Have writers become lost on what Ben Reilly should be?

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

yeah, i can agree with that. but do they make bad business choices on purpose? fuck ups yeah. intentional self sabotage nah.

I didn't say it was sabotage. I think they brought back Ben to make him a supervillain, but it has proven to be an unpopular decision, so now they don't really know what to do with him other than doubling-down on the villain angle or just killing him off again.

[boots]

You could say that about every character except Peter Parker.

We already have other "evil" Spider-Men.

i think a case can be made for the importance of the clone saga (and by extension ben) to mythos.

ben's influence can be seen across the mythos too: visusally gwen and superior. mayday as a legacy character. it/he is now synonymous with spider-man to the point that other media incorporates it (i would not be shocked if the mcu eventually touches on it in some way).

but maybe an argument could be made that his time has passed?

[boots]

I didn't say it was sabotage. I think they brought back Ben to make him a supervillain, but it has proven to be an unpopular decision, so now they don't really know what to do with him other than doubling-down on the villain angle or just killing him off again.

oh, my bad. i thought you were one of the guys saying marvel hated ben and were treating him accordingly.

if you're saying they are just screwing it up, yeah, i can agree.

[Orbus]

That actually supports my claim, because these issues are written far in advance. PAD was probably originally going to write Ben as a villain/anti-hero, per the new Clone Conspiracy status quo, then changed course. Remember how quickly they abandoned the new suit?

Thing is PAD initially portrayed Ben as an even bigger villain than Slott did.

Slott had Ben doing bad things with noble intentions like restoring peoples loved ones, eliminating sickness and death. Then you had PAD charging victims to be rescued and lying about being able to cure a sick child even setting up an assault so he could come to the rescue and just generally acting deranged.

I don't doubt that PAD switched gears after the initial bad reaction but even after his kiss with Death Ben was still kind of a douche. It was only towards the end that Ben seemed sincere in wanting to be a good person which makes the end even sadder.

I don't know if it's fair to say Slott left Ben with the intention of another writer redeeming him but like I said Ben's sympathetic motivations were ripe for a writer to exploit and show that Ben not truly a villain and frankly it's worked for similar characters that I can't help but think that's what Marvel wanted. PAD went a different way and it didn't work. Shame but not sabotage.

Just another reminder why DeMatteis is one of the best (perhaps THE best) writer to ever grace the pages of the Spider-Man books. The man really tries to understand his characters and write them organically. Contrast that to Slott who just alternates between “Peter is a hard luck man-child who will never get his life together” or “Peter is a brilliant, billionaire industrialist technocrat who is bigger than Elon Musk” depending on his whim that month.

Imagine if we had JM on a modern day Reilly or Kaine series. I bet he’d jump at the chance. But of course Marvel isn’t smart enough to have him.

DeMatteis is one of the best Spider-Man writers and most versatile too and wrote for my money the best version of Ben followed by Jurgens who ironically didn't like the character. That being said his comments are soley his own whereas Ben is the product of many writers working with different intentions and I mean that literally as some were under the impression Ben was a temporary replacement whereas others were told that would 100% and they had to make it work. His comments were also made with a lot of hindsight.

When Ben debuted Peter was in his angry, dark "I am the Spider" phase which sounds extremely eye rolling but DeMatteis was the one writer that actually made it work. By contrast Ben was supposed to be much more like classic Peter Parker literally because readers were supposed to think that he was the real Peter Parker. Heck at one point it was planned that Ben would literally slip into Peter Parker's life when he took up the role of Spider-Man.

Peter got over his dark avenger phase which left us with two of the same characters and that was played up by DeMatteis himself and personally I don't think that's much of a problem. I don't think it's was ever the intention of writers going in but one of the better parts of the 90s clone saga was the brotherly bond that slowly developed between Peter and Ben both in and out of costume. For the first time Spider-Man had a partner he could properly work with; essentially himself.

That's not to say they are 100% the same guy. Clearly the more working class, low paid jobs angle that Ben had going for him was a result of being on the road and not being able to settle down for two long because he was being pursued by Kaine and the Salt Lake City Police but is there any doubt that if not for that he would have had a similar career path to Peter? In Salt Lake City Ben was working as a teaching assistant pre-dating Peter becoming a teacher himself. He studied science with Seward Trainer also.

