"He's pure power and doesn't even know it. He's the best of us."-Matt Murdock
"I need a reason to take the mask off."-Peter Parker
"My heart half-breaks at how easy it is to lie to him. It breaks all the way when he believes me without question." Felicia Hardy
That’s where Peter comes in. She can copy the formative memories from Peter to restore the scaffolding of his identity. From there, the others should be able to be recovered since, from what we saw in Beyond, memories that were lost as a result of Beyond’s tech damaging the mental scaffolding aren’t completely gone and can be recovered. I’d say a powerful telepath like Jean could unlock those a lot faster than Kafka’s machine especially with her having experience downloading a person’s entire memory into their body thanks to the resurrection protocols. Hell Ben piecing his remaining memories back after getting his moral center could even make for a good plot for them to give him something to do that doesn’t include ruining his character. It could be like a new generation of Lost Years.
Last edited by Kurolegacy; 12-29-2022 at 12:59 PM.
You know I actually enjoyed this issue. Peter didn't hold back and had a cool moment but he wasn't prepared for Ben's tricks. I really like the offensive spider-sense power, but I don't understand how he gets weapons? Falling into goo (which I don't recall Beyond saying it was any sort of special kind of goo) doesn't believably explain it to me.
I also laughed at the talking scooter bit.
One last thing though, the flashback nightmare sequence was just bad. The Alpha story already explained stuff through Ben's warped perspective, we don't need more of them imo.
Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well.jpg
Yeah, fair. It's so off-the-wall I initially thought he had to be doing it on purpose just to F with Peter.I think Ben should be a little goofy if they're going with the "dark reflection" angle. But with the initial flashback they're treating Ben's situation, trauma and brain damage for laughs. That is the weird tone of it all.
♪ღ♪*•.¸¸¸.•*¨ ¨*•.¸¸¸.•*•♪ღ♪¸.•*¨ ¨*•.¸¸¸.•*•♪ღ♪•*
♪ღ♪░NORAH░WINTERS░FOR░SPIDER-WAIFU░♪ღ♪
*•♪ღ♪*•.¸¸¸.•*¨ ¨*•.¸¸¸.•*•♪¸.•*¨ ¨*•.¸¸¸.•*•♪ღ♪•«
Having read this as well, definitely can count on Al Ewing to make something good and solid out of what's so far been a largely mishandled premise, at least when it comes to the Spider-side of this event. That said, Spidercide coming back as Chasm, like someone else suggested in this thread, would have been a lot better, at least for a rebrand, if nothing else. While I do think Janine's embittered perspective is understandable in light of what she's endured over the course of her life, I'm anticipating that Maddie using S'ym's finger to give her powers may have had a somewhat corruptive effect on her mental state. Oh, and Synch beating Venom with his own powers was a great feat for him, though in light of that accelerating Eddie Brock's transformation into his even-more-deranged future counterpart Bedlam . . . big trouble ahead.
The spider is always on the hunt.
i've been pretty clear that this is not my preferred take on ben, but also that marvel are (obviously) free to experiment with finding a new audience for the character and best of luck to them (and look, "not gooooo" did make me lmao...)
as far as social media as a barometer of success goes: i think we can easily get caught up focusing on comments for obvious reasons. they're meaty and often we look for opinion that reflects our own.
though sometimes on the same post, if you take a look at the likes and they can far outnumber the comments. silent views/engagement often even higher.
popularity isn't as clear as it might initially seem.
troo fan or death
Overall, I like the Chasm powers -- specifically, the offensive spider-sense and the mind-chasming others -- but I still prefer Ben to be a "perfect clone" of Peter Parker, and my preference would be for him to have the same powers as well. But I do understand why Marvel may feel Ben needs to be differentiated, and there are worse ideas than "offensive spider-sense," I think.
As a side-note, I always loved Kaine's original powerset and wish he'd go back to it.
I think we can both agree that ASM16 is a comic!
Even back in the 90s Clone Saga, Ben and Peter mixed it up plenty despite both essentially sharing the protagonist role more often than not, and I agree that it is fun to see the brotherly rivalry flare up from time to time. I just wish Wells and those currently making decisions at Marvel didn't see the need to make Ben such a clear villain, even if I understand the storytelling potential in setting up Ben and Peter in adversarial situations.
I also think Beyond and now Dark Web could've been much more acceptable and palatable if it was a tighter story with more realistic, emotional depth. That being said, I don't think there's anything wrong with comics skewing more towards the "cartoony" side. There's room for both.
Incidentally, I recently read an old issue of Marvel Team-Up featuring Spidey and Devil-Slayer fighting a bunch of lizard men to rescue a relic from a spider-temple! It was goofy as heck. The writer? J.M. DeMatteis, of course. Even he has his stories that fall a little flat. It was still a fun romp, though. (And it had a cool Defenders appearance!)
And honestly, if you think back to when Venom became an anti-hero, all of a sudden he was making quips and jokes too, which never felt right to me. As I said earlier, even if I don't like Ben being used as an "evil mirror version," it makes sense that writers would want to use him in that way.
I'm going to need a proper study with a sample size of at least 1000 before making any determinations regarding who or what is the majority
Although, honestly -- what "view" do I have that's in the minority? I'm always quick to say that I don't prefer Ben as Chasm, and while I've often enjoyed my reading experiences during Beyond and Dark Web, I'm not one to ignore problems in a story; for example, I mentioned in my review how silly it is for Ben to jokingly not care about what happened to him during Beyond when it's the very basis for his heel turn. I'd like to think there's a lot of people out there who enjoyed their reading experience -- I hope they do anyway! -- even if, like us, they don't want to see Ben as a villain. It's not impossible to both validly critique and appreciate a comic, or any other piece of art for that matter. And I guess, sometimes, certain individuals may not find anything worth appreciating. Doesn't mean others are wrong in doing so, though.
Y'know, there was so much to write about in my original post that I TOTALLY FORGOT that Al Ewing made mention of Ben's impact webbing and had Janine use a variation on the theme! That's something a lot of us have wanted to see since Ben's return, and for some reason neither Slott nor PAD nor Wells thought to utilize impact webbing nor Ben's stingers.
At least the Chasm costume has Ben's Scarlet-style webshooters on the outside. Call me shallow for allowing a good costume to persuade me into at least contemplating Ben's new status, but hey -- part of the reason I love the guy is because of how much I loved his Scarlet Spider costume as a kid!
Hahaha, it really is true. Maybe the reason I'm still able to enjoy the story despite Ben's heel turn is because the problems with the story are SO apparent.
One thing I don't like about Ben's new powers is the ability to manufacture weapons out of his green misty and/or spider-sense. I'd be okay if that power manifested itself in a spider-themed way, like different webs or something, but making axes and whatnot doesn't scream "Spider-Person" to me. That being said, Peter has used his normal webbing to make objects in the past, so *shrugs*
-Pav, who wonders how long until Queen Goblin is exorcised of Norman's sins, so she can then help restore Ben's memories (because it seems inevitable)...
Last edited by Pav; 01-04-2023 at 06:06 PM.
You were Spider-Man then. You and Peter had agreed on it. But he came back right when you started feeling comfortable.
You know what it means when he comes back.
"You're not the better one, Peter. You're just older."
--------------------
Closet full of comics? Consider donating to my school! DM for details