for an ongoing series Ben would need a hook other than just being another Spider-Man character.

[bob.schoonover]

There's also the issue that what Ben was supposed to be is not really needed right now. Putting aside he was supposed to be the young, single Spider-Man I think what the writers actually did was present him as a traditional Spider character. Trademark wit, won battles just as much with his ingenuity than with his fists and had a sense of responsibility at a time were Peter had been portrayed as a darker, angrier character. Since these days Marvel has portrayed Peter as young, single and more his classic self is it just redundant to have two similar Spider characters swinging around which is another reason I feel writers feel they should take the character in different directions.

I think its true that what Ben was isn't needed because Ben's initial characterization was what Marvel was trying to revert Peter to. Ben was more introverted, he was single, he was more low-tech (at first). Most of the things that distinguished the two (other than Ben feeling like a copy and not having a legal identity) are more in line with Peter's current situation (him being low-tech Peter could have worked for all of Slott's run if Marvel had chosen to work it that way, of course, but that wouldn't work during Spencer's run). Ben was also defined by his antagonistic/murderous relationship with Kaine, and Kaine has been largely rehabilitated since then. There's not a lot left to keep Ben as he was AND make him particularly distinct in the Spider-verse (Here's my pitch - the cloning process ages him and he's Old Man Spider).

I think Azrael and Cyborg Superman are reasonably instructive in terms of what Ben can and cannot be. Azrael's original series post KF started as a redemption arc, and once he was redeemed, he kind of fell out of favor (his iconic costume no longer made sense by issue 50 and he got that ridiculous white costume). When he came back in the New 52/Rebirth, he was OG Azrael again and got to re-fight his battle against The Order of St Dumas and The System - it wasn't a particularly new take on the character (they changed details around a bit, but it outlines the same). Cyborg Superman kept relevant because he became, for lack of a better term, a standard space villain. He wasn't just Superman's enemy, he was Supergirl's and Hal Jordan's. He stopped being defined solely as Superman's dark copy so he could show up in Sinestro Corps War w/o much wrangling of the story.

[byrd156]

I agree with that, and it's not just comic books, it's all over the culture. People no longer believe in good ultimately triumphing over evil, hope over despair, kindness and compassion over cruelty and meanness . . . because the real world we live in has made those things seem like an impossibility. As a result, our fiction no longer seems interested in giving us heroes we can root for --- as opposed to "relate to," which is not quite the same thing --- because deep down, we don't believe heroes actually exist anymore. It's all just people with agendas, hidden or not, striving against each other to achieve their own ends regardless of right or wrong, and while that might be truer to life as we know it, we shouldn't necessarily resign ourselves to it.

Wow, this feels spot on to me.

[marhawkman]

No.

I just think writers and fans (who aren't writers) approach the situation from drastically different perspectives.

-Pav, who wants to be diplomatic...

It reminds me of something that Stan Lee said on "Who wants to be a Superhero?". You can write a novel length bio for each character. But reading that is too much for someone to do just to understand what a character is/does. You also have the one-paragraph version, and Stan was fond of one sentence summaries. What are those for Ben Reilly?

[CrimsonEchidna]

Well, if Ben is truly redundant. And if there is no place for his character anymore....then why doesn't Marvel just let him go off and have a happy ending. If they don't plan on using the character as a hero again, then just let him survive the spider-geddon event and take over for the Ben Reilly of Earth-94? That world desperately needs a Spider-man. And our current "Ben" could go fill the boots of that guy and learn how to be a hero again.

I think the reason you don't see characters in comics ever "riding off into the sunset" is because by the very nature of the medium, it's never actually going to be the end of their story. Eventually writers, and editors for that matter, change and someone new coming in will eventually want to overrule that previously established happy ending. Scott Summers is basically the poster-boy of that; He was supposed to settle down with Madelyn Pryor and permanently retire from being an X-Man, but then the X-Office pushed for a reunion of the "classic" team after Jean Grey got resurrected.

I think this is also why you see writers opting to killing a character off rather than simply writing them out of the story.

[Pav]

It reminds me of something that Stan Lee said on "Who wants to be a Superhero?". You can write a novel length bio for each character. But reading that is too much for someone to do just to understand what a character is/does. You also have the one-paragraph version, and Stan was fond of one sentence summaries. What are those for Ben Reilly?

Cloned from the cells of Peter Parker by an insane supervillain, the man who calls himself Ben Reilly has traversed the country to create a life of his own, using his inherited spider-powers to come to grips with his own sense of responsibility as the Scarlet Spider.

-Pav, who thinks that's an okay summary...

[MJM Mystery Writer]

As something of an aside The Clone Conspiracy tie-in that had Ben relate his traumatic experiences to Peter did have a lot of references to the character's history. Especially in the artwork were Camuncolli not only copied actual visuals but mimicked the art style of the various clone saga stories. So it's not like no one at Marvel is unwilling to go back through Ben's though the characters history but I still submit it's a daunting task that most writers handling the character would prefer to avoid.

The problem is, that tie-in was the most the reader ever got about Ben's past. I'm not saying he had to have his full supporting cast come back in order to be successful, but there were practically NO references to his past life (as Spider-man, Lost Years, Redemption) at ALL! In fact, there were practically NO references to his time after Warren re-cloned him, and then Ben revealing himself to Peter.

If a reader is going to be invested in a character, they have to be given little tidbits about who the character is (get inside his head), discuss what his backstory is, and how that has made him the person he is today. The current Scarlet Spider series had none of that. It literally could've been any other generic character under the mask besides Ben. His character was never truly fleshed out....he didn't have a real friend, he had no love interest, and there was nothing positive about him to make new readers really love the guy.

