Ben Reilly: Spider-Man/Scarlet Spider Appreciation 2022

[Matt Rat]

Last interview he did someone asked if he had an more Ben books after the mini ended and said he couldn't say in a way that eluded to be night be working on something

Fun fact, the story that precedes the legendary Spetacular Spider-Man#200 was a three-parter teaming Peter with the original X-Men line-up

[Kurolegacy]

When Marvel "just wants to kill Ben's character," they actually do it. They have him stabbed by a glider, fall off a building, turn to dust, and remain out of stories for 20 years.

Writers are allowed to take creative risks, which is what's going on with Ben as Chasm. It's okay to not like the direction, because I'm certainly not crazy about it, but c'mon. Let's stop with the "Marvel hates Ben" ridiculousness.

-Pav, who can't be the only one willing to give Chasm a chance...

It’s nice to be optimistic but ever since Marvel brought back Ben they’ve been doing nothing but taking risks with his character. First they made him the Jackel behind Clone Conspiracy, then they followed that up by turning him into an anti-hero version of himself ending with his soul being corrupted. They fixed that for about 5 minutes before we got Beyond which led us to this Chasm nonsense that nobody was asking for. And above all else, it really doesn’t help matters when the editor of that office genuinely feels that there’s no place in comics for Ben. Apparently they’re not getting the message that all this experimentation of making Ben evil isn’t working and it’s not winning them fans. Just like the X-fans got tired of the extinction doom and gloom, Ben fans are tired of this crap they keep pulling with Ben.

I’m not willing to give them a chance with Chasm because I feel they’ve been given enough chances and screw it up every time. Like the saying goes, ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me’.

[Reilly]

-Pav, who can't be the only one willing to give Chasm a chance...

I tried to be positive about this situation, but... I just can't.

I hope Chasm fails on every level. What was the point of fixing Ben during Spidergeddon? If they don't know what to do with the character, the character should be left alone. I bet nobody at Marvel, except J. M. DeMatteis, cares about Ben. They don't have to hate him, they just don't care about him, that's all. And I'm not going to support that "Chasm" BS, even if it ends up with fixed Ben. Things like that (and CC, SS:BR) will stink forever. Peter is still being remembered as "The Spider". Bad stories are more prominent than the good ones, sadly.

I hope Kaine will be left in peace. Kaine being involved in that BS is the last thing I want.

[Spiderfan001]

I hope Kaine will be left in peace. Kaine being involved in that BS is the last thing I want.

Amen

Also I foolishly hope Dark Web is actually ending w/ helping the clones

[Vworp Vworp]

Of course, with how Marvel just wants to kill Ben’s character, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just have him do it for the lolz.

Quoted for 100% accuracy.

Who knew, huh? That things were actually better for the 20 years that Marvel didn't care about Ben. Which they still don't. Only now they actively care about not caring about Ben. Because no group of writers or editors or publishers or whoever could possibly be looking at this stuff and thinking "Yep, this is the right direction for a character that we absolutely, definitely like."

[Malachi]

When Marvel "just wants to kill Ben's character," they actually do it. They have him stabbed by a glider, fall off a building, turn to dust, and remain out of stories for 20 years.

Writers are allowed to take creative risks, which is what's going on with Ben as Chasm. It's okay to not like the direction, because I'm certainly not crazy about it, but c'mon. Let's stop with the "Marvel hates Ben" ridiculousness.

-Pav, who can't be the only one willing to give Chasm a chance...

I can only speak for myself but if the choice is chasm or not using Ben at all then it’s easy. I rather have him dead or in Limbo if he goes out being the character he was then be transformed into something else just so he can appear in more issues.

My problem with his first death is that I found it unnecessary. I still held a belief not only in the wrongness of the decision but that Marvel would avoid similar bad moves if they tried again. Now they have tried again and they have not avoided these bad decisions. Heroic death for Ben doesn’t sound so bad anymore.

[Lukmendes]

I still don't like how Kaine shrunk a foot to look more like Peter when he became good.

Yeah that's lame, him being gigantic in comparison with Peter and Ben was funny looking.

Yeah, I expect these kind of shoddy proportions from a Rob Liefeld. I guess I'm just expecting more from JRJr. He should've paused a moment when he was drawing that to reflect on who exactly these characters are.

I think it's just a problem with companies in general not knowing how to used the written heights, comic books are hardly the only ones.

In Soul Calibur VI, in the game itself they list the character Hilde as 1.58m, while one of the tallest women in the game is Setsuka, at 1.67m, yet, if you go to training mode, and put them in front of each other, you'll notice Hilde is the taller one lol.

So yeah, I'm not blaming Marvel for that much, mostly because companies in general are super incompetent when it comes to height, and weight lol.

You're thinking of Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Yeah yeah I screwed up when using the heights lol.

If Wells wants this teamup to make even the smallest amount of sense he’d have that Maddie tempted Ben with being able to restore what was taken from him. Of course, with how Marvel just wants to kill Ben’s character, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just have him do it for the lolz.

With the way Ben and Madelyne are talking with each other in the scans posted, it does sound like they're teaming up just because.

I can only wonder why Madelyne would care about teaming up with Ben, what does she gain from having Ben around? Specially if the memory loss does what it's implied in Beyond and just makes him forget everything, so even his scientist side may be gone.

