Amazing Spider-Man 93 Spoilers and Reviews

[NC_Yankee]

He did complete the story, all he did was rush through it. Read Rich's findings about the whole thing. Spencer was never intending to retcon OMD, it was always going to be Sins Past

I compared the story to a lasagna. Spencer kept on adding layer after layer and he completely lost me. May I ask who is Rich and where are the findings! I simply do not know.

[Spiderfan001]

I haven't seen that art. Do you have a link?

https://i.4cdn.org/co/1648396661513.jpg

Also someone asked me for the official concept art of Spidey and DD meeting in this same issue a long while back and I finally found it

https://i.4cdn.org/co/1648396538934.jpg

[The Negative Zone]

I am typically optimistic, but this issue just rubbed me the wrong way. It felt like more less of a ending to a story or more of a to be continued hook to just sell me more stuff. Especially with the run seeming to go right into the next run. It just felt almost SOULLESS.

Now honestly, I'm not too upset about Chasm. I can understand why Ben would feel, but this did not feel like a proper tragedy at all? A tragedy you should be able to see it coming, tragedies are more self-destructive. It just sort of felt like Ben was a hopeless victim or too dumb all the way through. The tone of the entire Beyond series felt all over the place and I'm not even sure how it all fits together. Honestly, the issue should have ended with Peter willing to put on the helmet and apologizing to Ben.

I know that a Ben Reilly book won't last very long honestly, but why couldn't we just get a book spinning out of Beyond for 12 or so issues before he goes back into comic limbo? If Chasm gets a book, we're just going to get more suffering before he goes into limbo.

[primenumber101]

The tragedy of the Beyond storyline is that it was ultimately a filer arc to buy a time while Marvel figures out who will be a next permanent writer for ASM. It's basically like Avengers Surrender, which was a filer arc for the Avengers while Marvel figuring it out which direction they wanted to go with the characters, and to set up the storyline for Jason Aaron's Avengers and Al Ewing's Immortal Hulk.

And Ben Reilly got a bad luck with Marvel uses him for filer arc and toss him away when they didn't need him anymore.

[SpideyClone]

Being mentally crippled and losing his sense of self is a tragedy in itself

Exactly. The tragedy of Ben Reilly has always been his sense of self or loss thereof, whether defined by his inherited memories, or his life on the road, or the many deaths at the hands of the Jackal, and now this.

[Matt Rat]

Exactly. The tragedy of Ben Reilly has always been his sense of self or loss thereof, whether defined by his inherited memories, or his life on the road, or the many deaths at the hands of the Jackal, and now this.

The tragedy of Ben Reilly has always been the same as the tragedy of Peter Parker: editorial bulls*it

[Webhead]

https://i.4cdn.org/co/1648396661513.jpg

Such a shame this didn't happen. Ben had an actual personal connection to Peter unlike the rest of the Spiders (well, maybe Miles to a degree).

Then again, Last Remains stopped making sense after #74's awkward re-retcon/editorial meddling.

[Lukmendes]

Yeah that would be a good fit.

I am not hopeful for his run. I will check out the first issues to see where he goes with particularly MJ. She will be my litmus test for his run. Of course if Chasm appears I will not buy those issues. That is a given for me.

Yeah I'm really worried about MJ too, I'm only partially joking when I saw Lizard may show up outta nowhere and eat her lol.

I’m convinced this whole event was because Sony wanted their own extreme version of Peter Parker that wouldn’t be named “Peter Parker” or “Spider-Man.” We’ll probably see a Chasm in the Sonyverse by 2025.

They could just use Spidercide for that, or Doppelganger, fuck lol.

And why wouldn’t Ben trust Peter when he said he would help him, just not with Beyond tech?! Peter is a science whiz! Ben knows that because…he’s Peter! It’s so ridiculous that Ben decides to whale on Peter for not using Beyond tech when Ben himself knows that Beyond screws over everything they touch, including Kafka, including HIM, and yet he’s going to beat up Peter for not trusting Beyond when Ben was hellbent on taking down Maxine and Beyond just an issue ago?!?!

