ASM 85 Review and Spoilers!!!

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

We have to wait and see if the whole "Beyond messing around with people's memories" doesn't extend to Peter's previous knowledge of them, because if it doesn't and he's just a "crap businessman", that'll be real bad form indeed.

I think the worst aspect of this run is telling the readers, upfront, this is the Beyond Corporation, as opposed to have them set another shell company and whatnot. Yeah, Ewing did that in his New Avengers run, but as is, we were robbed of any suspense whatsoever. We'd be inclined to think Beyond is not on the up and up because corporate superheroes stories always end bad; you'd at least have them pick a different name and seem very benign if you wanted the reveal that they think Ben is a chump to have any sort of weight whatsoever. As is, Ben's the only person who doesn't know when the Daughters of the Dragon already have rather public misgivings, and they seem to be in such good standing with Ben, what with how they quip one another and whatnot, that you're left scratching your head that none of them go "Ben, these guys aren't on the straight and narrow".

[Sr. Bungle]

We have to wait and see if the whole "Beyond messing around with people's memories" doesn't extend to Peter's previous knowledge of them, because if it doesn't and he's just a "crap businessman", that'll be real bad form indeed.

I think the worst aspect of this run is telling the readers, upfront, this is the Beyond Corporation, as opposed to have them set another shell company and whatnot. Yeah, Ewing did that in his New Avengers run, but as is, we were robbed of any suspense whatsoever. We'd be inclined to think Beyond is not on the up and up because corporate superheroes stories always end bad; you'd at least have them pick a different name and seem very benign if you wanted the reveal that they think Ben is a chump to have any sort of weight whatsoever. As is, Ben's the only person who doesn't know when the Daughters of the Dragon already have rather public misgivings, and they seem to be in such good standing with Ben, what with how they quip one another and whatnot, that you're left scratching your head that none of them go "Ben, these guys aren't on the straight and narrow".

This too irks me a good deal

[Aura Blaize]

Does the Beyond file have anything on Peter? They haven't made it clear whether they know Peter's ID. Otto would probably learn Ben's name and that he's a clone of the original Spider-Man from the file but not necessarily anything else.

He supposedly forgot most of what he learned being in Peter's body in the last Superior run.

He remembers being Spider-Man it seems. He remembers building Parker Industries. He seems to know quite a bit about Peter and assuming Beyond has Ben's face in their files, it would be quite simple to deduce that Ben looks like a Blonde Peter and then just put 1 +1 together from that.

The annoying thing about Otto in this is that they still haven't laid out completely what he remembers.

And even if Otto doesn't remember being Spider-Man, BEN sure as hell should. As I mentioned in another thread, Otto is the main reason Ben is "back to default settings" as they put it. But Ben doesn't even acknowledge it. You can have Otto have a memory like swiss cheese, but Ben?

[Spiderfan001]

He remembers being Spider-Man it seems. He remembers building Parker Industries. He seems to know quite a bit about Peter and assuming Beyond has Ben's face in their files, it would be quite simple to deduce that Ben looks like a Blonde Peter and then just put 1 +1 together from that.

The annoying thing about Otto in this is that they still haven't laid out completely what he remembers.

And even if Otto doesn't remember being Spider-Man, BEN sure as hell should. As I mentioned in another thread, Otto is the main reason Ben is "back to default settings" as they put it. But Ben doesn't even acknowledge it. You can have Otto have a memory like swiss cheese, but Ben?

All this

Editorial only seems to make comics worse and not helping when they should

[Wat]

I wonder if all this is leading to a hoisted by your own petard moment for Ben when his cloning tech is used to create patented clones owned by Beyond. Imagine 20 Ben's popping up in Peter and Mj lives to increase their headache. Maximum Clonage Conspiracy the newest recycled "event" from the house of ideas. Will end up with Ben getting gutted by the Goblin Queen this time to stop the cloning chain cycle which would have been linked to his life force or something.

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

He seems to know quite a bit about Peter and assuming Beyond has Ben's face in their files, it would be quite simple to deduce that Ben looks like a Blonde Peter and then just put 1 +1 together from that.

Yeah, that's the thing - for Otto not to say anything, it's reasonable to assume Beyond is tight lipped enough that even in files like that they might refer to Ben as just "Spider-Man" and not Ben Reilly. After all, even Ben being Ben and looking like blonde Peter, they don't know (or act like it, at least for the ones that are likely normal people like Marcus) who he is and just call him "the OTHER guy". Hopefully not The Other other guy... okay, nevermind, giving myself a headache.

The annoying thing about Otto in this is that they still haven't laid out completely what he remembers.

Well, from Gage's ending on Superior, he at least makes it clear he has enough memories of "Spider-Man", but Peter Parker is just completely out of equation. Since the deal with Mephisto rid him of everything related to Peter Parker, it's somewhat buyable that's what's going on.