Working for a nefarious demon sorceress who sends a cartoonish monster to attack Spidey

...Is Ben a Power Rangers lackey now?

He's dressed like one, and the over the top shoulder pads and crown might be making her look like a Power Rangers villain too .

I hope Kaine will be left in peace. Kaine being involved in that BS is the last thing I want.

Kaine is clearly the smartest Parker, he's probably relaxing in some beach having drinks with Aracely while Ben changes between good and evil every 5 minutes and is never happy.

[Huntsman Spider]

If Wells wants this teamup to make even the smallest amount of sense he’d have that Maddie tempted Ben with being able to restore what was taken from him. Of course, with how Marvel just wants to kill Ben’s character, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just have him do it for the lolz.

Yeah, that plot could make sense, with Ben/Chasm believing he and Madelyne can help each other reclaim what was stolen from them and become actual whole beings in their own rights instead of always just being written off as lesser copies of others.

Working for a nefarious demon sorceress who sends a cartoonish monster to attack Spidey

...Is Ben a Power Rangers lackey now?

Considering Power Rangers as we know it wouldn't exist without the 1970s Spider-Man TV show from Japan inspiring Super Sentai (the source material for Power Rangers) to incorporate giant robots for its heroes . . .

[Refrax5]

When Marvel "just wants to kill Ben's character," they actually do it. They have him stabbed by a glider, fall off a building, turn to dust, and remain out of stories for 20 years.

Writers are allowed to take creative risks, which is what's going on with Ben as Chasm. It's okay to not like the direction, because I'm certainly not crazy about it, but c'mon. Let's stop with the "Marvel hates Ben" ridiculousness.

-Pav, who can't be the only one willing to give Chasm a chance...

I don't think they hate Ben, but I think the current office doesn't have much respect for the character. He felt so unlike Ben during Beyond and having a character defined by his resilience and refusal to give up basically lay down to die just screamed to me that these people don't understand or care about this character. Reducing Ben to a gullible doofus that's obsessed with being Peter just seems so reductive and unlike the character we love. Lowe even said there's no real place for him in the current mythology, so I don't think they have much affection or reverence for him.

And look, I'll read anything with Ben. I'll follow him as Chasm. And the more successful ANY iteration of the character is, the more visible he becomes, the more the chances increase of seeing him more in outside media. The more he appears, the more we may get him in games, cartoons, movies, alternate universe versions etc, and eventually we may even get a version of him more to our tastes somewhere.

So, I'm practical. I don't want him dead and faded into obscurity again. And at least this Chasm stuff isn't really Ben's fault. This was done TO him, so I can accept him being a villain, even it I don't love it. Any version of Ben being successful is better than the character being relegated to the dustbin of obscurity for me.

[HypnoHustler]

Quoted for 100% accuracy.

Who knew, huh? That things were actually better for the 20 years that Marvel didn't care about Ben. Which they still don't. Only now they actively care about not caring about Ben. Because no group of writers or editors or publishers or whoever could possibly be looking at this stuff and thinking "Yep, this is the right direction for a character that we absolutely, definitely like."

I’m mixed. When Marvel was pretending Ben and Kaine didn’t exist for a decade (I’d say this moratorium ended around 2008-2009 when Kaine appeared again in the modern books and Ben had a couple untold tales) was annoying and insulting for different reasons. As I’ve said earlier, the best status quo was when Kaine was Scarlet Spider in Houston, Ben was dead but he was actively remembered by Kaine and Peter and served as an inspiration to Kaine.

[Kurolegacy]

I can only speak for myself but if the choice is chasm or not using Ben at all then it’s easy. I rather have him dead or in Limbo if he goes out being the character he was then be transformed into something else just so he can appear in more issues.

My problem with his first death is that I found it unnecessary. I still held a belief not only in the wrongness of the decision but that Marvel would avoid similar bad moves if they tried again. Now they have tried again and they have not avoided these bad decisions. Heroic death for Ben doesn’t sound so bad anymore.

Hell at very least if he’s in limbo, he’s available for a writer to use him rather than simply abuse him. I honestly never thought I’d see the day that he was better used in Iron Man of all places than in Spider-Man but here we are.

[Refrax5]

Hell at very least if he’s in limbo, he’s available for a writer to use him rather than simply abuse him. I honestly never thought I’d see the day that he was better used in Iron Man of all places than in Spider-Man but here we are.

He really felt like an afterthought in Iron Man, though. I will say that I don't understand why they couldn't have just left him alone after Spider-Geddon or have Beyond end with him losing his powers and retiring with Janine to live happily ever after. That would have been better, but that wouldn't have been "shocking" enough for Marvel.

[Matt Rat]

I think I worked out how to write around my artist's errors for my Ben comic, it means acknowledging Beyond happened in my continuity, but I can manage it

[Sr. Bungle]

I think I worked out how to write around my artist's errors for my Ben comic, it means acknowledging Beyond happened in my continuity, but I can manage it

If life gives you lemons...

In other news:

So Ben went from being all brooding and emo to find people getting eaten fun, so much from the "anti-hero" hopes

[Refrax5]

If life gives you lemons...

In other news:

So Ben went from being all brooding and emo to find people getting eaten fun, so much from the "anti-hero" hopes

Wait, what?