To make it dumber, the way Maxine talks implies that the device is gonna steal Peter's memories:



At least this "Take them from the original source" makes me think so, and, considering the machine is what stole Ben's memories to begin with, it sounds like he's willing to make someone go through exactly what he's going through.

Like, I see why he's so desperate, but what the fuck? Him trusting Maxine that much is bad enough...

It.....really seems like Marvel is overthinking what to do with Ben. Of course, it seems like they don't know what to do with Alternate Spider-Men. Or rather, they do, but they don't know how to not eff it up. First Kaine, then Ben, then Otto, now Ben again. It's a freaking miracle that Miles has been unaffected.

It's because Ben, Kaine and Otto are largely irrelevant, so Marvel's more willing to take dumb risks with them, trying that kind of nonsense with Miles wouldn't fly.

I totally don't buy this "We don't know where to put Ben" bull either. They've done it just fine with other alternates. Kaine had a life in Houston as a darker but still heroic Spider-Man. Otto had a life in San Francisco AND a supporting cast/love interest. Ben already had a place. He's the Scarlet Spider. He's Peter's clone/brother and they have an amazing dynamic already, complete with built in issues. Just let them be.

At least they didn't just kill him off this time but....ugh. This just feels so...unnecessary.

Compared to what happened now and what they may do with him after this, killing him might be mercy.

https://i.4cdn.org/co/1648396661513.jpg

Also someone asked me for the official concept art of Spidey and DD meeting in this same issue a long while back and I finally found it

https://i.4cdn.org/co/1648396538934.jpg

Nice, I uploaded both to imgur:

Such a shame this didn't happen. Ben had an actual personal connection to Peter unlike the rest of the Spiders (well, maybe Miles to a degree).

Then again, Last Remains stopped making sense after #74's awkward re-retcon/editorial meddling.

Last Remains itself would only make slightly more sense with Ben around, most of the other Spiders there there still don't have much of a connection with Peter besides kinda using "Spider", and for whatever reason, despite how Kindred found the dumbest excuses to unbury some people and blame it on Peter (Jean DeWolff's death has nothing to do with Spidey in any way), he bizarrely enough didn't bring Mattie's or Cassandra's corpses... So weird.

Anyways, one nice thing I can say about the issue is, the art is really good, and the fight between Peter and Ben is good by modern comic book standards, there is actual choreography in it, and when reading it I was thinking that it looks pretty good, even though it's kinda ruined by dogshit writing, but hey.

[Marvel Man]

https://i.4cdn.org/co/1648396661513.jpg

Also someone asked me for the official concept art of Spidey and DD meeting in this same issue a long while back and I finally found it

https://i.4cdn.org/co/1648396538934.jpg

Thank you!

[jebsib]

Huh.

Not much of a "Spider-Man" story, really...

Not a lot of JJJ, Robbie, Randy & Beetle GF, Gog, Flash, Pregnant Betty & Ned, Liz, Norman, etc.

Not much of Peter's "career", ESU, Peter's processing of Harry or Fred's death, mention of the recent Kindred trauma, etc

Also,

Not much of a "Ben Reilly" story, really...

No Kaine, No Daily Grind cast, no real PAD or Slott / Jackal call-backs.
Only Janine, a character that only appeared in 2 side-limited series.
... Not sure if she was ever even mentioned in 90s in the core books?

A lot of OOC May, MJ and Peter in a hospital bed, though.
An unusual amount of The Daughters of the Dragon, what with their long & important history in the Spider-titles.

And, just like the famously-beloved BND era, a patchwork collection of varying writers and artists, banging out issues every two weeks...

You know... One might almost think this was thrown together last minute (!)

[TinkerSpider]

He did complete the story, all he did was rush through it. Read Rich's findings about the whole thing. Spencer was never intending to retcon OMD, it was always going to be Sins Past

If you’re talking about Bl33d!ng C00l, all they said was they “asked around” without naming sources. For all we know, they played a game of telephone with staffers who weren’t privy to Spencer’s story pitches and/or who are parroting the Marvel company line.

