BEN DOWN SO LONG: ASM14 Spoilers and Review

[Kurolegacy]

I’m willing to accept the Chasm era of Ben as being his “superior Spider-Man” era. This characters will always “reset” eventually.

I’m still not sure how I like it. I refused to buy the book, and I’m standing by it. But I read it, just so I could get a taste, and that taste was revolting.

I’ll just way trade wait it, depending on how I see y’all’s feedback here on this site….

If this is Ben’s “Superior” era then I’m gonna treat it just like how I treated Superior’s original run, skipping it. In Superior, the only issues I bought were the arcs that guest starred a spider I could root for and Goblin Nation. It’ll be the inverse with Amazing (assuming I don’t outright drop Wells run). Any story that involves Chasm in any way (and now I’m extending it to Hallows Eve), I’m not getting as I refuse to support these writing decisions.

[Vegeta]

Cons:

Conceptually, it feels like fan-fiction, "these two marvel characters are both ______, they should totally meet and talk!" (It's like how people think Jason Voorhees vs. Michael Myers would be the ultimate slasher story because they are both silent unstoppable killers, failing to realize just how boring such a story would actually be.)

On top of that, we also got yet another Spider-man supporting character gaining super powers. (Also very fan-fictiony).

Like many of Slott's stories, several other ideas are tossed into the main plot, and never given really much chance to breathe.

Pros:

The art is really good.

The writing, while not great, is probably as decent as a cheesy concept like this could possibly hope for.

Despite being Janine, Hallow's Eve looks rather cool and I am interested if she will wear different masks and gain different abilities based on each.

Admittedly, I rather enjoyed seeing the jerk debt collector get his.

Honestly, this is probably going to be stupid, but then so was the original clone saga. (Anyone who says differently is looking at it through rose tinted glasses, or letting a few behind the scenes "Life of Reilly" blog posts somehow convince them that "it could have been brillant!" And that's not counting fans who base their entire critique of quality Spider-man books solely on whether or not he is married.) It also ironic to see Ben fans so angry about this OOC behavior, when Peter went through the same kind of character assassination during "Maximum Clonage" (Ugh, what a terrible name).

Spider-man needs to just stay away from clone nonsense. It wasn't good in the 90's, and it was a completely unremarkable arc in "Ultimate Spider-man." (Memorable solely for giving us a gender bent Peter Parker as Spiderwoman.) Dark Web looks like it will be more of the same. Another bad Spider-man clone story.

[Huntsman Spider]

Having read it myself, I generally felt bad that this was the best idea current Spider-Editorial could come up with for Ben and Janine/Elizabeth. I get the in-universe reasoning; Ben's been thoroughly hollowed out thanks to Beyond Corporation's manipulations of his memories and Janine/Elizabeth is sick of being spat on and treated like a monster for doing what she had to do regarding her abusive father, so she's ready to burn the world for Ben, the one good thing she has left in her life. Ultimately, this is just a sad nadir for both of them, and for Madelyne Pryor as well, given how badly she herself was treated for being a clone. I'd have liked it much better if they turned to each other for mutual support and comfort as opposed to lashing out at the world, though my one hope is that Chasm taking Peter's soul somehow reconnects him with his memories and makes him wake up to what he's done and become. If that's not in the cards, then I suppose, in the words of Stephen King from his book Pet Sematary . . . "Sometimes, dead is better."

[Xwho]

Is Ben after Peter soul?

The idea of him after his soul brought to mind the idea of merging if Ben and Peter back in the 1990's.

[Vworp Vworp]

Honestly, there's no point hating on this book. This isn't Ben. It hasn't been since Clone Conspiracy. It's never acted like Ben, sounded like Ben, nor in any conceivable way has it come even the tiniest bit close to ever feeling like Ben.

Actually, I should add a little proviso here. If you're hating on the book because of the inconsistent art, the awful writing and the consistently bland dialogue, then that's perfectly understandable. But purely from the perspective of being a fan of Ben Reilly, this book is... nothing. Whenever I reread any of real Ben's actual 90's run in the Spidey books, at no point does it/will it ever enter my head that the events of this comic (and everything else since CC) is his eventual fate. That this is Ben's reward for the life he led and the sacrifice he made to save Peter.