Even his romantic life echoed Peters. Jessica Carradine was a sweet girl who unfairly blamed Spider-Man for what happened to her father. Sound familiar? Janine was his version of Mary Jane, she even looked like MJ. Desiree was an even more obvious MJ clone, light hearted party girl that studied fashion but there was someone deeper under the surface.

Maybe the character is just not that important to the franchise as a whole?

Also worth noting that Ben was designed to be a replacement for the main Spider-Man. Since that slot is filled, the character's main purpose is irrelevant. In light of that, maybe Marvel not so much "lost sight" of the character but realized he needed to be reinvented to have a place in the modern mythos? Arguably, being the evil Spider-Man is the only open left when taking into account the other Spider characters currently in use.

Pretty much. That being said I wouldn't mind if they retired Ben with him going out on a heroic note. Since it looks like his role in Spider-Geddon is not what many of us assume it would be then it's possible this would be the event to do it.

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

Thing is PAD initially portrayed Ben as an even bigger villain than Slott did.

Slott had Ben doing bad things with noble intentions like restoring peoples loved ones, eliminating sickness and death. Then you had PAD charging victims to be rescued and lying about being able to cure a sick child even setting up an assault so he could come to the rescue and just generally acting deranged.

I don't doubt that PAD switched gears after the initial bad reaction but even after his kiss with Death Ben was still kind of a douche. It was only towards the end that Ben seemed sincere in wanting to be a good person which makes the end even sadder.

I don't know if it's fair to say Slott left Ben with the intention of another writer redeeming him but like I said Ben's sympathetic motivations were ripe for a writer to exploit and show that Ben not truly a villain and frankly it's worked for similar characters that I can't help but think that's what Marvel wanted. PAD went a different way and it didn't work. Shame but not sabotage.



DeMatteis is one of the best Spider-Man writers and most versatile too and wrote for my money the best version of Ben followed by Jurgens who ironically didn't like the character. That being said his comments are soley his own whereas Ben is the product of many writers working with different intentions and I mean that literally as some were under the impression Ben was a temporary replacement whereas others were told that would 100% and they had to make it work. His comments were also made with a lot of hindsight.

When Ben debuted Peter was in his angry, dark "I am the Spider" phase which sounds extremely eye rolling but DeMatteis was the one writer that actually made it work. By contrast Ben was supposed to be much more like classic Peter Parker literally because readers were supposed to think that he was the real Peter Parker. Heck at one point it was planned that Ben would literally slip into Peter Parker's life when he took up the role of Spider-Man.

Peter got over his dark avenger phase which left us with two of the same characters and that was played up by DeMatteis himself and personally I don't think that's much of a problem. I don't think it's was ever the intention of writers going in but one of the better parts of the 90s clone saga was the brotherly bond that slowly developed between Peter and Ben both in and out of costume. For the first time Spider-Man had a partner he could properly work with; essentially himself.

That's not to say they are 100% the same guy. Clearly the more working class, low paid jobs angle that Ben had going for him was a result of being on the road and not being able to settle down for two long because he was being pursued by Kaine and the Salt Lake City Police but is there any doubt that if not for that he would have had a similar career path to Peter? In Salt Lake City Ben was working as a teaching assistant pre-dating Peter becoming a teacher himself. He studied science with Seward Trainer also.

Even his romantic life echoed Peters. Jessica Carradine was a sweet girl who unfairly blamed Spider-Man for what happened to her father. Sound familiar? Janine was his version of Mary Jane, she even looked like MJ. Desiree was an even more obvious MJ clone, light hearted party girl that studied fashion but there was someone deeper under the surface.



Pretty much. That being said I wouldn't mind if they retired Ben with him going out on a heroic note. Since it looks like his role in Spider-Geddon is not what many of us assume it would be then it's possible this would be the event to do it.

Yes, that's exactly my point. It seems Ben was brought back just to be made a super villain, but PAD changed course after the first few issues, likely due to Clone Conspiracy backlash. Just like how they got rid of the new suit due to fan backlash.

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

oh, my bad. i thought you were one of the guys saying marvel hated ben and were treating him accordingly.

if you're saying they are just screwing it up, yeah, i can agree.

