Ben Reilly: Spider-Man/Scarlet Spider Appreciation 2022

[HypnoHustler]

What’s annoying about the Chasm thing to me, is not whether it’s worse than him being NuJackal… it’s that Marvel made Ben a villain already, reversed course in the most ham-fisted way in Spidergeddon when they realized how unpopular that heel-turn was, and for some reason thought it was a good idea to make him evil all over again. I just don’t get their thinking. It’s a real “fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, shame on me” situation.

[PanicPixieDreamGirl]

What’s annoying about the Chasm thing to me, is not whether it’s worse than him being NuJackal… it’s that Marvel made Ben a villain already, reversed course in the most ham-fisted way in Spidergeddon when they realized how unpopular that heel-turn was, and for some reason thought it was a good idea to make him evil all over again. I just don’t get their thinking. It’s a real “fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, shame on me” situation.

Yeah, agreed.

[ZeroBG82]

What’s annoying about the Chasm thing to me, is not whether it’s worse than him being NuJackal… it’s that Marvel made Ben a villain already, reversed course in the most ham-fisted way in Spidergeddon when they realized how unpopular that heel-turn was, and for some reason thought it was a good idea to make him evil all over again. I just don’t get their thinking. It’s a real “fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, shame on me” situation.

Arguably, it's the same concept as what you see with Pete and MJ. Editorial has wanted MJ off the board as a love interest for what, decades? Single Peter who can sleep around is what they really want. So they keep trying to make it happen. Fans respond poorly, she comes back. New writers treat her with some respect, editorial gets pissy, the cycle repeats.

Editorial wants Ben to be a villain because ONLY Peter and Miles are allowed to be heroic Spider-Men. So they destroy Ben. Fans hate it, it gets undone. He sits in Limbo for a bit, then editorial tries again.

It's why I've given up on Marvel. It is NEVER going to matter what the fans want. Editorial HATES Ben Reilly, so Ben Reilly MUST be destroyed, again and again, until the fanbase gets the idea shoved down their throat so hard they finally just accept it. They tried to bait and switch it this time, using Beyond to remind fans of what Ben Reilly Spider-Man could be before they gave us all the big middle finger. The character I love is never going to be allowed to exist again, because in the mind of some small, deeply uncreative people he threatens their false idol of Peter Parker and somehow diminishes him. It's complete nonsense, Ben is special in his own way distinct from Peter and while he, of necessity due to his origin, shares the core of Peter's history the two characters are actually SO DIFFERENT.

At this point, the only way MY Ben will ever be seen again is in multiverse and what if stories. That's just how it's going to be.

[Kurolegacy]

What’s even more disgraceful about them doing this to Ben of all people comes when you consider where his name comes from. He’s named for both Uncle Ben and Aunt May taking Uncle Ben’s first name and Aunt May’s maiden name. How tone deaf do you have to be to make a character who is literally the namesake of the most influential people in Spider-Man’s life into a villain?

[rckstr1253]

What’s even more disgraceful about them doing this to Ben of all people comes when you consider where his name comes from. He’s named for both Uncle Ben and Aunt May taking Uncle Ben’s first name and Aunt May’s maiden name. How tone deaf do you have to be to make a character who is literally the namesake of the most influential people in Spider-Man’s life into a villain?

This! This is why I haven’t bought a marvel comic since yosts tenure on the scarlet spider. Once his series ended I stopped buying any and all marvel modern comics. All they do is rehash the same crap, turn already established heroes into gender opposites just to force an agenda instead of using plenty of female heroes they already have created in powerful comics, and write poor stories.

[Huntsman Spider]

This! This is why I haven’t bought a marvel comic since yosts tenure on the scarlet spider. Once his series ended I stopped buying any and all marvel modern comics. All they do is rehash the same crap, turn already established heroes into gender opposites just to force an agenda instead of using plenty of female heroes they already have created in powerful comics, and write poor stories.