Nah. Not in any reality. Not even in the alternate timeline that the Spidey books have existed in since One More Day. This isn't a case of saying "That's not my Ben." It's a whole lot more simple than that. Because that's not Ben. Period.

[Pav]

Random thoughts:

1. Ben is Simon Petrikov; Chasm is very much the Ice King.

2. Wishing for things that won't happen: if Ben has to be Chasm and Janine has to be Hallows' Eve, they should add a resurrected Phil Urich to the team for a Dark Amazing Friends!

-Pav, who still adores the original Ben-Phil team-up...

[Huntsman Spider]

Random thoughts:

1. Ben is Simon Petrikov; Chasm is very much the Ice King.

2. Wishing for things that won't happen: if Ben has to be Chasm and Janine has to be Hallows' Eve, they should add a resurrected Phil Urich to the team for a Dark Amazing Friends!

-Pav, who still adores the original Ben-Phil team-up...

90s heroes who've been unfairly shafted by Spider-Editorial? Yeah, I could see that. I'm still waiting for Kaine to show up and beat some sense back into Ben. Likely not going to happen, but nonetheless . . .

[Jman27]

ben is after Peter damaged soul thats not going help. I get Jeanie motivations for this no issues with her. Ben doing Peter a soild on that debt collector arigato.

[Huntsman Spider]

ben is after Peter damaged soul thats not going help. I get Jeanie motivations for this no issues with her. Ben doing Peter a soild on that debt collector arigato.

Hmm, that's a good point there. If Ben consumes Peter's soul somehow, would he also become aware of how the deal with Mephisto, even if Peter doesn't remember ever making it, tainted it? And yes, that debt collector turning out to be an evil POS would go a fair way toward making Ben feeding him to Madelyne and her demons easier to stomach.

[JustLuke]

...I don't think I'm going to be reading Dark Web.

[boots]

this is ben, clearly in the doylist and watsonian.

but there doesn't seem to be any of the things i enjoy or love about the character present in this iteration...so there's very to involve me other than....loyalty? curiosity? endurance?

i think there's a fair point about peter being written ooc in the 90s but there's a great wealth of difference between "the spider" and "chasm".

[CaptainUniverse]

Is it just me or is anyone having One More Day flashbacks with Ben and Janine's journey from Beyond to Dark Web? I mean you have an expy of Peter (Ben) and Mary Jane (Janine) who were on the run after everything that happened with the Beyond Corporation (Joining Tony Stark's side/Civil War/Superhuman Registration Act/Joining Cap's side) and now they have thrown their lot in with Madelyn (Mephisto) to change their fates via demonic means? It all feels so...familiar.

[Alex_Of_X]

Any day with a new Pav thread is a new day.

While wishing the best for dear old Ben, I'm in for the ride. Felicia going Queenpin didn't ruin her, Thor going unworthy for a while didn't wreck him, either. Heck, Bishop hunted baby Hope and even he's back on the side of the angels. Benjy is strong--he'll make it through it.

That said, he might just murder Pete while he does it lmao. Will he? Let's find out!

P.S. Pav, you been reading Defenders: Beyond? As a long-time lurker, can't help but think it's exactly your thing

[Kevinroc]

The writing in this issue was really poor.

The "oh, by the way, the debt collector is actually a serial killer" reveal was really bad.

I know the way Ben is written to be evil is just a continuation from what happened in Beyond, but now also turning Janine, a rape survivor, into a supervillain is a really questionable decision in and of itself. Did nobody know how bad this looked?

[CaptainUniverse]

The writing in this issue was really poor.

The "oh, by the way, the debt collector is actually a serial killer" reveal was really bad.

I know the way Ben is written to be evil is just a continuation from what happened in Beyond, but now also turning Janine, a rape survivor, into a supervillain is a really questionable decision in and of itself. Did nobody know how bad this looked?

Oh, they do, they just don't care how it looks.