Not to mention, Bl33d!ng C00l actually confirms that while Spencer was always supposed to retcon Sins Past, he was ALSO supposed to come back to OMD: “using One More Day as red herring to deal with Sins Past and then bring One More Day back again was always the plan.” In other words, Spencer planned the fake out of alluding to OMD when he was actually addressing Sins Past - AND THEN reversing again to deal with OMD, which he did not get a chance to do.

The article goes on to say, “So Nick Spencer may not have been allowed to reverse the events of One More Day as he might have wanted to, but that was always the case at Marvel rather than a sudden reversal of policy”- which can easily be read as Marvel higher ups imposed the policy on Spencer once they got wind of what he was doing. After all, Spencer introduced Chekhov’s engagement ring and thus the subject of marriage - so something was up other than just retconning Sins Past.

The article also confirms that the story was truncated and it is missing many structural elements Spencer had planned, which also seems to confirm Spencer wasn’t able to tell his complete story.

[Mercwmouth12]

If you’re talking about Bl33d!ng C00l, all they said was they “asked around” without naming sources. For all we know, they played a game of telephone with staffers who weren’t privy to Spencer’s story pitches and/or who are parroting the Marvel company line.

Not to mention, Bl33d!ng C00l actually confirms that while Spencer was always supposed to retcon Sins Past, he was ALSO supposed to come back to OMD: “using One More Day as red herring to deal with Sins Past and then bring One More Day back again was always the plan.” In other words, Spencer planned the fake out of alluding to OMD when he was actually addressing Sins Past - AND THEN reversing again to deal with OMD, which he did not get a chance to do.

The article goes on to say, “So Nick Spencer may not have been allowed to reverse the events of One More Day as he might have wanted to, but that was always the case at Marvel rather than a sudden reversal of policy”- which can easily be read as Marvel higher ups imposed the policy on Spencer once they got wind of what he was doing. After all, Spencer introduced Chekhov’s engagement ring and thus the subject of marriage - so something was up other than just retconning Sins Past.

The article also confirms that the story was truncated and it is missing many structural elements Spencer had planned, which also seems to confirm Spencer wasn’t able to tell his complete story.

It's also hearsay and BLC is a comics version of the Onion with some truth sometimes and mostly opinion puff pieces

[NC_Yankee]

It's also hearsay and BLC is a comics version of the Onion with some truth sometimes and mostly opinion puff pieces

A lot of those places are BS. Look at that Chan website. I am politically Conservative ( far from woke) but I cannot read from a place where MJ and Felicia are called disgusting names and the “N” word is constantly thrown around. I still make the point that Spencer had a lot of time to finish the story but did not, then he announced he is leaving making it easy for Lowe and company to kill the story. There is plenty of blame to go around.

[HypnoHustler]

A lot of those places are BS. Look at that Chan website. I am politically Conservative ( far from woke) but I cannot read from a place where MJ and Felicia are called disgusting names and the “N” word is constantly thrown around. I still make the point that Spencer had a lot of time to finish the story but did not, then he announced he is leaving making it easy for Lowe and company to kill the story. There is plenty of blame to go around.

4Chan is fairly decentralized nowadays. The /co/ section where people post about comics and discuss them is not that extreme as some other places on that site. Legally it’s a bit of a grey area though, as people will make threads where they post entire comics (including ones on day of release). I really haven’t seen the ‘n’ word thrown around in that comic portal there though.

As for Spencer, I kind of agree. There’s no reason the Kindred arc had to take 3 years (and it probably would’ve gone 4 years if Spencer hadn’t left early). The whole Kindred stuff should’ve been done by #50 at the latest (I remember even at #25 I was starting to get a bit antsy about it).

[Jness]

Huh.

Not much of a "Spider-Man" story, really...