As for Ben not remembering and not bringing it up, yeah, I agree. But unfortunately that's just how things are handled these days - there were other characters Ben met who had history with him, but they just seemed to act like "I have a passing knowledge of this guy" like he did with Otto. If we're being charitable, you can say Otto brutalizing Osborn on live broadcast all over made Ben just think he's bad news again and no helping it.

[HypnoHustler]

He remembers being Spider-Man it seems. He remembers building Parker Industries. He seems to know quite a bit about Peter and assuming Beyond has Ben's face in their files, it would be quite simple to deduce that Ben looks like a Blonde Peter and then just put 1 +1 together from that.

The annoying thing about Otto in this is that they still haven't laid out completely what he remembers.

And even if Otto doesn't remember being Spider-Man, BEN sure as hell should. As I mentioned in another thread, Otto is the main reason Ben is "back to default settings" as they put it. But Ben doesn't even acknowledge it. You can have Otto have a memory like swiss cheese, but Ben?

It’s been established that Beyond is f***ing with Ben’s memory, so there’s an easy out.

Besides, when Ben (stupidly) gave Otto the benefit of the doubt last issue, Otto used that to his advantage. So he probably is a bit reluctant to go easy on him now. I do agree the beatdown he gave Otto was overkill though.

[Sr. Bungle]

It’s been established that Beyond is f***ing with Ben’s memory, so there’s an easy out.

Besides, when Ben (stupidly) gave Otto the benefit of the doubt last issue, Otto used that to his advantage. So he probably is a bit reluctant to go easy on him now. I do agree the beatdown he gave Otto was overkill though.

I think that was the point, Ben is starting to unravel

[exile001]

I don't really see why people are saying Beyond is blatantly evil? Outside of the Miles Morales stuff, it honestly seems like standard corporation bullcrap taken to superhero extremes.

Because we've read fiction before and literally everything about Beyond screams "we are clearly evil!!!" I'm surprised their logo isn't a twirling mustache.

Like, the only possible unexpected twist this entire arc could have is that Beyond is actually really benevolent and the reason they're so hard on the Spidey name is that all the money is being directly used to help the city's needy (without accepting tax breaks).

[Obsidian Spider]

I hope there’s some more clone nonsense. I love it so much. I’d prefer it to be more well thought out and ideally tackle some existential issues for Ben but at this point I’d be happy with some Maximum Clonage over-the-topedness.

[Lukmendes]

So....Otto knows that Spider-Man is Ben Reilly. And he knows that Ben Reilly is a clone of Peter Parker. So.....shouldn't he definitely know that Spider-man is Peter Parker?

He probably just knows that Ben is a clone, but not who Ben is.

We have to wait and see if the whole "Beyond messing around with people's memories" doesn't extend to Peter's previous knowledge of them, because if it doesn't and he's just a "crap businessman", that'll be real bad form indeed.

I think the worst aspect of this run is telling the readers, upfront, this is the Beyond Corporation, as opposed to have them set another shell company and whatnot. Yeah, Ewing did that in his New Avengers run, but as is, we were robbed of any suspense whatsoever. We'd be inclined to think Beyond is not on the up and up because corporate superheroes stories always end bad; you'd at least have them pick a different name and seem very benign if you wanted the reveal that they think Ben is a chump to have any sort of weight whatsoever. As is, Ben's the only person who doesn't know when the Daughters of the Dragon already have rather public misgivings, and they seem to be in such good standing with Ben, what with how they quip one another and whatnot, that you're left scratching your head that none of them go "Ben, these guys aren't on the straight and narrow".

The funny thing is that, ASM#80.BEY has Otto mentioning shell companies like "Infinity solutions" or something like that, using a name like that as the main one could at least hide Beyond a bit.

Not that it'd really hide that they're evil, 'cause it seems everyone can see it except Ben and Janine (Though Janine is suspicious of it sometimes).

Either way, this was another half issue, and man does it make Ben look naíve lol.

I guess this could work better if Ben didn't have that many of Peter's memories and is a dumbass who doesn't see the bullshit Beyond pulls, and while the first one is kinda happening, the second one needs him to lose a lot of IQ points for this plot to be happening, 'cause at best, he should think so highly of Beyond because of a honeymoon phase or somethin', but he saw them sounding dismissive of his heroing enough times to think something was up.

I think it could work better if they made him trust Beyond enough, but still be suspicious of them, and then when he gets the drive Otto gives him, he gets pissed at finding out just how bad they are, at least that way we could have a naíve Ben, but not one who's such a moron.

Also, I laughed when Otto said "I'm many things, but a liar is not one of them.", the guy who was pretending to be Peter Parker for a while isn't a liar, suuuure...