Ben Reilly: Spider-Man/Scarlet Spider Appreciation 2023

[Kurolegacy]

I have a feeling Chasm will last as long as Wells is still on the book. He said he wants to continue Ben's story after all. After that though? I don't know if anyone will want to touch Chasm.

I just don't get it. What's the point? This isn't recognizable as Ben Reilly anymore. I don't care if you say "that's the point", this just doesn't feel like Ben to me. It kinda did at first but as it went on it just got fucking dumber and dumber to the point where I have to question when we're gonna get the part that "Ben fans will enjoy" like Cebulski said. Some may say it was the Norman scene but from how it was presented it's clear to me that it's not supposed to be seen as a good thing.

Ugh, whatever. It doesn't even matter. I'm just going to wait for this event to be over. Just retcon it so that the psychoreactive Ghostbusters slime was controlling Ben or something, I don't care anymore.

All I know is that so long as Wells is continuing Ben’s story like this, I won’t be buying the book any time that Chasm appears in it.

[TinkerSpider]

All I know is that so long as Wells is continuing Ben’s story like this, I won’t be buying the book any time that Chasm appears in it.

I have to applaud Lowe’s and Wells’s strategy: let’s deliberately thumb our noses at both Mary Jane and Ben Reilly fans simultaneously. I guess they really wanted to test Brevoort’s theory that anger sells comics.

So here’s a strategy: if people are done with this run, write a letter to spideyoffice@marvel.com and let them know why. Keep it unemotional as angry voices get dismissed.

Then don’t talk much about the book much. Negative word of mouth is still word of mouth.

Apathy is what truly kills a run.

[Cloneurosis]

spoilers:

I'm sorry, am I not supposed to approve Janine's actions here? This feels far more cathartic than the contextless off-screen Norman beating they wanted me to enjoy.

end of spoilers

[Kurolegacy]

spoilers:

I'm sorry, am I not supposed to approve Janine's actions here? This feels far more cathartic than the contextless off-screen Norman beating they wanted me to enjoy.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

Personally I’d say no considering what a total tool she’s become in this story. She’s basically taken the fact that people aren’t exactly going to be the most welcome to someone convicted of murder and used it as an excuse to hurt others without bothering to even try any other solution than the violent one. The ultimate irony is, while she hates being treated as a villain, she chose to become one rather than prove them wrong. And before anyone says that she’s justified in that, just look at the people she’s against in this story, Spider-Man and the X-Men, individuals who have felt what it’s like to have the people against them and in the case of the X-Men, have those who want nothing more than to exterminate them. But in spite of that, they rose above that and are some of the world’s greatest heroes and those who the archives of history in the MU will remember as such.

end of spoilers

[Refrax5]

spoilers:

Personally I’d say no considering what a total tool she’s become in this story. She’s basically taken the fact that people aren’t exactly going to be the most welcome to someone convicted of murder and used it as an excuse to hurt others without bothering to even try any other solution than the violent one. The ultimate irony is, while she hates being treated as a villain, she chose to become one rather than prove them wrong. And before anyone says that she’s justified in that, just look at the people she’s against in this story, Spider-Man and the X-Men, individuals who have felt what it’s like to have the people against them and in the case of the X-Men, have those who want nothing more than to exterminate them. But in spite of that, they rose above that and are some of the world’s greatest heroes and those who the archives of history in the MU will remember as such.

end of spoilers

She was convicted of killing a man who viciously abused her for years. It was an act of self-defense and her being incarcerated for it was a gross miscarriage of justice. So everybody judging her and having it out for her after being victimized by both her father and the justice system might make her a bit angry at the world. She's still pretty sympathetic in my eyes.

[Refrax5]

spoilers:

I'm sorry, am I not supposed to approve Janine's actions here? This feels far more cathartic than the contextless off-screen Norman beating they wanted me to enjoy.

end of spoilers

You see the beating of Norman happen on panel.

[Cloneurosis]

spoilers:

Personally I’d say no considering what a total tool she’s become in this story. She’s basically taken the fact that people aren’t exactly going to be the most welcome to someone convicted of murder and used it as an excuse to hurt others without bothering to even try any other solution than the violent one. The ultimate irony is, while she hates being treated as a villain, she chose to become one rather than prove them wrong. And before anyone says that she’s justified in that, just look at the people she’s against in this story, Spider-Man and the X-Men, individuals who have felt what it’s like to have the people against them and in the case of the X-Men, have those who want nothing more than to exterminate them. But in spite of that, they rose above that and are some of the world’s greatest heroes and those who the archives of history in the MU will remember as such.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

I was referring more to ASM #18's events, I just... stopped thinking about Dark Web as a continuous story as it doesn't make sense. And to be fair, if I were in Janine's shoes I wouldn't trust the imperialistic weirdo cult that just gave Madelyne a tap on the back and showed up to threaten her deranged partner either.

end of spoilers

[TinkerSpider]

She was convicted of killing a man who viciously abused her for years. It was an act of self-defense and her being incarcerated for it was a gross miscarriage of justice. So everybody judging her and having it out for her after being victimized by both her father and the justice system might make her a bit angry at the world. She's still pretty sympathetic in my eyes.