At least during the "Lost Years" he had Seward Trainer and Janine Godbe (Elizabeth Tyne).

[boots]

Wow, this feels spot on to me.

as far as tv goes, they do say we're currently in the "age of the anti hero"

[boots]

i think part of it was the way marvel dusted ben under the carpet (literally) and tried to ignore him in the subsequent years. yeah, his presence was felt through mayday and the odd call back, but he didn't loom large in the mythos the way bucky or todd did.

they could have amped that up in the lead up to clone conspiracy, really made it feel...important. as it was, ben and peter's interactions seemed forced and built with the sole purpose of getting ben a spin-off book.

in the 90s saga, they spent a lot of time building things towards the reveal, and that worked.

[boots]

It reminds me of something that Stan Lee said on "Who wants to be a Superhero?". You can write a novel length bio for each character. But reading that is too much for someone to do just to understand what a character is/does. You also have the one-paragraph version, and Stan was fond of one sentence summaries. What are those for Ben Reilly?

this is a bit of fun. i'm more used to writing loglines, so i hope you don't mind if i twist the exercise that way...some of these are more suited to a 90s ben, some were an an attempt at the current take and the others are just **** i made up as possible pitches...


* heartbrakingly exiled from his family, his friends, his home town...and finally from the man he once was, ben reilly must decide on the man he will now become.

* a man out of place, haunted by memories not his own, will ben reilly accept the heroism in his dna or fight to become someone...and something else?

* what is a man without family or friends? with nobody to responsible for, what good is power?

* ben reilly is a glitch in the system; a man who should not exist. his home, his friends and family all belong to another person. a rogue cell in the body of the marvel universe, can he make peace with it before it destroys him?

* pursued by enemies from two men's lives, his own past and the past of the man he was made from, ben reilly is running for his very life. what he doesn't realise is that he holds a secret they all want. a secret coded into his very dna.

* ben reilly is spidercide. psyche!

[Celgress]

As I posted in another thread -

I think another problem with Ben's return run was that previously Ben was the single Spider-Man if you will whereas Peter was the married Spider-Man. Thanks to those in the Marvel Office the slot of single Spidey who is still finding his way is no longer open to Ben nor is young relatively inexperienced Spider-Man (Miles says hello) or even brutal anti-hero Spider-Man (Otto & even Kaine say hi). Really, what role is there left for Ben to fill other than maybe villainous Spider-Man (which didn't work)?

[boots]

As I posted in another thread -

I think another problem with Ben's return run was that previously Ben was the single Spider-Man if you will whereas Peter was the married Spider-Man. Thanks to those in the Marvel Office the slot of single Spidey who is still finding his way is no longer open to Ben nor is young relatively inexperienced Spider-Man (Miles says hello) or even brutal anti-hero Spider-Man (Otto & even Kaine say hi). Really, what role is there left for Ben to fill other than maybe villainous Spider-Man (which didn't work)?

i'm almost thinking of going meta with that approach. literally, the problem you describe...make that ben's actual problem. he does not fit. he's a rogue cell, a loose cog, an extra part, a viral infection of the MU

still works with what made him so fascinating the in the first place- a search for identity and what makes someone human. take that and run with it.

give him some sort of existential enemy; that wants to extinguish ben for no other reason than he exists when he shouldn't.

all the other takes a variations on the street level crime fighter peter parker type. make it a grant morison-esque slightly avant garde take on a spidey type character.

well... i'd buy it lol.

[classicgmer]

i'm almost thinking of going meta with that approach. literally, the problem you describe...make that ben's actual problem. he does not fit. he's a rogue cell, a loose cog, an extra part, a viral infection of the MU

still works with what made him so fascinating the in the first place- a search for identity and what makes someone human. take that and run with it.

give him some sort of existential enemy; that wants to extinguish ben for no other reason than he exists when he shouldn't.

all the other takes a variations on the street level crime fighter peter parker type. make it a grant morison-esque slightly avant garde take on a spidey type character.

well... i'd buy it lol.

I'd also add that they could make him a vagabond/drifter again and have him roam the country never staying in one place for too long as he attempts to figure out his place in the world. I belive there was even a short story that explored some time when he was in Europe so maybe explore that some more.


To me there's a couple different avenues they could've used to differentiate him and they just went with the least interesting one imho.

[Celgress]

I'd also add that they could make him a vagabond/drifter again and have him roam the country never staying in one place for too long as he attempts to figure out his place in the world. I belive there was even a short story that explored some time when he was in Europe so maybe explore that some more..

Or expanding upon the existential crisis idea Ben (like the Web Warriors before him) roams the multiverse. He goes from world to world having adventures as part of his search for identity. Heck, he could even learn the entire Marvel Multiverse is fictional at some point if the Marvel Office wants to get really deep.

[boots]

Or expanding upon the existential crisis idea Ben (like the Web Warriors before him) roams the multiverse. He goes from world to world having adventures as part of his search for identity. Heck, he could even learn the entire Marvel Multiverse is fictional at some point if the Marvel Office wants to get really deep.

looking for a universe where he can fit in? that could work.

as he goes, he becomes more and more aware of patterns and narratives...and aware of the fictional nature of the MU multiverse. at least it's different to peter in nyc/ peter travelling the world/ peter if he killed/ peter if he was inexperienced/ peter if he was married/ peter if he was single etc