Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider/Spider-Man Appreciation 2024.

[Sr. Bungle]

Just to be on the pessimistic side: there's no Kaine on those covers and Kaine is supposed to be featured in the same story as Ben in WEB OF, so...

Unless

Steve Foxe and Greg Land catch up with Chasm and Kaine! Both clones who bore the moniker of The Scarlet-Spider will be back with a vengeance next year but will they be allies or enemies?! And you will not guess who is lurking in the shadows. Truly. You will not guess.

[JustLuke]

Unless

Steve Foxe and Greg Land catch up with Chasm and Kaine! Both clones who bore the moniker of The Scarlet-Spider will be back with a vengeance next year but will they be allies or enemies?! And you will not guess who is lurking in the shadows. Truly. You will not guess.

Are you perhaps thinking it may be another Ben Reilly?

[Sr. Bungle]

Are you perhaps thinking it may be another Ben Reilly?

Or something in that vein. At least a third party dressed as the Scarlet Spider. Could be another clone, the original Ben or another thing completely. But I bet the plot twist in that story is a Scarlet Spider lurking in the shadows.

[CaptainUniverse]

Are you perhaps thinking it may be another Ben Reilly?

Maybe they are taking a page from the X-Books and pulling a Beast with Ben? Chasm will play the role of Evil Beast and 90's Scarlet Spider will play the role of Classic Avengers era Beast.

[Sr. Bungle]

Maybe they are taking a page from the X-Books and pulling a Beast with Ben? Chasm will play the role of Evil Beast and 90's Scarlet Spider will play the role of Classic Avengers era Beast.

Based in the solicit and now those covers I'm expecting some kind of out the field plot twist. Because modern Marvel loves the plot twists a lot more than the plots nowadays. At least the spider office.

[HypnoHustler]

Ask and ye shall receive:




Baine Reilly, ladies and gentlemen

Hmmn… interesting. Seems more like a coloring error than a penciling one. Or maybe it was intentional?

[The Black Death]

Based in the solicit and now those covers I'm expecting some kind of out the field plot twist. Because modern Marvel loves the plot twists a lot more than the plots nowadays. At least the spider office.

Although it's more fun to see how people make so many cospirations and draw hasty conclusions for a few simple variant covers, like that another version of Ben will appear, another evil clone of Ben or Spider-Man will appear, Kaine will be using Ben's old Scarlet Spider suit, "The Scarlet Spider of the 90's will return." All these ideas so that in the end nothing happens, only for some variant covers that Scarlet Spider appears that at best only appears to make a tribute to the old iconic identity of Ben, or simply Marvel loves to give false hopes and illusion to the people so that end up being disappointed as always.

This also reminds me of something similar that happened with the Ultimate Spider-Man variant covers, many deluded people believed and said that the symbiotic black suit, Ben and Miguel were going to appear in that story just because of the variant covers, in the end those same people were wrong, there was no symbiotic black suit, nor did another Ultimate version of Ben or Miguel appear. All this will end up the same, full of disappointments with nothing to highlight.

[Sr. Bungle]

Although it's more fun to see how people make so many cospirations and draw hasty conclusions for a few simple variant covers, like that another version of Ben will appear, another evil clone of Ben or Spider-Man will appear, Kaine will be using Ben's old Scarlet Spider suit,.

We're just having fun speculating. I'm glad you're having fun too looking down at the rest

[The Black Death]

We're just having fun speculating. I'm glad you're having fun too looking down at the rest

Speculating in excess can be very bad, that's why I stopped speculating things a long time ago. The more speculate the more fill yourself with expectations of something and the greater the disappointment when what were expecting doesn't happen. At this point the only thing I hope is that Ben Reilly's character stops being represented as a fucking villain, that has a good redemption arc with a good writer and returns to be at least something close to a hero, keeping his new powers to differentiate even more from Peter, without that nonsense of time travel, multiversal versions, evil clones and other things so absurdly complex. But that would be asking too much, just get a normal redemption arc for Ben.

Anyway, if you want to have fun speculating on something, then you might as well speculate on this and debate which has been the best couple Ben has had so far. At least for this Valentine's Day and for a bit of a change, this fanart I found out there and it's kind of recent, so take it as will, I don't really care too much.

[Refrax5]

Pretty sure that’d get flagged by the art editor and they’d ask a redo.

Personally I think this may be Revelations 2: Clone Boogaloo

Norman bad again, Ben good again, sacrifices self to save Peter. Play it again, Sam.

I don't think so, honestly. The Osborn stuff is happening in ASM around the same time the Ben and Kaine mini is happening. I feel like this is an attempt to either reset Ben to being Scarlet Spider (either via retcon or or giving him his mind back) or to try to make Chasm work yet AGAIN with Kaine in Ben's costume.

But I don't think they're going to kill him at this point.

I always dread them retconning current Ben to be a fake (mostly because it's just convoluted on Hawkman levels to do so and you end up losing half of Ben's time as Spider-Man, which I think is an important part of cementing his legacy, even if the story wasn't great). I always say that Ben's villain moments were largely not his fault (corrupted soul and then literal brain damage), so you can easily give him his mind back and position the character much like a Winter Soldier type character or his movie counterpart, where he's a good man with some deeply traumatic history. You can really lean into what Dematteis was talking about with Ben being a good man like Peter, but more "bitter and shaken" and a "darker" character than Peter, as he put it. It seems like the cleanest and easiest solution, while giving Ben a more unique identity among the Spiders.

[Sr. Bungle]

or to try to make Chasm work yet AGAIN with Kaine in Ben's costume.

That's my worst fear since yesterday. But it would paint Kaine in a pretty bad light

[Refrax5]

That's my worst fear since yesterday. But it would paint Kaine in a pretty bad light

I guess it depends on how it's handled and WHY Kaine would be doing it. If he's trying to do it to confront Ben with who he was, to try and get him to remember or snap out of it, I could see that. But I guess we don't really have any real information yet to judge either way.

[Sr. Bungle]

https://twitter.com/SpiderVerse/stat...22586820702380

[HypnoHustler]

I guess it depends on how it's handled and WHY Kaine would be doing it. If he's trying to do it to confront Ben with who he was, to try and get him to remember or snap out of it, I could see that. But I guess we don't really have any real information yet to judge either way.

I don’t even know why they would want to. Kaine’s own SS costume is fire. Is it as good as Ben’s? I don’t know. That’s tough. They’re both great for different reasons, but they each fit their wearer’s distinct personality. Kaine shouldn’t wear Ben’s costume any more than Ben should wear Kaine’s.

[HypnoHustler]

https://twitter.com/SpiderVerse/stat...22586820702380

Ugh. I love the Sony Spiderverse movies and the Ben-being-a-stereotypical-90s-throwback was a bit funny for about 10 seconds. But it got old quick, and it isn’t great for the character. Most modern fans were introduced to him by way of his depiction in that movie, as a dark and brooding himbo instead of Peter’s “brother.” Maybe I’m overthinking it…