Well, I do think Marvel dislikes 90's Ben, or at least thinks that there isn't a place for him in 2018. Hence their attempt (and reaffirmation) to make him evil. They probably didn't expect that so many people would hate the new direction, but they were already in too deep with a solo book on the way.

[leokearon]

I didn't say it was sabotage. I think they brought back Ben to make him a supervillain, but it has proven to be an unpopular decision, so now they don't really know what to do with him other than doubling-down on the villain angle or just killing him off again.

They could bring back a Good Ben and have a Bad Ben

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

i think a case can be made for the importance of the clone saga (and by extension ben) to mythos.

ben's influence can be seen across the mythos too: visusally gwen and superior. mayday as a legacy character. it/he is now synonymous with spider-man to the point that other media incorporates it (i would not be shocked if the mcu eventually touches on it in some way).

but maybe an argument could be made that his time has passed?

There was also clearly some inspiration in the makeshift Homecoming and Iron Spider movie suits.

[WebLurker]

You could say that about every character except Peter Parker.

I don't think so. Most of the other characters seem to fill different roles.

We already have other "evil" Spider-Men.

Besides the Doc Ock Spider-Man? Besides, Ock doesn't work; he will eventually be reset back to normal as the classic villain. His time as a Spider will be short-lived in the long run.

They could bring back a Good Ben and have a Bad Ben

Like have two Ben clones on different moralities?

[boots]

DeMatteis ... That being said his comments are soley his own whereas Ben is the product of many writers working with different intentions and I mean that literally as some were under the impression Ben was a temporary replacement whereas others were told that would 100% and they had to make it work. His comments were also made with a lot of hindsight.

decent points about the context around dematteis' comments. it's always interesting to get the full spectrum of opinions from all involved. and one thing keeps coming up- how disjointed they all were.

[boots]

Well, I do think Marvel dislikes 90's Ben, or at least thinks that there isn't a place for him in 2018. Hence their attempt (and reaffirmation) to make him evil. They probably didn't expect that so many people would hate the new direction, but they were already in too deep with a solo book on the way.

i see where you're coming from, and i don't disagree. though i'd probably say "discarded" rather than "disliked"

but i'm somewhat forgiving. all art/entertainment is experimental...and sometimes you take risks and fail

[boots]

There was also clearly some inspiration in the makeshift Homecoming and Iron Spider movie suits.

definitely.from memory, the original homecoming makeshift outfit was even closer to the reilly scarlet costume.


that being said, marvel did seem to actively minmise the legacy of ben's death in peter's ongoing life.really, they could have gone in a similar situation to todd with batman, where it loomed large in peter's psyche and list of failures.

though to be fair, thats a pretty cramped space with uncle ben, the original gwen stacey and who knows who else in there already.

out of curiosity is ben's tombstone with uncle ben's? does he even have one?

[leokearon]

Like have two Ben clones on different moralities?

Yeah, One Ben is the good version we know and love and the other is the tainted evil one that Marvel seem to want to go with.

[HypnoHustler]

definitely.from memory, the original homecoming makeshift outfit was even closer to the reilly scarlet costume.


that being said, marvel did seem to actively minmise the legacy of ben's death in peter's ongoing life.really, they could have gone in a similar situation to todd with batman, where it loomed large in peter's psyche and list of failures.

though to be fair, thats a pretty cramped space with uncle ben, the original gwen stacey and who knows who else in there already.

out of curiosity is ben's tombstone with uncle ben's? does he even have one?

Ben has a tombstone according to Renew Your Vows. Annie and MJ visited it in a recent issue.

Don't know about 616. Ben's ashes (more like his degenerated remains) were spread over the Hudson river iirc.

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

I don't think so. Most of the other characters seem to fill different roles.



Besides the Doc Ock Spider-Man? Besides, Ock doesn't work; he will eventually be reset back to normal as the classic villain. His time as a Spider will be short-lived in the long run.




Like have two Ben clones on different moralities?

They fill different roles, but they aren't vital. Ben could easily fill a role, even if he isn't vital to the mythos.

Otto, Kaine, and Venom could all be considered evil/dark Spider-Men.