The worst part of the latter point you bring up is how utterly two-faced they are about it. I'd rather they honestly stick to their guns, regardless of how the fans take it at first, and work to win them over instead of a bunch of false starts that go nowhere in the end because they keep caving in to the same angry, unhappy, resentful contingent of the fandom that won't be satisfied unless contemporary comics completely revert to or recreate the era in which they grew up reading comics, which might be the "good old days" for some people, but weren't so good necessarily for anyone else. The sad irony of that, of course, is that the only thing they seem to have the courage of their convictions on is how Spider-Man/Peter Parker should be handled and depicted; against all agitation and protest from the fans, they've kept him apart from Mary Jane Watson and increasingly adolescent-minded even if they can't put him back in high school outright like they seem to want, and to them, the only purpose a "Spider-Clone" has is to be a dark foil or flat-out evil counterpart to Spider-Man. Real shame there.

[Refrax5]

No, you try having the editor basically come right out and say that they feel a character that you enjoy has no place in comics and because of this kind of twisted mentality they twist and warp said character into something that they never were all while coming up with motivations that they just make up simply to justify their story and then tell me again that that is negativity for the sake of it. More so when the writer outright lies at the beginning of the story saying that they are doing right by the character only for you to get the real intention in the letters at the end. For years characters in the Spider-Man line have been mismanaged in ways that the fans have not been happy about and rather than just telling a good story that fans would enjoy, they continue going in the same circle of telling stories that aren’t making fans happy.

As for the guilt, when it comes to Spider-Man, guilt is an old friend. It’s the very guilt of Uncle Ben’s death that served as a hard lesson that motivates Spider-Man to do what he does. Ben may have evolved to be his own person but at his core that remains the same. He and Peter don’t run away from guilt, they take responsibility and learn from it. The bullshit from Beyond of Ben having them take his memories by choice was out of character in a line of out of character moments. It becomes very tiresome when they can’t crafter a story the works with the character so they have to force them to do things they wouldn’t simply so their story can happen the way they want it to.

The guilt of what Ben had done would be far beyond the normal Spider-Man guilt. He did some monstrous things under Slott and David. There's every reason to think he would be beyond crushed when he came back to his senses.

[Refrax5]

What’s annoying about the Chasm thing to me, is not whether it’s worse than him being NuJackal… it’s that Marvel made Ben a villain already, reversed course in the most ham-fisted way in Spidergeddon when they realized how unpopular that heel-turn was, and for some reason thought it was a good idea to make him evil all over again. I just don’t get their thinking. It’s a real “fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, shame on me” situation.

I do agree with that. It's a bad idea. But it's hard for me to take any arguments that it's done worse than Slott's version very seriously.

[Refrax5]

Arguably, it's the same concept as what you see with Pete and MJ. Editorial has wanted MJ off the board as a love interest for what, decades? Single Peter who can sleep around is what they really want. So they keep trying to make it happen. Fans respond poorly, she comes back. New writers treat her with some respect, editorial gets pissy, the cycle repeats.

Editorial wants Ben to be a villain because ONLY Peter and Miles are allowed to be heroic Spider-Men. So they destroy Ben. Fans hate it, it gets undone. He sits in Limbo for a bit, then editorial tries again.

It's why I've given up on Marvel. It is NEVER going to matter what the fans want. Editorial HATES Ben Reilly, so Ben Reilly MUST be destroyed, again and again, until the fanbase gets the idea shoved down their throat so hard they finally just accept it. They tried to bait and switch it this time, using Beyond to remind fans of what Ben Reilly Spider-Man could be before they gave us all the big middle finger. The character I love is never going to be allowed to exist again, because in the mind of some small, deeply uncreative people he threatens their false idol of Peter Parker and somehow diminishes him. It's complete nonsense, Ben is special in his own way distinct from Peter and while he, of necessity due to his origin, shares the core of Peter's history the two characters are actually SO DIFFERENT.

At this point, the only way MY Ben will ever be seen again is in multiverse and what if stories. That's just how it's going to be.

They don't hate Ben. This is why I don't like coming on these boards. They just don't care about him and think this is a way to make him marketable. It's stupid and ignorant, but it isn't malice. These guys aren't making business decisions with the goal of destroying a character or making us mad. I hated pretty much everything Dan Slott did with Peter and Ben, but I don't think he hated them. This is just toxic and silly.