She was broken out of jail. She knows that. She knows law enforcement will be looking for her based on that alone. Yet she has done nothing about her situation. She hasn’t tried to find a sympathetic lawyer (and when she went to Mary Jane for help with blowing the whistle on Beyond, that she could have mentioned needing legal help as well; MJ took her to the Bugle and MJ could have easily hooked her up with a Bugle reporter to tell her story and get a sympathetic public ear, both for the earlier miscarriage of justice and the jail break).

But no, Janine went to one diner - without even trying to disguise herself - had one law-abiding citizen doing his civic duty by calling the police, and decided “I AM EEEEEVUL NOW.”

She was sympathetic, but now she’s eye-rolling ridiculous. C’mon, what did she expect? A red carpet for breaking out of jail? And then she didn’t even try to tell Ben the truth and break him out of his psychosis, or look for additional help for him. Again, MJ would have helped her like she did before. She could even have gone to Peter for help.

But noooooooooooo, LEt’s MaKE jaNInE EEEEvuL.

There is zero thought being put into the stories. The only thing that seems to be driving the factory mindlessly spitting out the widgets is “let’s create more costumes and wacky variations so we can sell more action figures.”

[Cloneurosis]

You see the beating of Norman happen on panel.

Well, technically? Ben has his speech where he establishes he doesn't really know what he's doing but he does know Norman pranked him, Norman is unfazed despite having just shown regret over clonemancy, Ben blows up the glider, punches Norman some to little reaction and then we cut to Ben doing his best Akuma impression outside Oscorp in ASM #15. Didn't really feel like it happened, not personal enough.

She was broken out of jail. She knows that. She knows law enforcement will be looking for her based on that alone. Yet she has done nothing about her situation. She hasn’t tried to find a sympathetic lawyer (and when she went to Mary Jane for help with blowing the whistle on Beyond, that she could have mentioned needing legal help as well; MJ took her to the Bugle and MJ could have easily hooked her up with a Bugle reporter to tell her story and get a sympathetic public ear, both for the earlier miscarriage of justice and the jail break).

I think it's implied Beyond achieved her release through legal means, then the act got wiped along with everything else. Agreed though.

There is zero thought being put into the stories. The only thing that seems to be driving the factory mindlessly spitting out the widgets is “let’s create more costumes and wacky variations so we can sell more action figures.”

It feels like such a backwards, out of date mentality, do figures even sell that much?

[Kurolegacy]

spoilers:

I was referring more to ASM #18's events, I just... stopped thinking about Dark Web as a continuous story as it doesn't make sense. And to be fair, if I were in Janine's shoes I wouldn't trust the imperialistic weirdo cult that just gave Madelyne a tap on the back and showed up to threaten her deranged partner either.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

I mean, these are people who forgave Maddie in spite of her unleashing Hell onto New York and gave Maddie what she was after free of charge. If anything, rather than just lashing out at them, it would probably be a lot more reasonable to at least see if these people could help Ben with his problem before going off the rails. More so considering that once they calmed everything down, they’d have all the pieces in place for helping Ben between Peter who has his missing memories and 2 psychics who could link their minds to fix him. At this point, she and Ben are just being stupid for the sake of the plot to happen rather than because it makes sense. And that’s to say nothing of how stupid things got with the new pictures that have been released…

end of spoilers

[Mercwmouth12]

So we don't have room for Ben anymore, but you have room to add a weird cartoony spider-man rip off instead because he's funny?

[Matt Rat]

Bleeding Cool called Rek-Rap a wanker, rofl.

[HypnoHustler]

So we don't have room for Ben anymore, but you have room to add a weird cartoony spider-man rip off instead because he's funny?

Perfectly put. Rek-rap or whatever he’s called is pure cringe.

I really tried to give Wells a chance (just like I really tried to give Beyond a chance). I’m disappointed the run couldn’t meet the very low bar I set. I might stay on until the mystery of Spidey and his crater is revealed (which is quickly becoming this run’s Kindred, in the sense the more it gets dragged out the more I lose interest) but after that I can’t see myself sticking around.

[Kurolegacy]

So we don't have room for Ben anymore, but you have room to add a weird cartoony spider-man rip off instead because he's funny?

And what makes it even worse is that Rek-Rap is a double redundancy considering he’s a Spider-Man parody and a symbiote host. Yet somehow there’s no room for Ben. What a load of bullshit.

[Matt Rat]

Bleeding Cool is stating Ben should have been left alone

Kaine fans, count yourselves lucky, this could easily have been him if they wanted Ben to stay a hero. Just imagine if they had decided to keep Ben long-term as Spidey, married Peter off, Ben could have brought Kaine into Beyond and they did THIS to his memory.