Not a lot of JJJ, Robbie, Randy & Beetle GF, Gog, Flash, Pregnant Betty & Ned, Liz, Norman, etc.

Not much of Peter's "career", ESU, Peter's processing of Harry or Fred's death, mention of the recent Kindred trauma, etc

Also,

Not much of a "Ben Reilly" story, really...

No Kaine, No Daily Grind cast, no real PAD or Slott / Jackal call-backs.
Only Janine, a character that only appeared in 2 side-limited series.
... Not sure if she was ever even mentioned in 90s in the core books?

A lot of OOC May, MJ and Peter in a hospital bed, though.
An unusual amount of The Daughters of the Dragon, what with their long & important history in the Spider-titles.

And, just like the famously-beloved BND era, a patchwork collection of varying writers and artists, banging out issues every two weeks...

You know... One might almost think this was thrown together last minute (!)

Not really last minute, more just the way things have been for many years now. I'll post something similar in the other "Ben" thread as I think it's worth discussion...

Debbie Downer time a bit:

I think based on the last several years of Spider-Man they've turned Peter into someone who's more of an *overall* loser, vs how he was originally presented: as a very smart/intelligent guy, overlooked in favor of the jocks in his classes and ending up with what *appeared* to be bad luck because his sense of responsibility as Spider-Man interfered with his regular life. During Spencer's run, this arc, and even significant portions of Slott's, I've noted that:

1
most arcs deal with one of the following:
* Peter is replaced temporarily by another character
* Peter deals with various multiversal variants of his character, often against multiversal threats or enemies
* Peter/Spider-Man is targeted for VENGEANCE by another character
* most major villian motivations rarely extend beyond something personal with Spider-Man
* larger emphasis on characters who aren't Spider-Man (that weird Spider related team that came together in Spencer's arc, Daughters of the Dragon in this one, Black Cat)

2
* Peter's intelligence has been incredibly de-emphasized in favor of his grit. I'm not sure if this is intended to make him more relatable to the modern day comics reader but his intelligence is rarely ever mentioned in main material. This was also notable with Ben, in that in his 90s run he *created* all of his gadgets whereas was now relying on Beyond to do things for him. The only remarks as to him being a scientist potentially on the level of the bigger brains are in off-canon alternative universes, whereas this used to be something other heroes would remark on (i.e. Mr Fantastic).
* Peter (and/or Ben) gets his ass handed to him *constantly*, and it's almost always a massively *intense* beating, like one you can't figure how he's getting up from even with powers. Peter's supposed to be strong, but he's not supposed to be indestructible.
* Most other conflicts in the book are created by Peter doing something incredibly stupid or otherwise screwing up, whether as a hero or as a person.

Everything in Well's upcoming arc screams all of this stuff - "What did Peter f up now?" complete with Peter looking bruised and battered. The solicitations for the upcoming issues promise Spider-Man in the fight of his life against:
Tombstone
A city worth of gangsters
Some Sinister Six Adaptoid

This, I think, is also why the portrayal of Ben has suffered. Ben looks like a loser because *Peter* is also a loser, as opposed to the earlier decades. The Peter prior to One More Day was a character who you felt *could* have been a scientist or something else but deliberately chose the life he had because it made it more convenient for him to be Spider-Man. Post OMD, I could never see Peter accomplishing much of anything because his only ability appears to be being able to get up from being punched all the time; he's got barely anything else going for him.

I think one of the other posters already alluded to the fact comics really are nowhere *near* something approximating cultural significance as they once were, so I can totally understand - even if I disagree - with the way the character is being written nowadays. It wasn't being written as a way to get people into Ben, but nor do I think it was written as a way to write Ben out...it was written so that it could generate content, a new trademark for Marvel, and a more digestable story for Ben. I will be really surprised if the Jackal gets mentioned too much in whatever new series they might've been planning for him - more likely it'll be "I was a clone of Peter Parker but I tragically lost all the Peter Parker parts of me" and they'll just stop mentioning any of the convoluted backstory.