[HypnoHustler]

They don't hate Ben. This is why I don't like coming on these boards. They just don't care about him and think this is a way to make him marketable. It's stupid and ignorant, but it isn't malice. These guys aren't making business decisions with the goal of destroying a character or making us mad. I hated pretty much everything Dan Slott did with Peter and Ben, but I don't think he hated them. This is just toxic and silly.

Yeah. I can argue that Marvel from 1997 to 2005 “hated” him (as much as one can hate comic characters), but now I think it’s just indifference. Perhaps a bit of begrudging acceptance that fandom wouldn’t stop asking him when he was dead so they gave us a “be careful what you wish for” scenario.

[Toxin45]

I mean make Spidercide the new venom he already looks like a bulky spidey clone

[HypnoHustler]

I often hear people say “well, the Clone Saga sucked but at least it gave us Ben Reilly and Kaine, who are good characters.”

Did the Clone Saga suck though? I feel that’s been drilled in our heads so long we’ve just taken it as fact. I think I reread issues more often from that era than I do any others. The middle is rough, but the beginning (from Ben’s return up to ‘Mark of Kaine’) and the last third (all the Spider-Ben stuff) is pretty solid to me.

[Kurolegacy]

The guilt of what Ben had done would be far beyond the normal Spider-Man guilt. He did some monstrous things under Slott and David. There's every reason to think he would be beyond crushed when he came back to his senses.

No it wouldn’t. As bad as PAD’s Scarlet Spider was, Ben’s mindset in it had been that while he had done terrible things as the Jackel, he still wanted to be a hero and earn his redemption and cleanse his soul. Ben may have made mistakes during that run as a result of his soul being damaged from dying so many times but there wasn’t anything in that run that was so Earth shatteringly bad that he’d rather wipe his memory than face it. Hell, assuming that the ending was still in line with Spider-Geddon’s continuity, even in spite of that, Ben still had enough of his core left that he willingly sacrificed himself to help bring down the Inheritors and was restored using their technology, setting him back to normal. At this point, you’re just justifying bad writing, something no one should do.

I do agree with that. It's a bad idea. But it's hard for me to take any arguments that it's done worse than Slott's version very seriously.

At least with Slott’s version he had good intentions even if he went about it wrong due to the damage done to his soul. In this case, he literally unleashed Hell on Earth and has set out to hurt innocent people who have nothing to do with anything that’s happened to him all because of a perceived notion that Peter stole his memories when he has now been shown to be an unreliable narrator.

[rckstr1253]

Marvel has been garbage for over 10 years now. The only reason they still exist is due to the movies making them tons of money, and Disney owning them. I’m not a dc fan at all but I’d dare say they have better written comics the last 10 years than anything marvel has put out. Heck, image comics has put out better stories than marvel the last 10 years. If people would stop buying this trash, marvel would have to either fix things or go under like any other business. I wasn’t a huge superior Spider-Man fan but even that was better than all the Spider-Man stories that have come since then.

Give me ben back marvel or sell the character to image comics and let them write some good stories.

[Kurolegacy]

Marvel has been garbage for over 10 years now. The only reason they still exist is due to the movies making them tons of money, and Disney owning them. I’m not a dc fan at all but I’d dare say they have better written comics the last 10 years than anything marvel has put out. Heck, image comics has put out better stories than marvel the last 10 years. If people would stop buying this trash, marvel would have to either fix things or go under like any other business. I wasn’t a huge superior Spider-Man fan but even that was better than all the Spider-Man stories that have come since then.

Give me ben back marvel or sell the character to image comics and let them write some good stories.

I wouldn’t say that DC’s really been doing really any better than Marvel. The New 52, their mismanagement of Superman ever since Bendis went over to DC, pretty much anything Tom King touched, everything pertaining to the Batman Who Laughs, the list goes on. Things haven’t been great for the Big 2, probably because they feel that they’re too big to fail and can get away with anything without suffering for it.